"The field could see the two machines almost all the time during the cross-country flight. The way the biplane with a passenger pegged along just behind the monoplane with only a pilot aboard was a caution. Over a big white circle painted on the Mineola real estate, Ovington from his monoplane and the Postmaster-General from Captain Beck's machine, plumped down to Mineola the two pouches and hit within the circle in each case.
"The biplane teetered slightly as the mail bag was released and then the two machines made a circle and spun back to where the crowd stood on tiptoe peering over fences at Nassau Boulevard.
"'I was up once before,' the Postmaster-General said after he had shaken hands all around upon his return to earth.' That was at Baltimore with Count de Lesseps in his Bleriot. The biplane to-day I found was much steadier.
"'Fly again? I hope so, because I like the experience very much. My trip to-day was especially enjoyable because at Baltimore I could see very little of the ground below, owing to the closed-in construction of a monoplane. To-day from the biplane all this end of Long Island was stretched out to be looked at.
CARRYING THE MAIL–NASSAU BOULEVARD, 1911
Right to left: Attorney-general Wickersham, Captain Paul Beck, Postmaster-General Hitchcock, with mail-bag.
STUDENTS OF AERIAL WARFARE
Beck, St,. Henry, and Curtiss studying a flight by Kelley