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Show AVIATION Any attempt to enjoy the scenery during the tag end of the present week within a radius of three or four miles of that particular portion of Saltair beach occupied by Bonneville Park, has been a distinct failure. I You would no sooner pick a beauty spot out of the glow of the afternoon's sun and begin to feast your eyes upon it, than a couple of big iijoning boards would come bumping down out of nowhere with a speck of a man between them and utterly block up your range of vision. You could not even unmolestedly watch a seagull swoop around through the air lanes, for if Par-malee Par-malee wasn't chasing it in one of Wilbur and Orville's rubberized silk and bamboo curtain-stretchers, curtain-stretchers, Willard would be picking tail feathers feath-ers out of the squawking gull, with his big 1& Gnome motor tearing air holes out of the blue behind him and shooting the intrepid little inventor-aviator through the nice, thin April afternoon after-noon sunshine at something near a seventy mile clip. Willard and Parmalee have not been the only offenders, however. Ely and Brookins, two chaps who probably have not had any more publicity the last two years than Roosevelt or Peary or some of the other boys who get a mention now and then in the dailies, spoiled a lot of good scenic effects for about forty thousand people who spent Thursday and Friday afternoons at H Salt Lake's, newest aviation Held endeavoring to H pick out easy 'lighting places on a five acre shale bed for the four men who were mixing it H with the off-lake breezesi at anything from fifty H feet to a mile above them. H Salt Lake's big meet opened up Thursday af- H ternoon with a whirlwind cluster of flights by H Brookins, Parmalee, Willard and Ely that kept H spectators' mouths agape for the rest of that H day and Friday, and today the four aeroplanists H are due for another set of thrills. It is easily H be best and biggest contest of its kind the in- J" vurmountain west has ever had, and before the flights are finished Tuesday of the coming week, it is probable that Salt Lake will be very much on the map to aviators and their supporters, and every one else who reads a newspaper in this country and on the continent. There is not much use in burning up a column of superlatives, superla-tives, adjectives and split infinitives in an effort to Induce a transmigration to this page of the flock of "creeps" and thrills Brookins and Wil-lard Wil-lard and the other two flyers have spread around over Bonneville Park since Thursday. There is only one way to get 'em, and that is to go see 'em. , For the first time since the inventor demonstrated dem-onstrated its practicability on the placid surface sur-face of San Diego Bay in California, Glen Cur tiss will, today and tomorrow, give a public ex-hbitlon, ex-hbitlon, on Great Salt Lake of his latest heavier-than-air flying machine, the hydroplane, which, by means of a pontoon attachment, can bo started start-ed in flight from the water and brought back to the surface again, and drivej to and upon the shore under its own power. Curtlss calls his machine a hydroplane, and it is the one in which, about two months ago, he flew from the waters of San Diego bay to the side of a TJ. S. armored cruiser a mile or two further down the . water, alighted at its side, was hoisted on board with Ws plane, arod later 'lowered to the water, after which he climbed into his seat, scooted like a bird .for a few hundred yards along the surface, rose and flew hack to his hangar on North Island. Curtiss demanded a big price from the promoters of the local meet for his appearance here with the hydroplane, and got it, and this afternoon and Sunday he will start from in front of the grandstand at the aviation field, fly out and alight on Great Salt Lake and with his own power, later leave the surface of the water and fly back to the starting point on the field. Unusual interest attaches to the proposed 2 trial by reason of the great density of the water of the lake and Curtiss' prospective abil- fe?, - ity to negotiate a safe alighting in the sailing Iff water. His attempt will be the biggest feature of any aviation meet this country has boasted the past two years, and such a statement does not discount a particle the wonderfully spectacular spectac-ular driving of Brookins and Willard, the beautiful beau-tiful flights of Ely, and Mr. Parmalee's festive rope skipping in his Wright plane whilst lingering linger-ing among the flitting little clouds a half mile up. The science of aviation probably does not number four more daring, interesting, and brilliant bril-liant aviators than Charles F. Willard, Walter Brookins, Phil O. Parmalee and Eugene B. Ely. To each is accredited a list of aerial achievements achieve-ments marvelous in their variety and daring. Each has his own peculiarities and particular style and form of driving, and. it would be difficult diffi-cult to pick between them should one care to try. They are giving Salt Lakers and some thirty thousand visitors one of the greatest series ser-ies of flights in heavier-than-alr machines any city of the world has had, audi they continue every afternoon up to and including Tuesday of next week. |