Rodgers remained in California the rest of the winter, giving many exhibitions of his daring and skill, only to meet his death while holding the world's record. On April 3, 1912, while 7,000 persons at Long Beach, near Los Angeles, watched his evolutions, his machine tipped forward. The crowd cheered, thinking it a daring dive, but became silent when they saw the aviator had lost control. From a height of 200 feet the biplane plunged into the surf where the water was only two feet deep. When the people reached the broken machine Rodgers was dead--his neck broken. There was nothing to show the cause of the biplane's dive. The spot where Rodgers was killed is only a few yards from the one where he completed his transcontinental flight, and where the citizens of Los Angeles planned to erect a monument to his achievement. Most boys are perfectly familiar with the important events of 1912 in aviation, which the scientist and his young friend talked over so eagerly, for, of course, the papers are full of them, and aviation meets are a common thing now in nearly every city of the country. The development of the hydro-aeroplane was probably the chief work of the inventors for the year, but with it came many devices designed to prevent the appalling loss of life while the art of flying is being perfected. One of them is a parachute fixed to the top of the plane, which the aviator is supposed to open in case his machine gets beyond control. In tests aviators have descended to earth in these parachutes without injury. Also a number of automatic balancing and stabilizing devices have been brought out. Frank Coffyn's feats in and about New York Bay during the winter of 1912 with his Wright hydro-aeroplane gave that city the best idea of the success of the aeroplane in and over water it had ever had. He flew from and alighted on the water and great ice floes in the bay as easily as aviators would fly from a clear landing ground on a calm day. It was from Coffyn's machine that the picture of the Statue of Liberty was taken. The world saw the first hydro-aeroplane meet in March of 1911 off the coast of the little European principality of Monaco. Seven aviators competed for the rich prizes, and, although the Maurice Farman machine won the greatest number of points, the Curtiss hydros showed the greatest speed, and alighted with perfect ease in breakers four feet high.