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

motorcycle at the Fairgrounds. Following this Coffyn was a contestant at the famed Chicago Meet at Grant Park August 12th to 20th, where the Wright Company had all their available aviators. There on the first day he established a new record with a Wright plane when he carried two passengers for 12 minutes. During the event Coffyn entered most of the daily contests and made a good showing. He was then a contestant at the Harvard-Boston Meet August 26th to September 4th. Immediately following this Coffyn flew at the Minnesota State Fair with Howard Gill for one week at Minneapolis-St. Paul where they put on a fine show in good weather.

After this event Coffyn returned to Detroit and resumed his work with the Algers. Toward the end of September the new floats were completed and on October 3rd he made the first flight from Lake St. Clair with ease. Other flights followed that day and they were delighted with the performance of the plane as it took off with only the 30 H.P. engine. These were undoubtedly the first flights from the water ever made with an early Wright plane. Soon he started carrying passengers and on October 16th took Mrs. Russell Alger for a ride and then several of her lady friends. Later that day he took Fred Alger on a flight across Lake St. Clair and return, 23 miles each way. On the 18th he took Russell Alger across the lake where they had lunch at a Club on the Canadian side, then returned. This plane on floats was operated there for the remainder of the 1911 flying season by Coffyn and the Alger Brothers. 

During the fall of 1911 the Wrights decided to discontinue the exhibition business and dismissed all of their aviators except Al Welsh, who was retained as instructor and test pilot. At this time Coffyn went to New York where he soon had a contract with the Vitagraph Film Company to make aerial photographs of New York City and vicinity. Russell Alger very courteously loaned him the use of the plane with floats he had been flying in Detroit and Coffyn started operations from Battery Park, New York City, on February 6th, 1912. At first A. C. Duff rode as a passenger, carrying the camera, then Coffyn had the idea of fixing the camera on the plane, operated electrically in such a manner that he could turn it on or off

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