Viewing page 20 of 26

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

termined to learn to fly. The battery and automobile supply business folded up in early 1910 and Benoist then went with E. Percy Noel to from the Aeronautical Supply Company in St. Louis, one of the first exclusive aero supply houses in the United States. Noel was a local newspaper man and aviation enthusiast, and they advertised a line of accessories and materials necessary to build an aeroplane. Soon complete kits were added to make certain known-type planes.
A National Aviation Meet for amateur plane builders was held at Washington Park, St. Louis, July 11th to 16th, 1910 and several local and visiting aero novices entered the contest. Howard Gill of California brought a Curtiss-type biplane with a 26 H.P. automobile engine, and Hillery Beachey made some successful short flights with his machine during the event. Soon after this Noel resigned from the supply company to start an aviation magazine venture and Benoist continued the aero supply alone, then bought the Gill Curtiss-type biplane, to become the first in St. Louis to own an aeroplane. He established a workshop to make plane parts necessary to carry on the supply business and began at once to teach himself to fly his plane. As soon as he made the first hops he learned it was badly underpowered, so he removed the revamped automobile engine and installed a locally built Boulevard aircraft engine.
In August work started on the first St. Louis flying grounds. Called Kinloch Field, it was promoted by the Aero Club of St. Louis and comprised eighty acres with grandstand, club house, and hangers. There Benoist made his first successful flight on September 18th. An Air Meet and International Balloon Races were held at Kinloch Field October 8th to 18th with a group of well known Wright aviators competing. Benoist was also flying there, quite unnoticed in his own beginners way during the start of the event, then left to fly his first public exhibition date at Amarillo, Texas on October 11th and 12th. There on the last day he had a forced landing and hit hard, throwing him out of the machine. The engine was still running and as the plane passed over him he received some injuries from the tips of the propeller blades, the only near serious accident of his entire flying career. A St. Louis Aero Show was held in mid-November and Benoist ex-