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steep bank, made one complete turn, came down and landed. The time of the complete circle was six and two-fifths seconds but he lost nearly 900 feet altitude in the process.

This was called THE SPIRAL DIP and was used to assist in promotion of other contracts.

We were totally unprepared for this meet. Brookins was the only pilot who had enough hours to insure his skill and the machines, one by one, became broken at least in part, rendering them unfit for flying. Repairs were made by taking unbroken parts from one machine to repair another. At no time did we have five complete machines ready for flight except the opening day before anything was broken.

Arch Hoxey made the second flight. He wrecked a skid in landing. Duval LaChappel made a flight and nearly ran into a tree. He splintered a propeller by hitting a stump of a small tree. After the flight we had LaChappel go to an occulist who discovered he had cataracts on both eyes. He was promptly retired!

Nothing of importance happened on the remaining days except the breaking up of the machines. On the final day we had one machine in flying condition. We settled with the officials for $11,084.80 and I personally was glad to get that amount for we were not able to fill the terms of the contract. These men were fair in their settlement. All of them had similar experiences in the automobile racing business and realized that accidents will happen.

One of the contributing causes to minor breaks in the machines was the skids used mainly in stopping the machine after a flight had been made. We used a launching rail to get the machine into the air. After this experience, Mr. Russell turned his attention to placing wheels under the machine to do away with the launching rail altogether. He did a very fine job of it.