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the Martin School if she would make the two jumps. Martin had been developing parachute equipment and the procedure for jumping, but neither of the Smith had ever done anything of this type. They decided to accept his offer, but Smith thought he had better jump first to advise her of any trouble she might have. They went through with their promise and this jump of his started Smith thinking about a parachute development that later was to become one of the high points of his lifetime career, Mrs. Smith took the private lessons as promised and by June was flying well. She continued to fly occasionally until about 1916.\

Smith was instructing at both the land and water Martin schools at that time, and also built another plane for himself during the season, a tractor biplane with a 50 H.P. Gnome engine. It was flying in early August at Griffith Park and the performance exceeded expectations. August 16th to 18th he flew exhibitions at Clayton, New Mexico using this new machine and September 1st to 3d he flew it at Baxbury, Idaho, his only exhibitions that year.

After returning to Los Angeles Smith decided to attempt a non-stop flight to San Diego. Starting a few days later he ran out of gas as he neared his destination and had a forced landing in a soft plowed field, smashing the landing gear and breaking the propeller, but fortunately he was not injured. Later that month he made his first loop and upside down flying at Los Angeles with this plane. One of Smith's 1914 graduate students was Eric Springer, who was employed by Martin and remained as one of his test pilots for several years.

During 1914 Martin also carried on considerable development work with parachutes and Smith assisted with and was very interested in this project. Smith aided in the devising of an automatic back-type chute which Martin demonstrated to the Signal Corps officers at San Diego. During this process Smith conceived the idea of the unattached, entirely free "manually operated" pack-type chute in common use today, although it was not made until 1918 when the Air Service started a serious parachute development program.

In 1914 Martin brought out the Model T tractor biplane with a Curtiss OX engine and started demonstrating it to the Signal Corps as a trainer, and Smith assisted in this program. The Government liked the plane and bought a few of them and both Smith

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