<P> There were not many customers for airplanes, so in the spring of 1910 the Wrights hired and trained a team of salaried exhibition pilots to show off their machines and win prize money for the company--despite Wilbur's disdain for what he called "the mountebank business". The team debuted at the Indianapolis Speedway on June 13 . Before the year was over, pilots Ralph Johnstone and Arch Hoxsey died in air show crashes, and in November 1911 the brothers disbanded the team on which nine men had served (four other former team members died in crashes afterward). </P> <P> The Wright Company transported the first known commercial air cargo on November 7, 1910 by flying two bolts of dress silk 65 miles (105 km) from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio for the Morehouse - Martens Department Store, which paid a $5,000 fee . Company pilot Phil Parmelee made the flight--which was more an exercise in advertising than a simple delivery--in an hour and six minutes with the cargo strapped in the passenger's seat . The silk was cut into small pieces and sold as souvenirs . </P> <P> Between 1910 and 1916 the Wright Brothers Flying School at Huffman Prairie trained 115 pilots who were instructed by Orville and his assistants . Several trainees became famous, including Henry "Hap" Arnold, who rose to Five - Star General, commanded U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, and became first head of the U.S. Air Force; Calbraith Perry Rodgers, who made the first coast - to - coast flight in 1911 (with many stops and crashes) in a Wright Model EX named the "Vin Fiz" after the sponsor's soft drink; and Eddie Stinson, founder of the Stinson Aircraft Company . </P> <P> In 1912--1913 a series of fatal crashes of Wright airplanes bought by the U.S. Army called into question their safety and design . The death toll reached 11 by 1913, half of them in the Wright model C. All six model C Army airplanes crashed . They had a tendency to nose dive, but Orville insisted that stalls were caused by pilot error . He cooperated with the Army to equip the airplanes with a rudimentary flight indicator to help the pilot avoid climbing too steeply . A government investigation said the Wright C was "dynamically unsuited for flying", and the American military ended its use of airplanes with "pusher" type propellers, including models made by both the Wright and Curtiss companies, in which the engine was located behind the pilot and likely to crush him in a crash . Orville resisted the switch to manufacturing "tractor" - type propeller aircraft, worried that a design change could threaten the Wright patent infringement case against Curtiss . </P>

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