Viewing page 37 of 228

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

14

FRANK CHAMPION - one of the first aviators to build a flying machine in a hotel. Frank built a Bleriot type machine in the basement of the Virginia Hotel in Long Beach, Cal. then had to take it apart to get it out. Frank did some very fine flying in the old days. 

FARNUM T. FISH. He left school because of poor health and took up flying. He was six feet two, weighed one hundred and eight pounds and only fifteen years old when he learned to fly. A farmer watching him fly said, "My, my! if that boy flys like that now what will he do when e becomes of age, and can do what he wants to." He was called the baby bird man. 

HILLERY BEACHEY. Like a few others the first air experience was gained by handling a balloon and dirigible at the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland, Oregon in 1905. Then he flew a biplane called a Gill Dosh at Domingues Field in Los Angeles. He was among the first six men in the United States to successfully fly a circle with an aeroplane at that time. He is the worthy brother of the famous Lincoln Beachy. He ran his brother a close second for flying. 

Lt. T. W. McCLASKEY - one of the first marine officers of the United States to be assigned to the Curtiss school at Hammonsport, New York and at North Island, San Diego, Cal. as an instructor on land machines also on the flying boat. 

WILLIAM BILL HOFF. Bill was a wonderful aeroplane mechanic keeping Eugene Ely's ship always in top flying condition. He later became a very good aviator. Bill had a very bad crack up at Emeryville, Cal. in 1911. 

WELDEN B. COOK. The boy who gave up teaching a bible class to become a real aviator. He created a record being the first one to fly over Mount Talmalpais.