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AKRON SUNDAY TIMES            PAGE THREE

On First Air Flight

Tail Spins and Nose Dives In Order to Tell You What It's Like

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and on we went, straight up from the now distant earth, with apparently no destination for our skyward journey. Then I felt the plane righting itself. I felt relieved.

I am sorry it was a cloudless day. Had it been otherwise, I think we would have been in a bank of clouds or above one. As it was, the ground was distinctly visible below, altho its identity was merged into an infinite blur of rich green, with here and there-dimly visible-a tiny speck indicating a house or other building.

Then it happened!

I was looking over the side of the pit toward the ground, trying to make out our direction from Akron. Suddenly the ground became visible directly IN FRONT of me. We were crashing nose-downward toward the earth below and certain death. With infinite rapidity the ground rose to meet us, it seemed. I realized that Pilot Weaver was executing a nose dive and that he had perfect control of the plane, but, for a moment, I couldn't banish real physical fear.

The pressure of the air was tremendous in our rapid dive toward the earth. I could feel my heart pounding at the strain and the blood rushing to my head. My eyes seemed to be pulled fairly out of their sockets. I could feel the pressure of the air against my body, but that part of it didn't bother me so much. Breathing became a rather difficult feat.

Those few seconds seemed an eternity. As the earth soared toward us, I didn't repent any past sins of omission or commission, I

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didn't wish I had increased my insurance policy and I didn't wonder if my friends would miss me. I couldn't even visualize a headline in the Times on my untimely demise-if such a thing should occur. But I do remember wondering if the plane would cut a very big hole in the ground as it crashed to earth, without the descent being interrupted.

New thrills were in store. Suddenly the plane was righted by the skilfull [skillful] hand of Pilot Weaver. The sky was again above me and the earth was below me. I felt vastly relieved and heartily ashamed that I should have, even for a moment, forgotten to place implicit confidence in my pilot.

Then came an awful moment. I again felt a vast air pressure and a falling sensation as the nose of the plane again plunged downward. This time we didn't return to normal position. For a second the plane was parallel with the earth, which was below my feet. Then, as I said, the ground appeared directly in front of my startled eyes. Then the upper plane screened the ground from my vision. I realized that we were riding BOTTOMSIDE UP. Then for an infinitesimal part of a second the plane soared apparently straight up, with one wing tip pointing toward the vaulted heavens and the other toward the earth. In an instant we were again riding along normally, with the heavens above and the earth below instead of in the apparent juxtaposition of a moment before.

Spectators Worried.

The feeling of security only lasted for a minute for Pilot Wea

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ver immediately executed several more loops in rapid succession. I learned afterward that a number of the spectators on the ground thot [thought] that we were crashing straight to our death.

But this time I had nerved myself for the ordeal, begun to take intense enjoyment in it and had, most important of all, learned to feel implicit confidence in the skill, alertness and good judgment of my pilot. This, they say, is the first essential for the amateur flyer.

To spectators, the end-for-end spirals executed by the aviators are the most thrilling part of the exhibition. Pilot Weaver made a number of these in quick succession, but they didn't terrify me at all. They did not have half of the hair-raising excitement and glorious thrill of the loop-the-loops and nose dives.

With a feeling of relief, gratitude and mingled emotions of various kinds, I realized that we were coasting to earth. Beginning with a nose dive, the plane gradually took a slanting direction and before I realized it the landing place grew close to us. Soon we were again on terra firma.
Pilot Weaver served his country ably during the war as a civilian instructor in flying. Scores of successful aviators owe their ability largely to the careful training given them by Weaver. He served as instructor at Huntington, L. I., Wilbur Wright field and at Waco, Texas.

Lieut. C. W. Meyers, the other pilot, served in the British flying corps. He tried four times to enlist in the United States service,

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but was rejected every time because the recruiting officer claimed he was color blind. Meyers, who had been a color artist for several years and made the study of different colors a hobby, nnally applied for enlistment in the British air service and was at once accepted. He received his sailing orders just one week before the armistice was signed.

Ensign Waller, owner of the two planes, was an instructor in a naval training station in Florida. He is an aviator of considerable renown himself, but his present work is largely of an executive capacity.

Upon leaving military service, the three aviators decided to stage a cross-continental trip by air-plane. They have flown successively in Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland and this city. Their improvised flying field near the corner of S. Maple st. and Hawkins rd., easily reached by Copley busses, has been visited by thousands of spectators.

A large number of persons have availed themselves of the opportunity to make their first flight at this time. The aviators made plain or fancy flights, according to the desire of their passengers. Among those who flew, Tuesday, were the Rev. George P. Atwater and his son, David.

The airmen remain here over Sunday and will make a number of flights today. The revenue gained by carrying passengers on the exhibition flights is devoted to financing the cross-continental trip. Upon completion of the journey, the aviators plan to establish a large flying school in Chicago.

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