A short time after he made that remark, Glenn’s family moved to California and he soon became a successful automobile salesman. But he did not forget his decision to fly. With his mother’s support, he began to build his plane by night, after selling cars all day. With his mother holding a lantern for him, he often worked most of the night in the abandoned church that served as his workshop. In spite of neighborly criticism, Glenn finished his plane and flew it from a Santa Ana cow pasture, on August 1, 1909. [Illustration: 1909-1910 WINGSPAN 30 FEET LENGTH 20 FEET GLENN L. MARTIN DESIGNED HIS OWN AIRPLANE AND BUILT IT HIMSELF WITH MONEY EARNED BY SELLING AUTOMOBILES. POWER ONE 4-CYLINDER 20-HP. FORD ENGINE MARTIN USED A SECONDHAND FORD AUTOMOBILE ENGINE TO CREATE THE POWER FOR HIS FIRST PLANE. SPEED ONE HOUR 30 MILES RANGE 75 MILES CEILING 3,000+ FEET PAYLOAD ONE PERSON GLENN MARTIN’S FIRST AIRPLANE, BUILT WITH THE HELP OF HIS MOTHER IN AN OLD ABANDONED CHURCH, WAS A LANDPLANE OF THE PUSHER TYPE SIMILAR IN APPEARANCE TO THE CURTISS AIRPLANE. MARTIN BUILT BOTH LANDPLANES AND SEAPLANES OF VARIOUS SIZES AND POWER. HE SOLD HIS PLANES MOSTLY TO EXHIBITION FLYERS AND WEALTHY SPORTSMEN. IN THOSE EARLY DAYS NO ONE WOULD HAVE EVER DREAMED THAT HE WAS LATER TO BUILD AN 80-TON PLANE. GLENN L. MARTIN WAS ONE OF AVIATION’S MOST ENERGETIC PIONEERS. HE BUILT MANY AIRPLANES OF VARIOUS TYPES. THEY WERE ALL SUCCESSFUL. HIS GREATEST CONTRIBUTION TO EARLY AVIATION, HOWEVER, WAS THAT HIS FLYING EXHIBITIONS INTRODUCED THE AIRPLANE TO THE PUBLIC ON THE PACIFIC COAST.] [Illustration] As soon as he had successfully flown his first airplane, Martin began to plan better machines. He gave flying exhibitions all over southern California to earn the money to build more Martin planes. In January, 1912, he flew the first mail from Dominguez, California, to Compton, California. In April of that year he flew twenty-four miles in twenty-five minutes, to deliver newspapers from Fresno, California, to a neighboring town. On May 10, 1910, Martin flew thirty-three miles over the ocean from Newport Harbor, California, to Catalina Island. This first trans-Pacific flight was made in a hydroplane of Martin’s own design. UNITED STATES MILITARY AND NAVAL AVIATION WORLD WAR I Although America was actually the birthplace of the airplane, many years passed after the first flight of the Wright Brothers before there was any real consideration of the military or civil values of aviation. That aviation did progress at all in its early years was due to the efforts of a few fledgling military fliers, a group of barnstormers, and a handful of aircraft builders.