Viewing page 43 of 140

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Much to Neta's delight, however, she was finally accepted by the Curtiss school at Newport News. She didn't have enough money to get there from Iowa and still have enough for flying lessons, so she tried to hop freight trains. She was discovered, however, but was helped along her way by railroad workers after they heard her story. No doubt the novelty of a woman wanting to learn to fly appealed to them.

She arrived in Newport News on October 5 and began her lessons. Eddie Stinson, who later formed the Stinson Aircraft Company, was at the school, and he took her on several flights to teach her aerobatics. Thomas Scott Baldwin visited the school, and Neta had the opportunity to meet the man she had long admired.

Her work in the machine shop there helped overhaul OX-5 engines was so good that the instructors rewarded her with extra flying time.

But again before she had a chance to solo, her school was closed. This time it was for security reasons, since the U.S. had entered World War I.

Neta and several other students at Newport News went south to another Curtiss school in Miami in January 1918.