New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-06-14
FLYERS 'CATL|KE AGILITY
Has Fallen More than so Times
Without Much Injury.
CAN'T STAY ON THE GROUND
Mother Early Recognized That
Fact, and So Charlie Es-
capped Many Spankings.

When Charlie Hamilton smashed his
mothers best parasol through using It as
q parachute IN a spectacular fight from
the upper door of the barn some years ago
he was not spanked.
'Of course, he wants to fy.' explained
the mother. SCI have wanted to all my life.
and Charlie inherits the desire. He just
can't help trying to get off the earth
few days ago this Spartan mother
watched her sons daredevil feats at Mine
ola without a tremor, and even wanted her
own long-thwarted desires satisfied by
taking fight with him.
The mother. now Mrs y. NJ. Beaudette,
tells many stories of those early expert
ments in New Britain, Conn, where the
young aviator was born twenty-nine years
ago. He experimental with kites Of all
sorts and sizes. Then, not being able to
lift himself off the ground, he did the next
best thing-built a, sail wagon, with which
he ran over the grocer cart. thereby caus-
ing his mother pretty expense for groce-
rfes she never used. Still no spanking.
Then came at last the day when he
really found himself aloft, with no support
save the invisible air. A balloonist was Civ
ing an exhibition IN town. The boy begged
for flight and got it His whole being
thrilled al the new sensation. beside which
long-cher1shed anticipation paled- He knew
that his life work was to be in the air
They kept him in school a few years, but
the lure of the sky was too strong, and he
soon returned to his kites.
His career has been a series of seemingly
miraculous escapes. Light and quick as a
cat, he seems to have that animals faculty
for always landing on his feet. and minds
a fall as little He has come to despise the
perfls that keep most human feet planted
firmly on the earth. While working with
Israel Ludlow in his experiments with the
gliding box kite arrangement, the forerun-
ner of the aeroplane. he fell no fewer than
sixty-three times. He was repeatedly
thrown by his dirigibles, and since taking
up the aeroplane he has just missed death
on more than one occasion.
One of his first bad falls was at Ormond
Beach Fla, while using a Ludlow glider.
He was three hundred feet from the ground.
being drawn by an automobile at twenty
miles an hour. Something went wrong and
he came down like stone dropping from
a cliff, But even in that brief interval of
perpendicular descent he climbed to the
upper plane Of the glider, and the frame
work below him broke his fall He was only
"a little stunned
all he said when his breath returned.
He smokes cigarettes now while flying
They. steady his nerves he says. There is
always a piece OF lighted punk. fastened to
the framework of the machine. in reach of
tbe avfator's face as essential part Of
the equipment Of a Hamiltonian fight as
the gasolene, for one can't attend to null
+itude of important levers and light matches
st the same time while flying sixty miles
an hour
Hts most exciting session with a dirigible
balloon was some fourteen thousand feet
ahove i'll onened Paterson, n. ]. He was
making an ascent there when his ballast
fall off. The big cigar-shaped affair pointed
nm and shot two miles skyward like a
giant proiectile. The aviator climbed into
+be rigging and was trying TO get the es-
.oana valve open, when the gas bag burst
IA started down faster than he went I'D
ppt after a mile or so Of sheer drop the
torn silk fattened into an impromptu para
obuta and the cat-nnan landed as lightly as
a lea ffr0n a maple boush.
II was not till November 26 that Hamil-
49,. +ooIx his first flight in real aeroplane
rya already knew the ways OF the air, how
- and at once took front rank as an
o,,,e,or one day he was flying at a con
..ss~ohla height. when he crank shaft OF
,,,s ,,o+or broke. He knew that as soon as
he lost momentum he would drop. He
thought quickly and acted almost on the in
s.sr, Throwing the forward planes down
- 10. toward the earth al a sharp angle
>-.,-inp the ground he threw the planes
=. orain and settled TO the ground with
- tar So he discovered his famous
la that has startled spectators ever
s,nca Many say he will make 1t once too
often; in fact the prophecy vas nearly
e.,I6iIe5 al Seattle few months ago.