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U.S. Air[[?]] August, 1930
dragged me down just about the time a navy rescue boat reached me. I came to on the deck just in time to see Willis land about 200 yards down stream. He had forgotten to notice the wind and allowed himself to be drifted over the river, and also had forgotten to release his harness. Before the boat reach him he apparently [[?]] seized with cramps, threw up [[?]] and went under, and was not [[?]] for several hours. And the previous night he had expressed a [[?]] to land in the river, saying he thought he could swim if he had to.
IN 1922, I lost all I had and my health at the same time, and left flying flat, totally discouraged, for four years. One day, while working as a mechanic in a machine shop, I met a pilot who had formerly been my mechanic. He induced me to go out to the field and take a ride with him. He took the plane up about 1,500 feet, put up his hands and told me I would have to fly it if I got down. By that time I was sort of itching for the chance anyway, so that was my start back into aeronautics.
About the same time I conceived a radically new free type manually operated pack with the cover to act as pilot chute when released. I did not do anything with it until 1928, in the meantime flying at a field near Los Angeles, hopping passengers and instructing, and finally flying camera plane and acrobatics in the picture "Lilac Time."
I developed soon thereafter the new pack known as the "Safety Chute," which is generally admitted to be a [[?]] plane with an automatically operated chute.
THE [[?]] and most difficult moment of my parachute experience was the first demonstration of this safety Seat when I dropped a young woman, Miss Marie Smullen, of Philadelphia, who had never been in the air before. I had never realized the seriousness of a person putting his or her life in your hands, until it came time to drop Miss Smullen. All of the dummy tests I had made did not relieve the queer feeling it gave me to deliberately pull the lever which dropped a trusting woman who knew nothing of flying or parachutes. It reminded me of dropping a hangman's trap door. But a large crowd was present, including government and manufacturing officials, and I had to go through with it. Of course, everything worked smoothly and she landed O.K. When it came to the first spin drop it was nearly as bad, but that was with a man, and somehow the feeling was different.
The coolest courage I ever witnessed was in 1919, when Lieutenant Caldwell, a Canadian demonstrating a European parachute at McCook Field, was killed. His attaching rope caught over the elevator rocker arm when he jumped, breaking his harness loose, and leaving the parachute on the plane. While falling he deliberately looked at the parts left on the plane, shading his eyes against the sun, and was examining the parts of the harness left on his body when he hit the ground. 
It will not be many years before planes will be equipped with safety seats in compartments, which may be dropped through the bottom in emergencies, safely lowering the load by hidden automatic parachutes. This equipment will be infallible under practically all conditions, requiring no knowledge or actions by the passengers. Shock loading of opening and landing will be eliminated. They may be asleep in their berths, and awaken next morning in a pasture with the cows.
Glenn H. Curtiss Dies at Buffalo
GLENN H. CURTISS, for more than twenty years internationally known pilot and airplane manufacturer, died suddenly, on July 23, in the General Hospital, at Buffalo, New York. He had been operated on for appendicitis, on July 11, and had been reported out of danger and well on the way to complete recovery. The cause of death was pulmonary embolus, a blood clot in a main artery close to the heart. Funeral services were held at the Curtiss residence, at Hammondsport, New York, on the afternoon of July 25th. The Rev. G. P. Summerville, rector of St. James' Episcopal Church of that place, officiated. Burial was in Pleasant View Cemetery in Hammondsport. 
This magazine had gone to press when the shocking news of the death of Mr. Curtiss was published in the newspapers, and it is impossible, therefore, to do more than to insert at this time a brief reference to his most memorable performances. We had the pleasure of reporting for the New York Tribune, on May 29, 1910, the sensational flight by Mr. Curtiss from Albany down the Hudson River to Governors Island, New York, which literally galvanized the attention of the world, and over night became, and has since remained, a classic in aviation annals.
In writing the editorial for this issue about the 1930 National Air Races to be held in Chicago, it was necessary and interesting to dwell upon the great changes which have been made by the designers, manufacturers, pilots, and others during the twenty-one years since Curtiss won the first international aviation contest, at Rheims, France.
Mr. Curtiss was born at Hammondsport, New York, on May 21, 1878. In 1902 he established the Curtiss Manufacturing Company to produce his motorcycle and gained a national reputation as a racer. He experimented with balloons in association with the late Capt. Thomas S. Baldwin, and later was one of the members of the Aerial Experiment Association, headed by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, financed by Mrs. Bell, and in which group Lieut. Thomas Selfridge, afterwards killed in an airplane accident at Fort Myer, Virginia, was active.
His career since the War has been crowded with details connected with the large business and financial interests which followed the formation of the companies bearing his name. He is survived by his widow, a son, Glenn, of Hammondsport and Miami, Florida; a sister, Mrs. Ruth Hesley, and his mother, Mrs. Lulu Curtiss, of Hammondsport.
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