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[[stamped]] FROM THE FLYING PIONEERS BIOGRAPHIES OF HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE [[/stamped]]

then at Red Bud, Illinois September 27th and 28th. On October 3d he flew at Sparta, Illinois, made a bad landing and was scalded with hot water. Later that month he received his new Benoist plane and started flying a float machine from the water at nearby Creve Coeur Lake.

On January 24th, 1913 he flew his tests for license at Kinloch Field on the school machine and was awarded F.A.I Certificate No. 206, dated January 29th. Bleakley was made Benoist instructor in February and taught a class that spring, including Benoist Company executive P. G. B. Morriss. On April 3d he became lost in a rainstorm while flying and landed in a wheat field to determine where he was. On May 30th he flew over St. Louis and landed in Forest Park where he gave an exhibition at 4 P.M., then flew back to Kinloch. On June 17th he flew over the city dropping leaflets. While on this flight his engine quit and he glided to a landing in a marsh on the outskirts. He flew at Crawford, Iowa on June 28th and was at Sterling, Nebraska July 2d to 4th.

August 19th to 26th Bleakley was a contestant at the water flying events of the Perry Centennial Celebration at Put-In-Bay, Ohio. There he was to use a Benoist Hydro float machine but extremely bad weather, with high winds and very rough water, created trouble. On the 20th he had a smashup while attempting to get off the water, was blown sideways and smashed into some rocks near shore, badly damaging the machine and putting him out of the races, but he was not injured.

August 27th to 29th he flew a land plane at Altimont, Illinois, then on September 1st was at Spadra, Arkansas. Following this he flew at Rolla, Nebraska. On October 4th he was at North Manchester, Indiana, then September 6th at Springfield, Missouri.

Bleakley finished out the 1913 season with Benoist, then in the spring of 1914 he started flying a Benoist plane for T. S. Ruby of Mitchell, Illinois. During the late summer and fall of 1914 he flew a Hall-Scott powered twin-tractor biplane for the H. G. Cliff Aeroplane Company of Denver, Colorado.

Bleakley continued exhibition, test and instruction flying until the late fall of 1916 when he became a civilian instructor for the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, U. S. Army, and during World War I served in that capacity at Ellington Field,