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Benoist Company executive P.G.B. Morriss. On April 3rd 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 a 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 of the city.  He flew at Crawford, Iowa, on June 28th and was at Sterling, Nebraska, July 2nd 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, made flying hazardous.  On the 20th, while attempting to get off the water, his aircraft was [[crossed out]] f [[crossed out]] blown sideways and smashed into some rocks near shore, badly damaging the machine and putting him out of the races.  Fortunately, he was not injured.
     August 27th to 29th he flew a land plane at Altamont, Illinois, then on September 1st was at Spadra, Arkansas. Following this he flew at Rolla, Missouri.  On October 4th he was at North Manchester, Indiana, and on September 7th at Springfield, Missouri.
     Bleakley finished out of 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 194 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, Houston, Texas; Hazelhurst Field, Mineola, Long Island; and Selfridge field, Mt. Clemens, Michigan.  On June 26, 1918, Bleakley obtained F.A.I. Expert Pilot License No. 185, and on October 26th was commissioned a