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Broadwick - 13

When we went to Chicago in 1913, we had been working off a land machine. We got there and we had to work off of the water. They were using pontoons at that time. And they discovered that there was no place for me to jump from the side of him, like I had been, so they had to put a little beam on the outside of this hydroairplane, so I could drop from the side and miss the pontoons. And I landed in Lake Michigan every time I went down. On the hydroairplane, my parachute was folded just like it was folded for the hot air balloon, all tied up just the same, because we couldn't fold it in the coat and I couldn't step out from sitting beside him so that I'd miss the pontoons, so it had to be this way. I sat on the outside of this airplane, and I was wet each time I went into the air, because they'd taken off from the water, and you know Lake Michigan is very choppy and they had the motorboats racing and all. It made it kind of rough, but we got through it all right.

Q: You were the first person, man or woman, to drop from an airplane?

Broadwick: That's right.

Q: When did this take place?

Broadwick: June 31, 1913 -- that's right.

Q: Would you trace the whole day -- were you worried about it, and so on?

Broadwick: I wasn't worried, that's the funny part of it. Because it was so much simpler in the airplane than it was in the hot air balloon. In a hot air balloon, you had to travel the way the wind was taking you. Outside Griffith Park, on this great big field, he said, "Tiny, pick out the place you want to land." So we went up and I said, "I'll drop