The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-02-22
OF FRANK PAINE'S
 NEAR FLIGHT
One Year Ago Today 10000 People Blocked to Seaside Park to See Ajrship'
 Stay on Ground
Paine Is Now Driving a Big Auto Truck Hauling Coal He Never Succeeded In Getting Into the Aviation Class.

Forty thousand Bridgeporters thronged the seawall at Seaside park, from the plant of the Locomobile Co. to the public bathing houses. one year ago this afternoon, waiting for Frank Paine, a Bridgeport boy, to make a flight in a bi-plane.
 Today Paine is volpIaning over the hills of Easton, driving a. big automo- bile truck on which the A. McNeiI & Sons Co. is delivering coal for the Bridgeport Hydraulic Co.'S construC- tion work on a new dam.
 Never before in the history of Bridgeport had a crowd of these pro- portions turned out for anything. It was cold, raw day. Hundreds con tracted colds. Dozens got pneumonia, waiting for Paine to fly. He didn't leave the ground. A few days later. determined to offset the ridicuIe tha. followed the holiday fiasco. Paine scared up to the tree tops in the park, then crashed into a tree and wreckage of his air craft. He was taken to the Bridgeport hospital where he spent several days
 Paine was regarded as one of the a number of years. Five years ago Paine, driving a touring car for the late Bert Stickles, passed the South port F'iremen's carnival just as a parachute jumper made a disastrous drop from a dizzy height.
 The unlucky jumper crashed through the treetops, and came to the ground badly hurt. Stickles' party at once made a record run through the coun- try into this city. and at speed that would make the modern ambulance spurts look like the efforts of a freight train. the big touring car flashed through the city to the Bridgeport hospital.
 It was the excitement of that day that inoculated Paine with the aero germ. He promptly became a keen student of the gas balloon and when the aeroplane came into general use he soon made arrangements to learn to fly.
 He made several successful trips over the training grounds at Mineola, and returned to Bridgeport, built his own aeroplane from standard pat terms and securing an aero-engine. made arrangements with Prof. James Atlas as his mana ger, to give his first public exhibition in his home town.
 Committees of representative citi- zens co-operated a purse of substan- tial size was collected, and Paine an- nounced that all would be ready for his flight Washington's birthday. In- experience of Paine and his associates however proved such a handicap that before they were ready to start a throng pressed around the machine in such proportions that the police were utterly unable to keep them back To have attempted to starr would have been disastrous, for the aeroplane hadn't room enough to get underway without menacing the thou sands who stood nearby and refused to budge.
 But the throng remained anxiously awaiting the flight out on the Sound until dusk came on, when Paine and his troupe returned to the city.
 Paine remained at the park several days until he met with his mishap Later he joined a company of aviatora but he never became a flyer. Short time ago he returned to the automo- bile business in this city and today is driving a powerful Packard truck over the hills of EaSton.