Viewing page 5 of 13

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

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

school to San Francisco operating from the beach, and at that time Bocquel quit his laundry route and started working full time for them. There he worked as a mechanic and continued his flying practice.

Unknown to Christoffersons, Lincoln Beachey had been Bouquel's ideal for some time and his inner interest in flying seemed to have developed around the dream of soon becoming Beachey's equal in acrobatic exhibition flying. One day Bocquel looped the Chrisofferson school machine and was really "told off" when he landed. He wanted to get into exhibition work and at that time the Christoffersons were building a special small plane intended for exhibition flying. Called the "Christofferson Looper," this was a Gnome rotary engine-powered pusher biplane with the upper wing of considerably longer span than the lower, with trailing type ailerons on the upper wing only. It was a headless type machine with outrigger tail and a tricycle landing gear. Bocquel started flying this new plane after it was completed and began practicing upside down maneuvers.

That Spring the Panama Pacific Exposition opened in San Francisco, and Lincoln Beachey, Charles Niles and Art Smith flew exhibitions there that season. Between engagements of these pilots Bocquel was given the opportunity to fill in, making his first public exhibition flights. During this period he became a close friend of Art Smith who kept his planes at the Christofferson field. September 6th to 9th, 1915 Bocquel flew at Redding, California using the Christofferson Looper, where toward the end of his engagement he began to have engine trouble, which finally resulted in a bad landing, breaking some parts, when he was forced down with three dead cylinders. About that time Art Smith left on an exhibition tour of Japan and Bocquel leased one of the planes Smith had used at the Exposition. In November he received headline notices when he made eighteen loops while flying from the Exposition grounds in San Francisco to Oakland.

On July 24, 1916 he made twenty loops in succession in San Francisco, then on August 6th Bocquel made thirty successive loops in Tanforan Park, San Francisco, a new record. He delighted in developing new flying ideas that would command publicity. Around his home area he once landed on Van Ness avenue in San Francisco in an open spot near the Civic Center and was arrested for this stunt. He also