Duffy's Aircraft...

Five Successful Flights Are Sum Total of Ward Engagement in Marshfield.

Jimmie Ward has come and gone, and Marshfield has had its first introduction to that species of the inanimate kingdom known as the biplane.

The introduction was dramatic, through not exactly spectacular and everyone seems pleased with the four flights made by the youthful aviator and also please that he had no accidents whatever.

On Wednesday afternoon, the first day of the fair, Ward made an ascent shortly after four o’clock but there was something wrong with the gasoline mixture and he descended on the Richfield road, returning to the grounds a short time later. Then at about six o’clock when the town was still full of visitors, Ward went up again, and circled the city four or five times, traveling as far west as Ebbe, north almost to McMillan, east to Hewitt and south to the Klondike. Thousands of people watched his progress, attracted by the humming of the eight-cylinder motor.

Ward stated afterward that his instruments showed he had reached a height of 4,000 feet in his second flight.

The longest flight was made Thursday. Owing to wind and a cloudy sky, Ward delayed his ascent that day until nearly six o’clock. Some words were exchanged between his manager Edward Brown, and some of the authorities on the grounds, but Ward refused to budge until he believed it to be safe. This stand is approved by all those who remember that aviators have been killed by making risky flights at the insistent demands of fair crowds. When he finally did make the flight he stayed in the air three-quarters of an hour, making the same circuit as on the preceding evening and flying directly over the grandstand several times. On Friday afternoon the weather was ideal for aviation, and he made two twenty minutes trips, mostly in the immediate vicinity of the grounds. Several times he crossed directly over the grandstand, no more then fifty feet from the roof.

The machine is all he claimed it to be, and those who witnessed his remarkable performance Thursday will agree with him that it is an excellent wind-bucker

To many people the most interesting feature of Ward’s work with an aeroplane is the easy manner in which he descends to the ground. Little by little on his successive circles he drops down to a lower elevation, until finally he approaches the ground, against the wind, at a height of about 100 feet. Then the motor is slowed down until finally it is shut off as the biplane glides toward the ground and lands “right side up” on it own light wheels. Ward was cheered repeatedly by the crowd for the expert manner in which he handled his “air-boat.”