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Reinhardt Ausmus

(1896–1970)

Reinhardt N. Ausmus, a sixteen-yearold orphan, constructed an airplane in an upper floor of the Arlington Hotel overlooking Diamond Alley. First tested on June 10, 1912, it could fly seventeen minutes at a time, but no higher than eight hundred feet.

When he built a bi-plane in the same location, he made the wings too large to squeeze through the window on the opposite side of this alley. He chipped away at the brick until he was arrested and briefly detained by the police. Ausmus, one of the Early Birds, a national organization of pre-World War I pilots, was seriously injured during training in one of twelve major crashes of his aviation career.

He embraced a passion for flight throughout his life.