Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1911-04-06
From the Sioux City Tribune.

From the Sioux City Tribune. I
When a man takes to flying he enters
upon a career which is the most roub-
lesome and yet at the same time the
most fascinating that has ever yet been
opened up for human beings. He in
vades a realm for which nature never
Intended him. All Of his instincts teach
him that to ascend high above the earth
Is to court death, and that to trust HIM
self to so tlimsy and SO breakable a
thing as an aeroplane is to go to The
utter extreme of recklessness and dar-
ing.
But man is so strangely constituted
that the very thought of danger in at
tanning the hitherto unattainable holds
a compelling fascination for him hat
overcOines all sense of the consequences
and that makes of final triumph an eX-
hilaratiOn that repays him amply for
all that it costs.
l imagine that the first prehistoric
man who found that he could use the
wind to propel him through the water
In a crude craft hewn from a rough
log must nave felt something of this
joy; men to day feel 1T as they dash with
the speed of the wind in their nigh
powered racing automobiles. But, after
all. these two things overcame no very
great difficulties n at no point on land
or water did nature say decisively, You
shall not do it,"
bAO ~ WI Gbto GAti ANN u
through the ages been for the birds
alone, and nature in fOrbidding man to
trespass evolved the great law of CRAWL
tatiOn which has always been ineXor-
able.
Suddenly man found himself the Dos
SCISSOR of a secret which could over
come this law. He build for himself
wings, and In those wings he put the
power to lift them and, In a marvelously
short space OF time, he has found him
r,~1A ~ ,~~.. ls1- H. --.--
way and on the threshold of a fut-
ure whose vastness no man can pre-
dict. He can fly. He can rise among
the birds and circle o with them,
speeding faster than most of them, and
soaring almost at will in the realm that
has been forbidden to him.
My admiration is unbounded for
those first men who actually rose off of
the ground In their crude heavier than
air machines and dcfied nature with
their new found toy. Each of us who
has followed has had to prove his nerve
n his skill, but we know when we
start to learn that the machines we
trust ourselves to are right, that they
will fly If properly handled. and that
there is no very great secret about it
at all because 1T has been done before
and we need merely to do as our pre-
decessors did. But those first men
dashed absolutely into the unknown.
They had only their theories to guide
them and to tell them what to do, and
they had no way Of being certain that
these theories were adequate in time of
need.
Still. I think that any man who goes
through the early stages OF learning to
fly an ~aeroplane. and who continues to
fly once he has learned, is entitled to a
certain amount OF credit and has proved
that his nerve is good and his courage
by no means wanting.
1 know of nothing in the world much
moro discouraging than these first at
tenlpts to fly. Not long ago Captain
Thomas s.. Baldwin. the veteran ball
loonist and aviator Investigated the
subject and as q result he declared that
every beginner in aviation s.nashes up
$S.OOO worth of property before he can
get u certificate OF competence: and one
can easily imagine the risk OF, life and
limb that lis constantly run while these
Hedging flights are being made. Ii my
" case when the mechanics let go of
my machine. for my first fight. it looked
as thong ! were going to disprove this
statement. hut IT was not many sec
onds thereafter before showed that,
II anything, Captain Baldwin's estimate
OF cost was altogether too low.
My First Lesson in Flying.
Ny first lesson was taken from Graz
hane-White at Pau. His Bleriot waS
equipped with an Anbani motor, for it
was before the Gnome had been placed
upon the market, and 1t was probably
fortunate for me that my machine did
not have the greater horsepower de.
ycloped by the. latter type OF engine. AT
that time we did not awe: the wingless
achtne which are used now in some
aviation schools and which Keep a man
running along the ground without the
u power to rise until he has become thor
OUgllly accustomed to his new vehicle
md the operation OF theszcontrols has
~ becollls Instructive.
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