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public demonstrations that fall. DeRemer had his first sight of an aeroplane in flight on May 29-31, 1911 when he, Don McGee and Joe Bazie saw Wright pilot Howard Gill fly at Riverside Park in nearby Saginaw, and there he was convinced he wanted to learn to fly. Following this he visited the Brooks Aeroplane Company there where he was allowed on the field to watch their testing.

Shortly after this DeRemer induced McBride to go in with him to buy a used single-surfaced Curtiss-type biplane, less engine, from the Aeronautic Supply Company of St. Louis, Mo. This plane was originally built and flown by Howard Gill, who sold it to Tom Benoist of the St. Louis firm, and with it, Benoist had taught himself to fly. After the plane arrived, DeRemer and McBride installed a locally built two-cycle Pierce-Budd motor with great expectations of soon teaching themselves to fly. Intending to proceed cautiously DeRemer over-anxiously started taxying practice in too much wind and had a bad smashup at once, but was not injured. The plane was wrecked beyond repair, however, so DeRemer gave McBride his interest in the movie theatre as payment for his loss in the plane venture.

Still determined to learn to fly, DeRemer went to St. Louis in the late fall of 1911 to see about taking flight instruction. There he met Tom Benoist, Tony Jannus, Howard Gill and Max Lillie at Kinloch Field, and Jannus gave him his first aeroplane ride in a Benoist machine. While there DeRemer also met George Beatty of New York, who had been flying there, but was ready to return east. This trip and his meeting with the aviators, added to DeRemer's enthusiasm, but apparently he decided to wait until spring to take flying lessons. 
 
Having made the acquaintance of George Beatty, and favoring the Wright plane, DeRemer decided on the Beatty School the following spring and arrived at the Nassau Boulevard, L.I. flying field for instruction on February 9th, 1912. Also training there at that time were Charles Horton, Dr. A.G. Belden, Clarke Thompson, William Reid, Marshall Reid, Clfford Prodger, Wilbur Andrews, William Piceller and F.W. Kemper. DeRemer was an apt pupil and made his first

FROM THE FLYING PIONEERS BIOGRAPHIES OF HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE