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item 1 — the exhibition flight and the first municipal field as separate articles
The region's first recorded airplane flight was René Simon's, in 1911: the county airport's own history carries Simon's 1911 flight as the area's first, two decades before any field existed to land on. The first field was Cadet Field, northeast of South Bend on ground now in Granger — the county's first airport site, where the weather service's aviation observations began on 1 December 1929 under the name South Bend Municipal Airport (Cadet Field). Both stand on other towns' ground and are printed here at boundary size, as the frame for this township's own test, which is negative and is printed as one: no exhibition flight and no first field is recorded for New Carlisle or Olive Township in the Tribune and Gazette files or the federal facility record reached for this section. Exhibition flying came to fairgrounds and pastures all over the county in the 1910s; if a barnstormer ever lifted off a Terre Coupee pasture, the record reached does not keep it, and the leg does not invent it.
Sources:
- South Bend International Airport, official history (René Simon, 1911; the Bendix succession), and the National Weather Service's South Bend station history (aviation observations at Cadet Field from 1 December 1929).
- The FAA facility record and the newspaper files as reached for this section, November 2026 — no exhibition flight or field for this ground returned.