Viewing page 31 of 57

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

of Illinois Inter-Scholastic Meet. in June he started looping this plane to become the sixth looper among American exhibition pilots. [[strikethrough]]In[[strikethrough]] Also in June he flew for his pilot license at Ashburn Field with this new plane and received F.A.I. License No. 532 on July 16th, 1916. Following his engagement at Urbana, Laird gave exhibitions at Lansing and Cadillac, Michigan, then at Butte, Montana on July 3rd and 4th where he performed loops on two flights each day, and made two night flights with fireworks [[strikethrough]]before[[strikethrough]] during the Elks Convention. This was his first night flying. His next date was at Bozeman, Montana then to LaCrosse , Wisconsin, Ft. Pierre, South Dakota, then Springfield, Illinois. in September and October Laird went west and filled some dates in Colorado and Texas, then returned to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he flew for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch newspapers. Here on election night in November he flashed colored lights in his plane to indicate with Presidential candidate, Hughes or Wilson, was leading. Much of his flying that season was at County Fairs. Between exhibition dates Laird always returned to Chicago where he continued active flying, looping, and carrying passengers [[strikethrough]]and[[strikethrough]] He also did some test flying on Charles Arens' new light biplane, as well as with the little plane for the National Aeroplane Company, using the Excelsior motorcycle engine. It flew well, but engine overheating prevented long flights.

The U.S. Signal Corps, Aviation Section, established a flying field at Ashburn that fall and Laird joined the training operations as a Junior Instructor along with T.C. McCauley, who was senior Instructor; Victor Vernon, J.D. Hill, [[strikethrough]]and[[strikethrough]] E.A. Johnson, Sinnie Sinclair, and others.

In 1916 Laird rented his Anzani-[[strikethrough]] powered [[strikethrough]] engined biplane to Katherine Stinson for exhibition flying. She made a tour of [[strikethrough]] exhibition dates [[strikethrough]] several cities in Canada that summer, then in December left for Japan and China. While giving exhibitions in Japan the crankcase developed cracks, so the engine was removed and she had a new [[strikethrough]]one[[strikethrough]] crankcase made in a Japanese machine shop. While this was being done she installed a 

6