The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1910-06-14

New York, June 13.-Charles
K Hamilton, the little red-haired
acrobat of the upper airs, few to
Philadelphia and back again to-day.
He lifted his biplane over Govern
ors Island at Z :43 a. m. and at 6 40
p. m. returned to the spot from
which he started.
The flight to Philadelphia was
made without mischance. Straight
as a pigeon on the wing, Hamilton
sailed over cities, rivers. and farms,
winging an unsurveyed course. At
8 :26 a. m. he was shaking hands
with Gov. Stuart, of Pennsylvania,
eighty-six miles from Governors
Island.
FAILS To BREAK RECORD.
His luck failed him on the journey
home, or he might. by wheeling around
Yonkers. have broken Paulhan's record
for uninterrupted fight-117 miles. Lon
don TO Litehheld. Fifty-three miles from
Philadelphia he lost his bearings, mis-
taking a green patch OF Jersey for
Staten Island, and simultaneously two
of the eight cylinders of his engine
coughed and quit work. He dropped into
the clutch of a swamp near South Am
boy. and it was hours before repairs
could be made and the aviator could es-
cape the immense crowd that swarmed
from the Jersey towns.
AS It was. his actual flying time for
the LIZ miles was a)9 minutes, and he
fulfilled to the letter his contract with
the New York Times to make round
trip from New York to Philadelphia with
in twenty-four hours Glenn H. Curtiss,
the first man in this country to make
long distance calls In a flying machine.
said he considered Hamilton's achieve
ment the greatest in the history Of avia-
ton: unsurpassed. in that Hamilton
struck out a course for himself. without
land buoys TO guide him. without a
charted route TO help him. and accom-
plished the feat with such accuracy that
he kept TO the second on the schedule
he had laid out.
Gets Great Reception.
Few men have received the kind of
reception that Hamilton got when he
dropped out Of the clouds this evening.
Along the Battery, the water front OF
lower Brooklyn. the edge of Staten ISL
and, and the Jersey shore, the piers and
seawaIIs were black with people. Thou
sands OF them had waited for hours,
swayed by rumers that came from the
Amboy swamp. On Governors Island at
the aviation grounds. a thousand chins
were turned skyward.
All the WEAKNESS OF the long wait the
impatIence, and the damp chill OF the
evening were forgotten when an officer
with powerful field glasses suddenly
threw up his hand and whooped like Il
Comanche. lie was a gray and digniaed
officer. but he pirouetted like a soubrette.
panse of sand that the government has
built up from the sea. There was
scurrying toward the water front.
He came so fast that a few seconds
after the officer spotted him the aero
plane was discernible TO the naked eye.
You saw painted against the gray nists
OF Staten Island, over the Kill-von-Kull,
q blur It might have been the tiniest
puff Of smoke. Ten seconds more and it
was a winged bird, a bird with its head
tucked out Of sight. On II came in a
line a quarter OF a mile south of the
Statue of Liberty, 400 feet above the
DAY. In another fash of time you made
out the clean lines of the planes. and
you could see Hamilton erouched over
his steering wheel
shuts on Power.
As the air currents frfsked above the
water they dipped the aeroplane to the
left and right. II enhanced the grace
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