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cylinder,120 h.p. Maximotor. This plane was designed to government specifications and was offered to the Army Corps for military service.
 Diehl remined with the Eastern school until the war clouds thickened in 1917,when he volunteered his services to the government as an instructor. Up to this time he had not obtained his pilot license, and since that was a requirement for Army affiliation, he went to the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station at Newport  News, Virginia, where he took about two and one-half hours dual flying time on a Curtiss JN-4. Diehl obtained pilot license No.877, dated October 17, 1917 and was accepted as a civilian flight instructor, starting with the Signal Corps Aviation Section, at Mineola, Long Island. From there he was sent to the winter school at Gerstner Field, Lake Charles, Louisiana, and in the spring of 1918 was sent to Chanute Field at Rantoul, Illinois. While stationed there Diehl flew to the Cleve-land War Exposition during a Liberty Loan Drive, where he visited the new Glenn Martin airplane factory and met Glen L. Martin. Diehl served as an instructor for about one year, then after the Armistice he bought a government surplus English Avro 504-K trainer with a LeRhone rotary engine, and started barnstorming in the New York area.
    In the spring of 1919 Diehl was issued civilian flying license No. 403 by the newly formed Joint Army and Navy Board of Aeronautical Cognizance at Washington D.C. He was the first to establish a commercial flying service in the East, at Springfield Gardens, Long Island, on the Merrick Road, and is still credited with being the first person to carry passengers for hire there. About this time he was also the first to land his plane on the site that is now the Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey. During the early summer Diehl flew from Central Park, Long Island, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he carried passengers for a time. After returning to Springfield Gardens his services were engaged by the movie industry at various times and he made many of the spectacular flights in "Fraud" starring Irene Castle, for Fox movies of Fort Lee, New Jersey. He also knew Pearl White in connection with some of her early movies.
                    
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