JOHN B. MOISANT.
John B. Moisant is an architect of Chicago, born there of Spanish parentage in 1883. Becoming interested in aviation, he went to France in 1909, and began the construction of two aeroplanes, one of them entirely of metal. He started to learn to fly on a Bleriot machine, and one day took one of his mechanicians aboard and started for London. The mechanician had never before been up in an aeroplane. After battling with storms and repairing consequent accidents to his machine, Moisant landed his passenger in London three weeks after the start. It was the first trip between the two cities for an aeroplane carrying a passenger, and although Moisant failed to win the prize which had been offered for such a feat, he received a great ovation, and a special medal was struck for him.
At the Belmont Park meet, in October, 1910, Moisant, after wrecking his own machine in a gale, climbed into Leblanc’s Bleriot, which had been secured for him but a few minutes before, and made the trip around the Statue of Liberty in New York Bay and returned to the Park in 34 minutes 38 seconds. As the distance is over 34 miles, the speed was nearly a mile a minute. This feat won for him, and for America, the grand prize of the meet—$10,000.