A Day That Shook The World: Wright Brothers' first flight

Check out the collection on this site it is staggering. A Smithsonian class assortment of important aircraft.
We visited two weeks ago on a free admission night. The place was swarming with children and I, recalling a first flight that entailed a man turning the prop, felt like one of them.

http://www.airventuremuseum.org/default.asp

From NASA, a replica of the Wright Brothers 1903 Wright Flyer...
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1825.html
 
"For two weeks, engineers studied the replica's stability, control and handling at speeds up to 27 knots (30 mph) in the wind tunnel."

It is hard to believe that it has only been a century and a bit since the Wright brothers' flight.  And it was only two-thirds of a century from that flight to landing a man on the moon.  The power of human innovation is amazing.  I remember years ago reading an article on the rate of technological innovation.  It clearly is a logrhythmic curve, but the argument was where we were on the curve.  In fact, the strongest argument was that we were at an early point, not yet up to the most accellerated part.  That was right up there with an article in Sceintific American that said that we could go one generation smaller in chips and would then be stuck.  We are so many generations past that point that it is amazing.  There are computers in so many things now, some of them quite simple and very, very small that it would be hard to enumerate.  I am waiting on a really good battery for a car (if you read science fiction, I am waiting for Robert Heinline's Shipstone).  Then electric cars should replace the gasoline monsters.
Stoney, that is a fantastic clip of the Wright Brothers.  Never seen it before.

"Fly me to the moon & let me play among the stars"................................................

There I was, sat with Grandpa, Dad's pa - his great grandson (my son) was crawling round the floor. Grandpa was mostly off with the fairies on morphine for his terminal cancer, but a TV News item about Concorde sparked him off - He told me about how he worked fixing WW1 planes with canvas, glue, wire, string, brown parcel wrapping paper to mend "small" stuff like bullet holes - he told me that when Icarus (the young man who came to collect a fixed plane) came to fly off, Grandpa would need to find a quiet corner & weep. Nodding towards my infant son Grandpa said "Tell him about me, one day they will be doing weekend breaks to the moon."
Hi, Bebe
It's scary to think that the first lunar landing had less computing than a cell phone.

JaxZ- Given your Air Force experiences and your love of airplanes/aviation, I'll be very interested in your take on this subject.
 
I don't know of a better, more visible, more qualifiable and quantifiable measure of our technological progress in the last century. Just think, circa 1850, a politician whose name I don't recall, proposed closing the Patent Office since obviously everything worth inventing had already been invented.  

HI Miss HAZEL.................it's cold & gray today...........my favorite winter kind of day. I may go to a movie. What a wonderful story about your grandfather..............some people go thru things we can barely comprehend.............I admire them and JAX for doing things I would never have the guts to do.......................stay warm sweetie...............I may make a hot toddy this evening..................

If the TSA would have been around, do you think the brothers Wright might have invented something else?

I've flown in a bi-plane, let me share with you that it was a unique experience. Orville and Wilbur has stainless steel ball bearings when they flew that contraption. And to think they had the forethought to have a cameraman there. I'm guessing the guy behind the camera was there to witness what most NASCAR fans want to see...the crash. I wonder was he disappointed?

RE: y 9.33 AM post, a little research reveals the person(s) alleged to have proposed closing the Patent Office did not in fact make such a proposal. Message? "In God We Trust"...all others... research and require ID so as not to embarrass them or yourself. Mea culpa!

Hazel- Wonderful story! Does your son know about his great-grandfather? 'Twould be a shame to lose such a story.
 
Warm day to you all.

