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C. Ray Benedict
Early Benoist Pilot

C. Ray Benedict was born November 18, 1890, in Laurens, Ostego County, New York.  In his infancy the family moved to Norwich, New York, where he later attended public schools.  The family then moved to Binghamton, New York, where Benedict finished high school.  As a youth he was very interested in aviation and read everything available on the subject.

He was determined to learn to fly and enrolled for instruction with the Aero Exhibition Company of Chicago, Illinois, in the late fall of 1911.  The firm set up a so-called flying school at St. Augustine, Florida, in January, 1912, but it proved to be a hoax and Benedict received no instruction there.  Disappointed, he then went to St. Louis, Missouri, and joined the Benoist School.  There, during the early spring months of 1912, he was taught to fly by company instructor Tony Jannus.  During this time Benedict's father purchased a Benoist plane for him, which was delivered the latter part of May.  After getting his plane, Benedict started flying exhibitions, and a young Benoist employee, Walter Lees went with him as mechanic.  Together they toured the midwestern and western plain States that season.  During the winter of 1912-1913 Benedict and Lees took the plane to St. Augustine, Florida, where they carried passengers and flew daily exhibitions at a winter resort.  At that time he had his plane on floats and was flying from the water.

From March 28 through April 2, 1913, Benedict made daily flights at the Ponce de Leon celebration at Jacksonville, Florida.  In the spring of 1913 he returned north and flew exhibitions again that season.  At this time Lees left him and went back to Benoist, learned to fly and went on to become a renowned aviator himself.  During the summer of 1913 Benedict also did some test flying of planes for other builders, and for a time in September did some flying of this nature for O.E. Williams at Scranton, Pennsylvania, who had built a plane there.  In December he flew a Gressier plane, with a 60 h.p. Anzani engine, in the Round-Manhattan Race.