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air-borne briefly on March 1, 1908. Practice continued and on March eighth, he made a successful take-off, a brief flight and safe landing to become the third man to fly a powered airplane in the United States. With this airplane Christmas became the first person to apply ailerons hinged to the rear spars, forming part of the wing and to make a successful flight with them,
He continued his experiments, later moving operations to College Park flying field, where he formed the Christmas Aeroplane Company. There he built other planes prior to World War I. He applied for a patent on his aileron control and after many competitive conflicting claims involving control systems, he finally received a basic U.S. patent on the aileron in May, 1914. This was upheld by the U.S. Court of Claims.
In April, 1912, the Christmas Aeroplane Company exhibited a new large 40-foot span, headless (no frontal elevator) pusher biplane at the New York Aero Show held in Grand Central Palace. It had swept-back wings, was designed to carry three persons and had a Farman-type four-wheel landing gear. The show model was powered by a 7-cylinder 50 h.p. Gyro rotary engine, but the airplane was later flown at Mineola, Long Island, with a 6-cylinder 75 h.p. Roberts engine by both Christmas and C.O. Haley.
Reportedly, Christmas did more flying at College Park in 1913 and had given up his medical practice to devote full time to aviation.
As World War I was approaching, Christmas moved to New York where he joined a group of wealthy businessmen to promote aviation ventures; he became somewhat of an advisory head of the organization. One of their moves was to purchase the Continental Aircraft Corporation from the owner, Louis L. Kaess. Continental had designed, built and flown a dual-control, pusher biplane military trainer, powered with a Hall-Scott engine. The airplane had been engineered by the well-known Early Bird Vincent Burnelli. Shortly after the purchase, Christmas stopped further development of the Continental pusher and closed out the project.