Evening star., 1941-04-27

volunteer 10 LIE OIllUeu SOdlcS AlIIlS
my services to teach the Army per-
sonnel how to fly airplanes. Thai
was back in the early stages of the
World War, shortly after we got
into the fray. Before that hac
been one of the first pilots ever te
fly monoplane. In fact, it was the
first successful American monoplane
ever operated on this side of the
ocean. 1t was built in 1911 at Terre
Haute, Indiana, by the famous
johnson Brothers who now make the
cupboard motors, and it was powered
by the first 2 cycle V-type engine
Dry batteries instead of magnetic
were used for ignition"
AS everybody knows, aviation was
In its infancy when Ross Smith, ma
tive of Mattoon, Ill, took his first
airplane into the sky. He was a
natural-born adventurer. AS a IT.
year-old boy he ran away from
home, enlisted in the Navy and as a
plain ordinary COB made the cruise
around the world with Fighting
Bob" Evans. That was the greatest
naval parade in all history, at time
when Teddy Roosevelt, then Presi-
dent of the United States, wanted to
defy the Kaiser OF all the Germanles,
Wilhelm II. 1t took two years to
make that trip and young Smith got
into every great port in the world.
Noted Associates.
After he got his land legs back, in
1911, Ross Smith started flying ana
he has been at it ever since. Some
of his flying companions of the early
davs are men and women whose
names hang high in aviation history.
Here is an off f-hand list:
Lincoln Beachy, the American
and the first man ever to loop the
loop in an American plane, CurtlsS
biplane. He performed the amazing
stunt of flying an airplane inside
q building at the San Francisco
World Fair, where later he met his
untimely death;
Ruth Law, a t0mboy by nature
who few a Curtiss biplane as one
of the great stunt flyers of the early
davs. making inside and outside
looms and barrel rolls. She dlstln-
guished herself one fine day by n.y.
ing an airplane from the Capitol TO
the White House Immediately over
PENNSYLVANIA avenue, not IN
straight flight but in a series OF
loops for me entire distance. her
brother, Rodman Law, sometimes
travelled With her and jumped OIL
the wings of her plane in para
chute. He is believed to have been
one of the first parachute jumpers
in America; -,
beloved Thompson and Art Smith,
the latter the first night flyer in
the world, who was killed while
f1ying the mails for the Government.
His night flights we're marvellous at
the time, because he did them all
without the aid of Instruments;
Pegoud, the Frenchman, who was
the first man to loop the loop in
Europe and the first in the world
ever to fly an airplane upside down;
These were the buddies OF Ross
Smith, who came into the aviation
picture Just about the time the first
Army aviation field was established
at College Park, Md, with the late
Col. C. de Forrest Chandler in COM
mand. Among those early Army
flyers were: Benjamin Foulois, Henry
II. Arnold, now chief of the air staff;
Row Kirkland, Thomas De Witt Mill
ing. Gen. Kilner of the Air Service,
Byron @. Jones and Col. Kennedy
also of the Air Service. John Tow
ers, now head of the Navy Flying
Corps, was breaking into the game
and he was afterward one OF the
first men to go across the Atlantic
with the meas. To pull out an Old
phrase, "Those were the horse-and-
buggy days" of aviation.
Made Solo Flight.
Most of the men who went into
1t had to be dare-devils by nature
like Ross Smith, who learned to
pilot an airplane before he ever
drove an automobile. He had never
seen an airplane in his life until
they showed him the Johnson mon
oplane one day at Terre Haute, Ind.
He got into it, ran it up and down
the field for half an hour and then
shot it into the air, where he re-
manned on his SOLO flight for the
next 80 minutes. Looking back at
that flight, Smith said the other day
that it was rather strange that the
hotel in Terre Haute over which
he flew housed a tremendous con-
vention of road builders who we're
then on tour of the country, trying
to drum up enthusiasm for coast
to-coast highway-something Amer
lea did not have at the time.
Two days after Ross Smith made
his solo flight he went into the
professional ranks in big way,
Over in his own home town of
Mattoon the next Sunday, he was
engaged for three flights at $500 a
flight. In those days an airplane
was such a rarity that people even
paid to see it. They parked Smiths
monoplane under tent and charged
Is cents admission to see the ma
chine. That was machine whose
top speed was rs miles an hour and
which could land at the rate of
IS miles an hour. Though the
present-day machines have attained
speeds of 400 miles an hour, none OF
them can get down to earth in the
slow time of these old craft and
Smith says, in passing, that the real
safety of aviation will come when
some one devises method of bring
ing an airplane to earth at the
average rate of 20 miles an hour.
1t was Merom, Ind, famous
Chautauqua center, that Smith
caused a sensation by flying off
the bluff there in eight successive
days, rising 200 feet above the Wa
bash River and landing on the
Illinois side. That was startling
thing to do, but they had to take
the wings off the monoplane and
bring it back on boat.
On the Chautauqua circuit at the
time when Ross Smith was a stellar
attraction were the three outstand-
ing celebrities of the day, each In