[3] When gold mining proved unprofitable he trapped animals in Alaska before heading south and spending much of 1905 working on a cattle ranch near Phoenix in Arizona.

He traveled south to the United States and eventually joined William F. Cody, aka Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show[5] and exhibited his horsemanship.

[7] After six months with the "Two Bills" show, he left in 1908 and toured much of Europe, apparently using the East Sussex seaside town of Seaford as a base.

In July 1910 after attending the second of the famous annual Reims flying meetings, Hammond obtained further instruction from Henri Molla at the Sanchez-Besa school at Mourmelon (Camp de Châlons).

[5] As a result, shortly after his marriage Hammond was able to gain from the Aéro-Club de France his French Aviators Certificate (No.258) on 4 October 1910, flying a Sanchez-Besa Biplane.

Returning to England he was granted Royal Aero Club aviators certificate 32 on 22 November 1910, after demonstrating his skill flying a Bristol Boxkite at Salisbury Plain.

[4] On 26 March 1911 Hammond flew with both Leslie McDonald and mechanic Coles as passengers to demonstrate the weight carrying performance of the Boxkite.

While Hammond was not the first person to fly in Australia, prior to the arrival of the Bristol team the others had only made short hops or flew at very low heights.

Upon his return to England, Hammond continued working for the British and Colonial Aeroplane Co. until August 1912, when he took a position as an instructor at the Eastbourne Aviation Company's school.

Prior to being gifted to New Zealand, Hamel, with Frank Dupee as passenger, had already flown the aircraft from Dover to Cologne, covering the 340 miles in four hours and 18 minutes.

The airplane was shipped aboard the SS Athenic and arrived at Wellington, New Zealand, on 29 September without its propeller, which was still back in Hendon, England.

The propeller subsequently arrived in Wellington on 23 December 1913 on the SS Tainui but was not made available until 7 January 1914, when it was railed to Auckland and fitted to the aircraft.

However, on the evening of 28 January 1914, on the spur of the moment, he took Australian actress Esme McLennan of the Royal Pantomime Company on a 20-minute-long flight.

From your volcanic cones I have often looked out over Auckland, and thought it the loveliest place in the world, but viewed from an aeroplane, at a height of nearly 2,000ft, it was like a glimpse of something almost unreal.

[4] In December 1915 Hammond was transferred to the Aeronautical Inspection Department and throughout 1916 was involved in testing and evaluating new aircraft, among them the Robey-Peters Gun-Carrier.

During the maiden flight of the second prototype the following year, the aircraft stalled on takeoff and flipped over as it hit the ground, Hammond's life being saved by the size of the tail section.

Believing he had a better job in England, Hammond was unhappy with the appointment as his work basically involved giving exhibition flights as part of a joint American-British Liberty Bonds team.

The machine had previously been test-flown at Mineola, New York, on 21 May by, Lt. C.F Soulier a member of the French Military Mission, who suggested several minor modifications be made to the aircraft.

After the modifications had been completed, Hammond attempted to fly the machine from Mineola Field to Washington, D.C., but the engine seized, resulting in it crashing in New Jersey.

As the aircraft approached the airfield at about 5:30 pm, it went into a right-hand spin from 600 feet (183 m), its left wing striking a tree before crashing in a cornfield of the Marion County Poor Farm near its boundary with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Hammond and Kinder were killed on impact, while Pickett escaped with a broken right leg and a lacerated jaw and shock.

[17] Hammond was cremated and his remains were then stored in the family mausoleum of Carl Fisher, the founder of the Indianapolis speedway.

Fisher had donated his own plot in the mausoleum in the expectation that Hammond's family could come and claim the remains after the war.

Hammond's remains were never collected and still reside in Carl Fisher's mausoleum at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.

[27] After Hammond's death she moved back home to live with her parents and did not remarry, dying at the age of 64 in Hailsham.

The plaque reads: On the 18th April 1911, Captain Joseph Joel Hammond, a New Zealander, flew a Bristol box-kite biplane on a flight that lasted less than 10 minutes.