PERFECT FLYING MACHINE

            We shall get a perfect flying machine all right and pretty soon. Charles Hamilton tried out his aeroplane in Florida Sunday, but fell 325 feet on a board walk. All  he said was, “Dang it, I’ve lost my cigar!”—New York Telegram.

[The Raleigh Times (Raleigh, NC) 30 Jan 1906]

          Charles K. Hamilton, who would go on to become the twelfth person to earn an American pilot’s license, flew the device. Hamilton gripped a tow rope tied to an automobile that pulled his aircraft along the beach by driving quickly across the sand. Once Hamilton left the ground, he released the tow rope and glided, shifting his body weight left and right to steer. The glider flew for about 150 feet before one of the wing ribs broke, sending it crashing to the ground. The glider was seriously damaged, but Hamilton survived.

Preparing for Florida’s first glider flight at Ormond Beach near Daytona. Charles Hamilton would soon fly this glider into the air over Florida’s Atlantic coast (1906).
[The Florida Memory Blog:

https://www.floridamemory.com/blog/tag/gliders/]