Pilot Smith

Fort Wayne, Ind., remembers a short, wiry, 16-year-old boy whose parents, in 1910, mortgaged their home for $1,800 that he might fly. He purchased materials, a motor, built a plane, showed his mother how to sew canvas on his wings. His first flight wiped out six months' work all but the motor. He built again, flew at exhibitions, paid off the mortgage. He learned to loop the loop before most U. S. flyers. Soon fleecy streamers of smoke were seen high over cities, spelling out trademarks for advertisers. The Fort Wayne boy had invented "sky-writing." He fell in love, staged the first "air elopement," crashed near Hillsdale, Mich., and was married in a hospital.

The U. S. entered the War. The boy became test pilot and instructor. The U. S. started an Air Mail Service. The boy entered and flew between New York and Chicago. Night flights were started between Chicago and New York.

One night one of his comrades, Pilot Charles H. Ames, crashed into an Alleghany mountain (TIME, Oct. 19). The boy helped in the long search for Ames' remains. One night last week the boy, Pilot Art Smith, aged 32, whizzing eastward, got two miles out of his course crossing Ohio. Near Montpelier there grew a tree. How, why, one cannot say, a committee of the Service is investigating, but the tree was invisible to him. Night echoed a rending crash, flames leapt out of the wreckage. Pilot Art Smith of the Air Mail was no more, the second to die on duty since the overnight service started last July.