Viewing page 5 of 24

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

sensation flying easily established him as one of the leading headline exhibition aviators of that era. 
     September 24th to 28th he flew at McLeensboro, Illinois, where he carried authorized air mail. On October 2d he flew at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, then was at the Wisconsin State Fair,Milwaukee, for three days. From there he flew at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield for one week starting October 12th, where he had a foreed landing which resulted in a minor smashup. While there he again carried mail and made a cross-country flight to Williamsville, Illinois and return. Mearny then flew at Overland Park, Kansas City, Missouri October 26th to November 3d, his last exhibition date of the season.
     That fall he placed an order for a new plane with Charles Day of Los Angeles, to be completed for his west coast winter season activities. This plane was a 36 foot span Curtise-type pusher biplane, with an 80 H.P. Hall-Scott engine, with both land gear and floats for water flying. Kearny took delivery of his new plane at Los Angeles in late November and began practice flying from the water at Newport Bay.
     In early December he decided he wanted to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco via the coast line with his float machine, making stops along the route for gas, probably taking two days for the trip. After further practice Kearny started this flight on December 14th carrying Chester Lawrence, a Los Angeles news reporter, as passenger. The weather at starting time was not good and he was advised to delay his departure, but he took off on schedule. After covering some 45 miles of the trip he ran into tougher weather, dense fog and a severe storm and they vanished from sight.
     He was to have made Venture, California his first gas stop and when he failed to arrive a search was started. No trace of them could be found that night, and an intenative search was started the next morning. Coast Guard boats along the entire area searched the shore line, but found seas too rough for off-shore patrol. Glenn Martin, carrying Frank Garbutt as passenger, conducted an extensive several hour air search in a Martin Hydro, but saw no trace of the missing