“Here I go, here I go,” Cromwell Dixon shouted as the Curtiss biplane he had dubbed the Hummingbird started to plummet.
It was October 2, 1911, and Dixon was performing at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds in Washington State. At only 19 years old, he was the country’s youngest licensed pilot and one of the first superstars of the skies. A few days earlier, Dixon had made history in Montana and headlines across the country when he became the first person to fly over the Continental Divide. The “boy aeronaut” had been planning an even more ambitious flight: crossing the country in 30 days or
