The first major international aviation meet in the United States opened at belmont Park, a race track near New York City, in October, 1910, on a surge of sensational aeronautic news. Early in the month, newspapers told of leading fliers flexing their wings at Hawthorne race track, near Chicago, for a race of a thousand miles, Chicago to New York, for a price of $25,000 offered by the New York Times and the Chicago Post. As the aviators made their practice flights at Hawthorne, spectators could sec for the first time in Chicago’s history as many as three planes in the air at once.

At Atlantic City, New Jersey, Walter Wellman, a newspaperman and aeronaut whose attempt to reach the North Pole by dirigible had made world headlines the year before, was readying his airship, the America, to attempt a still greater feat, the world’s first powered flight across the Atlantic Ocean. At St. Louis, Missouri, ten balloons of flour nations awaited the start of the fifth annual contest for the Gordon Bennett CAP, the world’s greatest international distance competition for free balloons.

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