Viewing page 41 of 60

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

close to shore so he would be in shallow water. Sure enough, the plane began to sink and it listed badly, its lower wing awash, as its pontoon came to rest on the bottom. Knabenshue gave a deep sigh o[[strikethrough]]r[[/strikethrough]]f relief.

Martin, of course, went on to expand his budding airplane business into one of the largest and most dynamic aircraft manufacturing concerns in the nation. Knabenshue, not being an airplane pilot, and now almost 36 years old, found himself ill-equipped to enter the aircraft manufacturing business and had to face the decline of the aerial exhibition business. Still with a great deal of interest in the commercial aspects of aviation and particularly in exploiting the dirigible, he secured financial backing to build one of the first commercial dirigibles.

Even though many efforts were made to adapt the dirigibles to commercial transportation, like the balloon it remained almost entirely an amusement attraction seen at fairs and special celebrations. Prior to 1913, practically every dirigible produced in the United States was used for such exhibitions. Baldwin and his proteges Knabenshue, Lincoln Beachey, Charles K. Hamilton, Jack Dallas, Frank Gooddale, and Horace B. Wilk, popularized the dirigible in hundreds of performances given annually in all parts of the country between 1905 and 1910.

By June, 1913, Knabenshue had completed his new 13-passenger dirigible and in June, 1913, amid the cheers of his backers and under ideal weather conditions, Knabenshue was ready to demonstrate the dirigible, with which he expected to establish the first passenger flight service in America. His first flight was made from the back of the

26