The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-10-25
BUD MARS is SECOND.
In the Aviation Speed Contest at Bel
mont Park.

New York, Oct. 25.-The third day
of the international aviation meet at
Belmont park, Long Island. made up
for all the damp, cold and disappoint-
ment of the first two days. A new
American record for altitude was set
down to the credit of ]. Armstrong
Drexel and the competition in other
events was at all times full of zest.
Drexel scared for altitude in his
record flight at 3:40 p. m, five min
utes before the second hourly altitude
contest closed. In great circles he
crept into the wind. pointing higher
and higher into the glare of the set
ting sun to a height of 7,105 feet He
planed above them like hawk
searching the moors, so high that in
perspective he seemed almost immo-
bile against the blue.
His descent was swift but unhur-
ried, and he landed safely in the mid
die of the field There was immediate
surmise that he had approached, if
he had not esta blished, a new record,
but no figures were available until his
Paragraph had been unsealed and the
reading of the stylograph on the plot
ted sheet inside it examined.
The instrument shows both the
height and the time at which it was
made The reading was remarka bly,
sharp and showed clearly that he had
risen 7,105 feet. The best previous
American record was 6,175 feet, made
ny w after bEOOk1IlS at <AL1eaALlO lily,
and DrexeTs own best record, made
last summer in Great Britain, was g.
$50 feet, at that time a worlds rec
ord. The worlds altitude record is
9,186 feet, held by Henry Wynmalen,
q Hollander.
Walter Brookins also went up for
altitude in baby Wright biplane-
a machine precisely like the new head
less f1iers that the Wrights brought
out this summer, but with a sharper
upward slant to the planes, thereby
enabling the aviator to point up more
sharply and climb faster.
Brookins went up 4,882 feet, &C
cording to the Paragraph, and won
second altitude honors for the day. At
the apex of his climb his engine stop
ped dead, with both propellers point
ing straight up, so that in gliding to
earth with no power on, they afforded
him little assistance in breaking the
rush OF his descent. He came down
w hizzing, about a mile and a half off
the course. and struck with a bump
which broke his forward landing skid.
The damage was insignificant, how
ever, and he was not hurt.
Next to the performance of Drexel,
the crowd took most enjoyment in the
appearance of models never seen in
America before. They were the new
Wright climber, used by Brookins in
his altitude flight; tiny Demoisel1e-
called the Humming Bird of aero
planes. and a flying fish Antoinette.
In ALL there were 10 machines aloft
at once.
Latham piIoted the Antoinette. He
sat we'll back in the sharp stem, shap-
ed like the stem of a speed launch,
with which it cuts the air, and the
two wheels with which he controls the
long slender wings could be seen in
cessantly turning backward and for
ward under his hands. The craft was
fast and it was particularly notable
that he banked the turns with pre-
cision and daring that the Bleriot
monoplanes, more bat-like and blunt
er, could not attain.
| In the straightaways. however, Lat
! ham was not so fast. F. w. Radley,
an Englishman, in a trimmed down
Bleriot. went by him as if he had been
chained to a stump. But Radley had
| engine trouble. and never figured Sc
riously in the days contests.
J. A. D. McCurdy in a Curtiss hi
plane won the grand speed contest for
the day. He did 25 kilometers in 10
minutes, 40 seconds.
! Bud" Mars was second in % min
utes "a 25-100 seconds with a Curtis
/ Frisbie collapsed and did not finish,
| hut escaped unhurt. There were no
| of IN rte