On May 29, 1910, Glenn Curtiss won the _New York World_ prize of $10,000 for the first flight from Albany to New York City. He flew 137 miles at a speed of 54.8 miles per hour. In August another chapter in aërial history was written by the sending of a wireless message to the ground from an airplane in flight. [Illustration: GLENN CURTISS FLIES FROM ALBANY TO NEW YORK] In September, 1910, 20,000 Bostonians had their first sight of the airplane in action when the Harvard Aëronautical Society sponsored a great aviation exhibition at Squantum, Massachusetts. The prizes, amounting to $100,000, attracted the largest group of pilots and planes ever to assemble in the United States. Claude Graham-White, the Englishman, flew a French Farman biplane and a speedy Bleriot monoplane. Another Englishman, A. V. Roe, who today builds the Avro-Lancaster, exhibited his big triplane, and the spectators were thrilled as the daring Wright and Curtiss pilots demonstrated America’s best planes. [Illustration: THE HARVARD-BOSTON AIR-MEET. FRENCH FARMAN(1) WRIGHT BIPLANE(2) BLERIOT’S MONOPLANE(3) SANTOS-DUMONT’S MONOPLANE(4) WRIGHT PILOT DROPS BOMB ON A DUMMY BATTLESHIP(5) GLENN CURTISS BIPLANE(6) A.V.ROE’S ENGLISH TRIPLANE(7)] [Illustration] The Boston air meet was followed by an equally successful one at Belmont Park, N. Y., in October, 1910. Here daring pilots flew their planes in rain and wind, and tried many new stunts. Ralph Johnstone, a daring Wright pilot, thrilled the crowds when he turned his plane sidewise to an almost vertical angle and then descended in a tight spiral. Walter Brookins, another Wright flier, performed his famous “short turn” in which he stood his plane vertically in the air and revolved about one wing as on a pivot. Though these pilots constantly endeavored to create new thrills for the crowds, they unconsciously were testing the capabilities of their airplanes. They also were creating the technique of flying. These early meets were the testing laboratories of aviation. [Illustration] The meetings at Boston and Belmont Park served another purpose in addition to thrilling the crowds and testing the airplanes. They paved the way for the beginning of United States naval aviation. Lieutenant Charles A. Blakely, U.S.N., was ordered by the Navy Department to attend the Boston meet as an official observer. He not only observed, but he flew with Charles Willard in a Curtiss airplane. His report on the possibilities of the airplane was so enthusiastic that the Navy ordered Captain Washington Irving Chambers to keep the Navy Department informed concerning the progress of aviation in relation to its use in naval tactics.