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ness and hired the renowned dirigible and balloon man, Roy Knabenshue, to become their exhibition manager and take charge of the entire program. He was already well versed in the necessary procedures and problems involved in carrying on such activities. For this they needed a team of young new civilian aviators, and at that time the Wright Brothers kept their word, in January, 1910 hired Brookins as a member of this team, and he later became their first civilian pupil.

In order to get an early training program started the Wrights established their first civilian flying school at Montgomery, Alabama in March, 1910. Wilbur Wright had previously arranged for the facilities, and on March 19th Brookins, J.W. Davis and the trusted Wright mechanic, Charles Taylor, arrived in Montgomery to assemble the plane and get the based organized. On March 24th Orville Wright and Spencer Crane arrived and training got under way, with Brookins, Davis and Crane as students. Shortly after this A.L. Welsh and Arch Hoxsey arrived, to make a total of five students. By late April Brookins was flying alone, and a few days later Orville Write broke the end off a propeller when the plane slipped off the monorail as he was taking off with a passenger. On May 8th Orville Wright and A.L. Welsh returned to Dayton leaving Brookins in charge of the school. Before a new propeller arrived from the factory Brookins and Hoxsey spliced a new tip on the broken one and were flying as usual. On May 26th Brookins made several night flights by the light of a full southern moon carrying Hoxsey as a passenger. These were undoubtedly the first night flights in history. The plane at Montgomery was the one Wilbur Wright had used the fall before when he made the famous flight for the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York. Brookins continued the training of Hoxsey and Crane until the end of May when they broke camp and returned to Dayton.

Meanwhile the Wrights had opened a much larger school for the summer at Simms Station where Orville had completed the training of Welsh and started to teach Duval LaChapelle. When Brookins returned to Dayton he took over as in-