Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane and Lawrence Sperry decided that he would be the test pilot. While taxiing it on ice, he hit some slushy snow, and wrecked the plane, though Sperry was unhurt. A second airplane was fitted out, and Sperry managed to get it in the air, but lost control when the automatic pilot was engaged. After two complete rolls, Sperry managed to regain control and land safely. Clearly, though, more attention to flight testing the basic design was needed, particularly in the area of handling qualities. Sperry and his assistant, N. W. Dalton, obtained a Marmon automobile, and mounted the Curtiss-Sperry Flying
Charcoal Club of Baltimore for its wild annual "Bal des Arts". Charcoal Club of Baltimore The Charcoal Club has been an arts club in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, on an intermittent basis since 1883. Started as the Sketch Club in 1883 by a group of male artists in Baltimore who "desired to draw and paint from life" (meaning nude models), the Charcoal Club was incorporated in 1885. The founding officers included Adalbert J. Volck and Joseph Evans Sperry. The Club held exhibitions of local and national artists and its "annual juried exhibition of contemporary American art [was]...from 1911 to 1926...the high point of Baltimore's brief