Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-07-02

in the landing test, coming down forty
feet outside the 16O-foot circle.
Nothing daunted, she tried again the
next day, and vas so fortunate on
this occasion as to establish a new
record for accuracy, landing within
eight feet of her starting place. She
easily satisfied the altitude test and
remarked as she finally came 70
earth:
well, / guess / get thai license"
Il guess you do" returned the Off
cial judges.
Six weeks later Miss Quimby made
her first public exhibition of flying AT
the Richmond county agricultural
fair. Clad in her ~plum-colored ayi-
ator's outfit, with its hood, its knick-
ers and puttees, she a~stonished the
crowd by the ease with which she
went three times round the course.
But far bigger game was awaiting
Miss Quimby abroad. Even in these
days of advanced flying, crossing the
English Channel. with its fogs, re-
mains one of the difficult feats of
aviation. But Miss sQuimby accom-
plished it, thereby becoming the first
woman to prove herself the peer of
the most skillful airmen.
She left the Dover hangar in a
Bleriot monoplane at $50 o'clock in
the morning on April 16. A crowd
had gathered to watch and cheer her
as she set off, but she assembled so
high that almost in a moment she
was gu of their sight. In half a
minute she had left the sea 1900 feet
beneath her and was going at such q
pace that the'tug with photographers
had no chance to keep pace with her.
Steadily she rose, and then she ran
into one of the chief perils OF
aviators. The mist, which is never
entirely absent from the channel,
thickened into fog, and in a flash
Miss Quimby could see nothing but
cold gray clouds beneath her.
She had been instructed in the use
of the compass especially for this
journey, as the fate of Grace, who
fell in the North Sea through losing
his bearings. has never been forgot
ten. She realized, however. that she
must get down where she could see
the earth, and she depressed her
steering planes and dropped 1000 feet.
AS she did so the sun came out and
she obtained a glimpse of the coast
of France. She was unfamiliar with
the ground, and SO she dropped again
to a height of about 500 feet.
She flew inland for a short dis
lance and looked around for a land
ing place, finally coming to earth on
the beach. She had been sighted
while in the air and in a few min
utes an enthusiastic crowd of French
men surrounded her.
Miss Quimby returned to America
May IL, bringing with her a two
passenger Bleriot, of eighty horse
power.
Miss Quimby is the fourth woman
to lose her life in an aereplane acct
dent. The first woman killed was
Nine. Deniz Moore, who fell, while
flying in France in July. 1911. Susan
Bernard. another French woman was
killed last March while making tests
for an aviator's license. Miss Julia
Clark, a Chicago girl, was the third
victim. She was killed when she flew
into a tree at Springfield, Ill, on
June II.
The deaths of Miss Quimby and
Willard bring the total of aviation
fatalities for the present year up to
forty-three as compared with sew
enty-three in the whole year of 1911.
The total number of persons killed in
aeroplane accidents, since the death
of Lieutenant Selfridge in 1908, is 1854.