When he was 14, Dixon visited the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. The fair featured two buildings devoted to aviation exhibits, and Dixon was enthralled. A family friend later remembered that Dixon "could hardly be induced to leave the two buildings devoted to airships." Within a year, he began work on his own airship. After getting advice from A. Roy Knabenshue at the Ohio State Fair in Columbus, Dixon scrapped his first design, which would have used a gasoline-powered engine under a hydrogen balloon. Dixon redesigned his dirigible and completed it in 1907. It featured a thirty-two-foot gas bag made of silk and coated with varnish. Dixon attached a bicycle frame to the bag and geared the sprocket wheel to a propeller. Ropes attached the handlebars to a rudder made of bamboo and silk. To fill the gas bag, he made his own hydrogen generator out of a wooden barrel full of iron filings and sulfuric acid. A second barrel filled with lime or potash filtered the gas. Dixon named his airship the Moon and made his first flight on June 10, 1907. The Columbus Dispatch reported, "It was his first flight, his first trial, in fact, and the little airship, propelled by foot power after the fashion of a bicycle, which the youthful protege of the great Knabenshue built with his own hands, responded to every touch of the enthusiastic lad as he manipulated it gracefully at an altitude of 200 feet for more than an hour before 500 shouting and excited spectators." After this success, Dixon scheduled an exhibition on June 28 and charged 25 cents admission. According to the newspaper, thousands attended. A promoter noticed Dixon's success and scheduled him to make daily flights for the week of July fourth. After each flight, Dixon tethered his Moon to an open-air stage where his sister Lulu performed a vaudeville act. While she performed, he pedaled the dirigible across the stage behind her. Unfortunately, the Moon was destroyed when a fire, ignited by a firecracker, swept across the park.
