The ’plane rolled over the cement runway for several hundred feet, then gradually left the ground and began climbing steadily.
“We’re in the air!” cried Joe excitedly. He and his friend had never been in a monoplane before. “Doesn’t feel unusual, does it?”
“I wouldn’t know it if I didn’t see the ground dropping away from us,” Bob said. “We’ll probably appreciate the absence from jolts and jars.”
This easy conversation was made possible by the heavy insulation between the pilot’s and passengers’ quarters. As a result, the roar of the engine was silenced to a remarkable degree.
When just above the airdrome, they heard Karl’s voice through the telephone.
“How does it feel?” the aviator asked. “Think you’d like flying?”
“Sure,” came from Joe, speaking through the transmitter. “It’s a hundred per cent better than land traveling.”
The experience was not novel to Mr. Wallace, who had once crossed the continent in a huge tri-motor monoplane. But nevertheless he appeared to be enjoying it as much as the young men.
An altitude of perhaps a thousand feet was reached, and then the ’plane shot ahead toward the business district of Washington.
They had been in the air perhaps five minutes when Karl’s voice was again heard through the telephone.