Now that the machine was completed and the motor installed, we waited for favourable weather to make the first trial. Winter weather around Lake Keuka is a very uncertain element, and we had a long, tiresome wait until the wintry gales that blew out of the north gave way to an intensely cold spell. Our opportunity came on March 12, 1908. There was scarcely a bit of wind, but it was bitterly cold. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Selfridge was absent, having left Hammondsport on business, and "Casey" Baldwin was selected to make the first trial. We were all on edge with eagerness to see what the machine would do. Same of us were confident, others sceptical. Baldwin climbed into the seat, took the control in hand, and we cranked the motor. When we released our hold of the machine, it sped over the ice like a scared rabbit for two or three hundred feet, and then, much to our joy, it jumped into the air. This was what we had worked for through many long months, and naturally we watched the brief and uncertain course of Baldwin with a good deal of emotion. Rising to a height of six or eight feet, Baldwin flew the unheard-of distance of three hundred and eighteen feet, eleven inches! Then he came down ingloriously on one wing. As we learned afterward, the frail framework of the tail had bent and the machine had flopped over on its side and dropped on the wing, which gave way and caused the machine to turn completely around. But it had been a successful flight and we took no toll of the damage to the machine or the cost. We had succeeded! that was the main thing. We had actually flown the "Red Wing" three hundred and eighteen feet and eleven inches! We knew now we could build a machine that would fly longer and come down at the direction of the operator with safety to both. It had taken just seven weeks to build the machine and to get it ready for the trial; it had taken just about twenty seconds to smash it. But a great thing had been accomplished. We had achieved the first public flight of a heavier-than-air machine in America!