• Introduction
• The Early Days
• "Resolved That Man Will Fly"
• Experiments Pay Off
• First Flights
• Hudson-Fulton Celebration
• Hudson-Fulton Celebration Cont.
• Smithsonian Exhibition

• About This Web Site
• Contact Us

Hudson-Fulton Celebration, continued

In the Sunday Repository of June 5, 1927, a feature story gave another slant on the Morris Park Exhibition as told by Mr. Martin, relating an accident that might have been fatal to the inventor.

"The wind was high that day, so high that I would not allow my wife to fly. Other men who were scheduled to perform refused to go up and the crowds began to grow impatient. When 50,000 people grow impatient, s omething has to be done, so I finally agreed to fly myself. The plane swept along like a bird until we reached the end of one of the grandstands when a terrific gale of wind struck it.

"Had the rope held, I would have been safe, for my machine is so constructed that it cannot nose dive, but the rope broke, and we started down. I had two chances, either to land on the fence or guide the machine through the rails, which were fairly wide apart. "I chose the latter. For a moment it seemed we would be dashed to pieces, but my plane responded to my efforts to guide it and we crashed through the opening and stopped. I escaped without a scratch." The disc landing wheels used on his plane were an invention of Mr. Martin's, which, however, he never had patented. His plane was one of the few actually to get into the air at Morris Park.

Smithsonian Exhibition >>