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Type Parachute, now being used by our Army and Navy, he replies that he cannot spare the time but that he will send his wife to "pinch hit."
He adds that she knows more about parachutes than he does, since it was her parachute jump, the second in the world made by a woman from a moving plane, that was responsible for his invention. Attractive, diminutive Hilder Smith's talks make her listeners parachute-wise and reassure them that the danger has been taken out of these canopies by her husband's invention of the ripcord.

Five Years in Circus
Mrs. Hilder Smith, vice-president of the Early Birds, those select few who "piloted a glider, airplane, gas balloon, or airship prior to Dec. 17, 1916," recalls the experience which catapulted her into the air. "My husband and I were born only 35 miles apart in Illinois but it was in California and not until I was 16 that we first met.  Floyd was an aerialist, a member of the Flying Sylvesters.  We fell in love and against great opposition he, at last, won my father's consent to our marriage.  My husband was the "daring young man on the flying trapeze" and under his teaching I became a member of the act.

"After five years in the circus we decided to go into aviation, then the cocoon stage.  In those days, if you wanted to fly, you either bought a plane or built one and flew if you could and it would.  So we took all of our money, studied aeronautics for a couple of months, and started building our own plane.  Floyd's previous aerial work evidently was of considerable help as he just got in and flew."

Mrs. Smith smiled over their experience with that first plane.  "The first time Floyd spun the propeller, I had an exciting ride but not in the cockpit.  We had a 60 h. p. Hall-Scott motor but no starter so my husband instructed me to go back and hold on to the tail spars.  He told me whatever happened not to let go until he could get back to the cockpit should the plane start to leave the field.  When he spun the propeller over, the engine, instead of being throttled, was wide open and the plane started down the field.  The blast from the propeller almost blew me over but I hung on and it took me about a block before Floyd could cut the switch.  He practiced flying five days and the sixth I was his first passenger.  Then he installed a dual control for my instruction.
Record Flight in Fog
"We had to circle two and three times," she continued, "to get over the tall eucalyptus trees and wires surrounding the field. One night, the owner of the field told us we would have to pay $5.00 a day. Consequently the next morning we flew to Griffith Park, Los Angeles, about 45 miles in a fog. We were one hour and seven minutes which, at the time, was practically a speed record for 45 miles and this record headlined us in all the Los Angeles papers. 
"Our next step was a booking to do exhibition flying in Overland Park, Kansas City. We built crates and shipped our plane by express, feeling these exhibitions would return our investment. 
"Several thousand cavalry and other troops from Ft. Riley and Ft. Leavenworth were encamped on the field. WE got off into a stiff wind after dodging some loose mules, stampeding half the cavalry, and clearing a telephone line, and then we landed about a mile away. Floyd adjusted the carburetor, let me out, and tried to return. I saw the plane go over and began running toward it through cow fields, and a swamp, and rolling down a hill. Doing this I got stuck in a thorn apple hedge from which he rescued me."
MRs. Smith's delightful sense of humor sparkled as she recalled their flying problems. "The next [?] saw no use paying 50 cents to see the flying machine. If it went over the fence he could see it for nothing and if it didn't go over the fence it wasn't worth 50 cents."
"That day after 7 minutes in the air our motor quit so there was not payment.  The next week in Hoisington, Kansas, Floyd saw a storm approaching and, leaving me behind, tried to get in his 10 minutes before it broke but the tail of the cyclone spun him and then pancaked him to the ground. When we went to get the plan two farmers were guarding it saying the must have $500 for the damage it had done to their field."
Bargained on Jump
Mrs. Smith realized her ambition to fly alone when her husband was test pilot for the Glenn L. Martin Company. Mr. Martin had an exhibition flight and parachute jump scheduled for the opening of the Los Angeles Inner Harbor, but had no jumper," she told me. Franklin D. Roosevelt then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was to be the guest of honor. Knowing my great desire to sprout wings, Glenn made a deal with me, in which I agrees to fill the parachute end of the contact in return for flying instruction and the use of his planes as long as I did not bend anything. i thought of my two boys, one just a year old but the urge for adventure was strong within me. The jump meant $1000 for Glenn Martin, a thrill for the Navy, and my opportunity to become a pilot. Two days after the practice jump Glenn Martin flew me from Los Angeles to the Harbor and I stepped out at 650 feet. We had a 40-mile wind and as Mormon Island, on which I was to land, was only two blocks wide and three blocks long. Glenn had to go well over the Pacific Ocean to allow [?] Unable to return my hold, I slipped off in a fast spinning motion which twisted the lines as they were pulled from the pack. My chute was strung out above me in what we call a 'streamer.'"
Kept Her Head
Mrs. Smith's description of this jump reveals what calmness and quick thinking did in such an emergency. "I soon dislodged the canopy and removed the vent from top center so that the canopy held enough air to build up sufficient pressure to open- about 250 feet from the water! After the chute opened, I pulled down the lee side and drifted rapidly to the shore and had to lift my feet to clear the masts of the Navy boats but managed to reach land, missing the water by 50 feet." 
Mrs. Smith then explained "that it was this experience, together with other where the attaching line broke prematurely, limited the method of leaving the ship in an emergency or fouled the plane or the jumper's body, that convinced her husband that the attached type of parachute was all wrong and started him on his experiment which resulted in the Free Type Manually Operated Parachute now used universally. 
After Mrs. Smith's last jump in April 1914, she flew ships at the Glenn L. Martin School, Los Angeles, Calif., where her husband was instructing flyers for the First World War. 
Mrs. Smith, in those early days, was her husband's observer when he was testing new types of ships. She recalled one of their most thrilling fights. "It was the Curtiss trophy endurance flight. We had a 125 h.p. motor and our seaplane was equipped with twin pontoons. It was heavily loaded with gas and we had to take a long run down the channel to enable us to get off. We hit a submerged log and one section on the left pontoon was taking water. Finally Floyd had me discard my coat, in case we should sink, and crawl out on the right pontoon to counterbalance the other water-soaked one and signal to him if we started to sink. We got into the air just as we hit the open sea and was I glad to climb in my seat once again!"