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Atwood went to Sandusky, Ohio, during the early spring months of 1913 and started to build a flying boat of his own design. Then he and Weldon B. Cooke announced they were going to inaugurate a passenger airline between Sandusky, Cedar Point and Put-in-Bay for the summer. His new flying boat was finished in early May and he started testing it at once. It was a biplane with side-by-side seating ahead of the lower wing, and a Curtiss OX motor behind the occupants, driving two shaft-driven pusher propellers mounted mid-wing. The cooling radiator was in the very nose of the hull ahead of the seats. Atwood ran out of fuel while flying this new boat on May 27th and was adrift on Lake Erie for four hours before he succeeded in getting enough gasoline from a passing boat to get back to base. 

Atwood started to fly from Sandusky 50 miles across Lake Erie on May 31st in this new flying boat; but he encountered fog and winds which blew him off course, and three and one-half hours later he was forced down, out of fuel, near Bar Point, Canada, at the mouth of the Detroit River. After drifting for some time he was picked up by a tug and towed into Ecorse, Michigan. He started to fly back to Sandusky on June 10th but was forced to take shelter in the lee of an island when a severe storm came up. He finally reached Sandusky about 1:00 a.m., his long overdue arrival having caused considerable alarm. 

Atwood then decided to put his Burgess-Wright hydro in commission and on June 27th made a fourty-five minute flight with it. Following this, he contracted to fly at Toledo Beach for the Toledo Railway and Light Company, and moved his operations there to carry passengers and give exhibitions at the resort. In July he did some flying at Lorain, Ohio, and flew from Toledo to Sandusky over Lake Erie. In early August he rode as a passenger with Beckwith Havens from Toledo to Detroit and return in a Curtiss flying boat. 

During August Atwood purchased a new Wright 6-cylinder, 60 h.p. engine for his Burgess hydro, which greatly increased its performance for off-water flying. In early September he flew for the Printers Exposition at Toledo