The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-10-09
international Meet This Month at
Belmont Park Will Be One
Of the Lars-
BRISK
France Has Manufactured 1000 Aero.
planes During the Year
and Has Sold
Them.

NEW YORK, Oct. Sew people
realize the magnitude of the Inter
national Aviation Meet which is to
be held at Belmont park, Long Island.
during the latter part of October.
Daring airmen from America and
Europe will compete for the richest
set of purses ever hung up for feats
in the air. That records will fall
daily seems assured from the elab-
crate preparations the foreign await
ors are making for the meet.
Compared with the feats that have
been witnessed abroad, America, the
birthplace of the heavier-than- air
flyer. has been woefully backward in
exhibitions of advancement made in
the art of aerial navigation The pro-
motors of the great international
meet believe. therefore that a slim
ulous will be given the aerial art by
the coming meeting that will place
America in the forefront.
Two thousand aeroplanes haye been
manufactured in France alone this
year, and the French Aero Club has
granted pilots licenses by the hun
dred. No man can secure a pilot
license unless he Is a skilfuf and ac-
complished aviator. Compared with
the hundreds of flyers in Europe, the
American flyers who have really be-
come expert in the manipulation of
their aeroplanes can almost be count
ed on ten fingers.
Although Wilbur and Orville Wright
made continuous fights In a heavier
than air machine in 1908, it was fully
three years before successful flight
was made in Europe, and five years
later before the aeroplane was
brought under any Kind of control.
Despite this late start of the French,
they have far surpassed America in
makes of aeroplanes and in daring
and successful pilots.
1t is, therefore, hoped by the men
who are backing the coming meeting
that the interest in aerial navigation
in America will be spurred up to a
greater pitch.
The International Aviation Meet
was inaugurated by the French Aero
club the parent aeroplane organize
ton of the world. 1t was first held
on the great Bethany plains, near
Rheims, last year. Speed was then
the greatest aim sought by flyers.
For that reason, 1t was decided that
the pilot who won the speed contest
would have the right to demand that
the next international meeting be
held in his country James Gordon
Bennett offered wonderful trophy to
the FLYER winning the contest, in ad
dition to the immense cash purse of
fered by the club. In an untried BIZ
plane of his own make Glenn H. Cur.
tiss, of Hammondsport N Y, won the
event, his closest competitor being
Louis Bleriot, a millionaire French
manufacturer, who invented and per
fected the monoplane type of the
heavier-than-air flyer.
The contest seemed to spur the for
eign flyers and in the last year every
single worlds record has been smash
ed abroad. Not one is held in Amer
lea There are but two successful
makes of American aeroplanes. the
Wright biplane and the Curtiss BIZ
plane. the latter, it is charged by the
Wrights, being an infringement on the
Wright patent. The fact that the
Wrights have their machine patent
ed is said to have done much to re
tard the advance of aeroplane manu-
facture in America.
The French have taken aeroplanine
up as a sport, and individuals al
over the nation own and fly in Their