Word: paulhan
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Born in Rockford, Minn., Van Gates was an automobile salesman and occasional racer in San Francisco in 1910, when he saw the French Aeronaut Louis Paulhan thrilling crowds at Tanforan Track. He decided there was money to be made in exhibition flying. For $2,000 he picked up a flimsy biplane built by a Kansas City doctor, took a Swiss aviator as partner. The Swiss looked once, briefly, at the biplane and vanished. Rather than see the machine rot on its wheels, Gates started the engine one day, mounted the rickety seat, started taxiing about the field just...