Parmelee also traveled to Texas in the spring of 1911, where he flew the Wright Flyer with Lt. Benjamin D. Foulois. The pair conducted the first military reconnaissance missions, flying along the border with Mexico during maneuvers held by the U.S. Army as a show of force to Mexican revolutionaries. The airplane was owned by neither the U.S. Army, whose aircraft was no longer reliable, nor the Wright brothers, but was rented from Robert J. Collier, owner of "Collier's Weekly". On their second flight, Foulois and Parmelee accidentally shut off the engine. At extremely low altitude over the Rio Grande, Parmelee got the engine to restart, but at full throttle. The sudden thrust caused the plane to nose down into the water and flip over onto its top. Neither pilot was injured and the aircraft was salvaged and repaired. Later in 1911, Parmelee was the pilot of a Wright Model B when 54-year-old parachutist Grant Morton jumped out over Venice Beach, California. This was the earliest known jump by a man from an airplane using a parachute.