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SUNDAY, JUNE 8, 1919                   AKRON SUNDAY TIM[?]
HOW YOU FEEL ON F[?]
Sunday Times Reporter Tries Loop-the-Loop, Tail Spins and Nos[[??]]
By W.E. Willitts

[[four columned article]]

[[first column]]

Turning somersaults in mid-air, several thousand feet above the earth, may sound easy enough-- both for the person who has never done it and for those who have had much experience-- but for the uninitiated it's the pinnacle of achievement, the very crest of human daredevil performance and height of ambition.

Ordinary airplaning hasn't anything for thrills on ordinary automobiling-- airplaning with stunts has auto racing beat a thousand ways for Sunday for excitement, breathless anxiety and the very essence and climax of real animal fear.

Combine participating in the fastest automobile race in the world, falling from the top of the highest skyscraper in existence and being nearly asphyxiated and you will but faintly approximate straight to certain death on the ground below which, by the way, is apparently rising at a tremendous rate of speed to meet you.

As the home of the dirigible balloon and next door neighbor to an army and navy flying field, Akron has been treated to a large number of exhibitions of plain and fancy flying. But it's safe to say that no two aviators who have ever soared over the city have given the populace below so many thrills as the daring, yet splendidly executed stunts of Pilots Meyers and Weaver.

They have looped the loop, not 

[[second column]]

once but many times in succession, have performed nose and tail dives, have gyrated, rotated and syncopated around - thousands of feet above the ground - and have performed marvelous variations of the thrilling "maple leaf drop" and the tail spin to the edification of untold Akron and Summit county residents who have watched them.

When I saw their achievements, of course, I wanted to go up. I think most everybody has cherished the ambition of flying. Incidentally, I believe most everybody will have this prediction realizied [realized] for if the present development continues, the airplane is destined to become one of the commonest vehicles for passenger transportation.

"What does it seem like to fly?" you ask.

Well, its's hard to describe. It seemed totally different from anything that I had ever experienced before. The outstanding feature to me was that it seemed more a question of feeling than seeing or hearing.

No Nervousness.
I had always thot [thought] that it would give one a feeling of the most intense exhileration [exhilaration], not to say nervousness and perhaps misgivings, to go soaring away from the earth off into space. But it doesn't. 

I don't think that I would have known when the plane left the ground and became a thing of the air had I not heard the shouts of spectators and looked down at the fast receding ground. And then I didn't feel particularly exhilerated [exhilarated].

Ensign R. E. Walter had handed

[[third column]]

me a paper which I had almost automatically signed - waiving all right to collect damages in the event of mishap. I had climbed mechanically into the spectator's seat in front of that of the pilot, had felt the safety belt being strapped around my body by Lieut. C. W. Meyers, who had just returned from a flight, and had almost dimly heard the warnings of attendants to keep my feet under the seat and to kindly refrain, in my excitement, from grasping the shafts which govern the movement of the planes.

Then the roar of the engine drowned out further exclamations and the plane circled over the improvised flying field, leaving the ground at a point near the starting place.

It was disappointing at first.

I had expected something unbelievably fascinating and awe-inspiring. I found something decidedly ordinary and commonplace. I found an airplane much more comfortable and far less jerky riding than an automobile. But I didn't find any particular thrill, I must confess, in having the ground removed a few hundred feet from my body. (Yes, that's the way it seemed-the ground moved always away from me, rather than my body moving above the ground.)

One thing that struck my attention was that the earth below was far more verdant and beautiful than I had ever dreamed. As we ascended, blights on the landscape were reduced or obscured and the ground appeared uniformly green and beautiful. Roads looked prim and white, separating what looked 

[[fourth column]]

like fields of closely cropped grass. Persons became mere dots on the vista and finally disappeared, and buildings of considerable size became the merest of sheds.

As I looked down, I realized for the first time that we were passing over Akron-at such a height that the city looked relatively compact and small. And I never realized either that this city was so beautiful. Houses were dimly visible thru [through] masses of green foliage. Buildings like the county courthouse, the armory and the Masonic temple stood out above surroundings in white grandeur. Main st. looked strangely like a piece of white thread winding thru [through] the center of the city. Altogether Akron, with its wealth of verdure, its neat white homes and its massive public buildings-all bathed in the glorious sunlight of a June afternoon-looked not unlike a reproduction of some gilded fabled city of mythical times.

And then we passed out again over the green countryside. By the elevation of the nose of the plane over the tail and the fact that I was gazing straight up into the blue-it seemed gray-white then-vault of the infinite heavens, I knew that we were rapidly ascending. I drew my breath sharply as I realized that G. E. ("Buck") Weaver, the pilot, was almost directly under me instead of behind and on a level with me.

New Sensations.
Rather a peculiar sensation that - feeling that some unseen force from below was pushing you apparently straight toward the very height of the air strata. But on

Transcription Notes:
AKRON SUNDAY TIMES