After making flights in Pittsburgh, Pa., I thought that a successful meet could be held in New York City, so I arranged to have all of our forces gathered together at Sheepshead Bay race track, near Brighton Beach, N. Y., and during the week of August 26, 1910, we had an aeroplane meet at which Messrs. J. C. Mars, Charles F. Willard, Eugene B. Ely, J. A. D. McCurdy, and Augustus Post made flights and this meet was so successful that it was continued for a second week. Mr. Ely flew to Brighton Beach and took dinner and then flew back. Mr. Mars flew out over the Lower Bay and we had all five of the machines in the air at one time on several occasions a record for New York at that time. It was here that Mr. Post made a Bronco Busting Flight over the hurdles at the Sheepshead Bay track, landing safely after putting his machine through all manner of thrilling manoeuvres. The Harvard Aeronautical Society had arranged a meet at Boston, Mass., which followed directly after this one, and Claude Grahame-White, the famous English aviator, who was later to win the Gordon Bennett cup at Belmont Park, came over from England, bringing his fast Bleriot monoplane with him. A special race was arranged between Mr. White in his Bleriot and my racing biplane. The meet was a great success, and but a very small margin separated Mr. White's Bleriot and my machine when we tried out our best speeds. Then came a meet at Chicago,[3] after which it was arranged that three machines should start to fly from Chicago to New York for the New York Times' prize of $25,000. A team was made up and Mr. Ely was chosen to make the attempt to fly to New York. This was a very ambitious undertaking for this period in the history of aviation in America, for the longest flight that up to this time had been made in this country was between New York and Philadelphia, one hundred and eighty miles; while the distance between Chicago and New York was fully one thousand miles and landings were very difficult to accomplish in the broken country along the way. Mr. Ely made a good attempt, but there was not sufficient time to complete the trip as flights had already been arranged at Cleveland, Ohio, and in order to go there, this attempt was given up. The Gordon Bennett Aviation Cup race was the next thing to arouse the interest of patriotic Americans and the Aero Club of America had been busy with arrangements for a big meet to be held at Belmont Park, near New York. This was the largest undertaking that the club had up to this time attempted and they taxed every possible resource, with the splendid result of securing all the foremost fliers of Europe, as well as of America, to participate.