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61

that is thirty ;miles out and thirty miles back?"

"I don't care a dam if it fifty miles out and fifty miles back. I needed to fly so I flew."

It never occured to me in my post-tantrum frame of mind that I had set a record. Imagine my surprise the next morning when I opened the New York paper complete with my picture punctuated with headlines screaming I had been the first woman to make a long distance flight.  Long distance flight? SixtybMiles?  The astronauts could snicker over that one for half a day.   Aviation was growing [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] Records were set and broken daily.  When one visits Smithsonian to study the early planes then the sensational nature of these early records seeps in a little.  Let me toss in a for-instance.  Charlie Hamilton, one of the original Curtiss crew, took off from Mineloa Field and landed in Philadelphia.  Now that was a genuine long distance flight and shouldn't be mentioned in the same paragraph with my haphazard meanderings around Long Island.  Hamilton was bound for a DEFINITE DESTINATION.  His only instrumentation was a speedomente of doubtful accuracy.  He had to study and practically memorize a land map before he started then pick up land marks from the railroad tracks;he had to recognize Philadelphia from the air  [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] Then find the field where he was scheduled to land.  To all of these hazards add the weather which belted him from all directions including up and down. He did it.  Experts considered Hamilton's flight quite phenominal.  It paled into insignificance when measured by the achievement of Harry Atwood who started from St. Louis, Missouri and landed at Mineola.  He had to make some stops somewhere to refuel but the details are gone.  Newspapera along his one thousand mile flight line blossomed his effort with great black headlines and poured out all the adjectives of courage, pioneering, adventure etc., in their stories.  Naturally when he neared New York excitement was tremendous and Mineola was jammed with hundreds of onlookers hoping for and awaiting his safe arrival

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