Page 5 - Demo

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, June 14-16, 1929, the Elkhart Municipal Airport hosted an event to dedicate their airport and celebrate aviation. The new facility had been granted a total of $80,000 by the City Council to cover the cost of land, airstrip hangers, lighting, etc. The first event on Friday was the conclusion of the %u201cOn to Elkhart Race,%u201d in which prizes were awarded to two fliers coming from the furthest distance. To qualify, pilots had to have left their home airfield after 1:20 pm on June 12. An air parade over Elkhart was held after lunch for all registered planes, and they were allowed to carry passengers. It was followed by the dedication ceremony, presided over by former Indiana congressman Frederick Landis (brother of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis who, as Baseball Commissioner, expelled the players involved in the Chicago Black Sox scandal). The dedication was in honor of military pilot Florin Shade who had been recently killed near Dayton, Ohio. The U.S. Army authorized a blimp to be at the three-day event.Contests included a delayed parachute drop, which was won by Gene Rock, of Fort Wayne, after freefalling 5,700 feet before opening his %u2018chute. Rock later took part in an aerial rope-ladder demonstration. There was also a model-airplane contest, and a bomb-dropping event to see who could hit the center of a 100-foot target circle. A %u201cpony-express race%u201d involved pilots taking off, making one lap on a marked course, landing, taxiing up to the judges, then repeating the circuit three more times. Of course, the fastest time won.On Sunday, there was second aerial parade, Gene Rock made another delayed parachute drop, and there was one more bomb-dropping contest. Then at 3 pm, pilots took part in a dead-stick landing contest, in which they shut off their engines at a signal by the judge, then landed without power, and tried to stop near a mark on the ground%u2014without using their brakes. The winner was determined by measuring the distance from the center of the propeller hub to the designated mark.For collectors, covers were available with a cachet in a different color for each of the three days. June 14, 1929, purple.