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fields opened by Curtis Iowa Aircraft. In the spring of 1921, Addems purchased a Thomas-Morse S4C. He flew the T.M. to Illinois and, through the help of an older man, he received a contract put on a daily exhibition of stunt flying at the Kankakee County Fair.
     The following year he left his father's grain business to form a partnership with the man who had owned the Curtiss pusher. They started a small flying service, selling rides, doing advertising for an oil company, giving flight instruction, and Addems continued exhibition flying. During this period they owned a Curtiss JN4-D, a Standard J-1, a Standard E-1 Scout, the Thomas-Morse and an Ansaldo [[strikethrough]]C[[//strikethrough]]cabin biplane powered by a 300 h.p. Fiat.
[[margin]]C.c.[[//margin]]
      In the winter of 1924, he took a job at Toledo, Ohio, helping rebuild, test-fly and deliver Avro 504K airplanes. These were the last of the Avro's which had been imported by Interallied Aircraft of New York, shortly after the war had ended.
      In the spring of 1925, he returned to Illinois to fly for Yackey Aircraft at Maywood's Checkerboard Field. Following announcement of the "First Ford Reliability Tour", he participated in the installation of four upper-wing panels on a two place, 0X-5 engined Thomas-Morse. This added wing area was to improve the "stick and unstick" performance which was one the factors in judging the contest. This work was accomplished in record time and Addems, as pilot, was one of the contestants who made a perfect score in this first tour.
     In October, 1927, he became a pilot in the Chicago-Cleveland division of National Air Transport which had obtained the contract to carry airmail on the Chicago-New York division of the transcontinental system. After four years he was promoted to Chief Pilot for the New York-Chicago-Dallas route operated by N.A.T. His responsibilities included employment of pilots, enroute proficiency checks, instrument training, and pilot schedules.