These flights at Mineola gave that place a start as the headquarters for aviators, and it soon became the popular resort for everyone interested in aviation in and near the city of New York. [Illustration: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN TROPHY] PART III MY CHIEF FLIGHTS AND THE WORK OF TO-DAY by Glenn H. Curtiss CHAPTER I THE RHEIMS MEET FIRST INTERNATIONAL AEROPLANE CONTEST Prior to the first flights in New York City I had formulated plans for an improved machine, designed for greater speed and equipped with a more powerful motor. I wanted to take part in the first contest for the Gordon Bennett Aviation cup at Rheims, France, August 22 to 29, 1909. This was the first International Aviation Meet held, and much was expected of the French machines of the monoplane type. Great was my gratification, therefore, when I received word from the Aero Club of America, through Mr. Cortlandt Field Bishop, who was then president, that I had been chosen to represent America at Rheims.[1] Without allowing my plans to become known to the public I began at once to build an eight-cylinder, V-shaped, fifty horse-power motor. This was practically double the horse-power I had been using. Work on the motor was pushed day and night at Hammondsport, as I had not an hour to spare. I had kept pretty close watch on everything that had been printed about the preparations of the Frenchmen for the Gordon Bennett race and although it was reported that Bleriot, in his own monoplane, and Hubert Latham, in an Antoinette monoplane, had flown as fast as sixty miles an hour, I still felt confident. The speed of aeroplanes is so often exaggerated in press accounts that I did not believe all I read about Bleriot's and Latham's trial flights. The motor was finished, but there was no time to put it in the new machine and try it out before sailing. It was, therefore, given a short run on the block, or testing-frame, hurriedly packed, and the entire equipment rushed to New York barely in time to catch the steamer for France. The time was so short between the arrival of our steamer and the opening of the meet that in order to get to Rheims in time to qualify, we had to take the aeroplane with us on the train as personal baggage. Thanks to the kindness of the French railway officials, who realised our situation, and evidently had imbibed some of the prevailing aviation enthusiasm, we arrived at Rheims in quick time. In those early days of aviation there was not the keen partisanship for monoplane or biplane that one finds everywhere to-day; nor was there the strong popular feeling in France in favor of the monoplane that exists today. An aeroplane was simply an aeroplane at that time, and interesting as such, but naturally all Frenchmen favored their compatriots who were entered in the race, particularly Bleriot, who had just earned world-wide fame by his flight across the English channel. The Frenchmen, as well as Europeans in general, fully expected Bleriot to win with his fast monoplane.