I fly commercially every month and have been doing so for 30 years. My brother is an amateur pilot and I have flown with him on small planes and gliders (my favorite) He flew ultralights for the local sheriff's department looking for pot fields (glad he didn't find my stash- just joking) and stolen cars. There is not a single time that I don't get excited especially when you pop up through the low clouds and it is just you and the heavens. I made a few jumps and felt the sensation of flying for a few moments and as a teen we had this "belly tickling" dip in a country road that I used to over in my Fiat 850. Seconds of Nirvana. I have to admit that Kitty Hawk was/is a spiritual experience and this is one of the best site posts and should remind us in this holiday season that our worlds need to be shaken. In a world of wimps, it is good to see those who had GUTS.

Tommy Typical- McKellar Airport in Jackson TN probably has my lip-prints in the runway. A young Lincoln Mercury Regional rep in Memphis had talked me into sharing the cost of a rental plane for the afternoon. Shortly after reaching altitude all insruments went out... radio, gauges, faith hope,etc. 
 
Having not enough room to kiss our own asses goodbye, we start looking for a place to land. Soon, but not soon enough, we spot a small airport which turned out to McKellar. I really don't know how much danger we were in but I've been a better man from that day to this...nothing like thinking you're seeing your life in a rearview mirror.

I watch hawks sliding through the air with the greatest of ease and grace and think "I wish I could do that" - then I see hang-gliders, para-gliders & think - maybe not. To think, those intrepid early day fliers are resposnible for all those vile airports with their baggage carousels & obtusely unhelpful desk staff. Air traffic in the UK is currently chaotic due to snow. Poor girlies on check in desks are getting abuse from frustrated travellers ..... Yeah,  they could do a job like Moses parting the Red Sea & create a clear runway & fair weather to the customer's destination. You coul not pay me enough to do their job.

George Hall~ My son still has a construction kit bi-plane that we made together while I was telling him about his Grandpa. It's made of balsa wood & tissue paper - he's done a great job of keeping it undamaged for so many years.

Aaaarrrggghhh! Great Grandpa.

GH- The concept that life has the most meaning when death is at its closest is a paradox that is mysterious and yet completely logical. Alas, humans have such short attention spans.

This seems to be the day for remembering--and teling--old stories. So...For Tommy T: I remember watching a friend of mine (his dad owned one of the first 'sports car' dealerships in the NW) outrun a new Corvette in a Fiat 850. The course was small, and very twisty, but the Vette was fast and well driven, it might have been a Stringray. This was in the mid 1950's. I've always admired performance over brawn, since then.

My most vivid memory of an aircraft was in1958. I was in the Marines and had just been stationed at El Toro Marine Air Station. I'd only been there a day or two and hadn't recieved my new assignment so had been attached to HG doing odd jobs, including delivering the mail. I was driving a jeep with the mail on a road that went past one of the ends of an airstrip. The base was still new to me so I was gawking ahead at the buildings trying to find my destination when the lowdest roar I'd ever heard hit me. I never say the appraoching plane--an F9F Panther. It swept in over my head (it seems like inches) and touched down in a lowd screech and roar about 50 feet away from me. The pilot undoutadly saw me; the parimater road was used regularly. I've often wondered, however, if he didn't come in a little lower just to impress me. It definately did. Can still remember that moment. It was impressive!!!

Aircraft have been connected to every notable moment of my life in one way or another. Whether it was the Wright brothers or Pearse, who launched us aloft is not important to me. They were all heroic, mostly unheralded men. What's critical is that they took our minds as well as our bodies airborne.

"You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done."
Chuck Yeager

http://www.mshf.com/hof/wittman_steve.htm

That guy, Mr. Wittman, to us, had somehow agreed to take my brothers and I flying. It was a bit of a big deal because his plane was a two-seater and he was always going to be in one of them.
Our oldest brother went first and came down absolutely giddy which was a little different.
Then, my next two older brothers demurred in my favor which was scary different.
The great man having been led to believe that I was named after him, which may have been true but you'd think that it might have come up before then, lavished the full thrill package on me. We did snap and barrel rolls, flew the entire thirty-five mile length of the lake real low and fast and then upside down across the lake with our fannies G-forced into the seats.
It seems he chose to look upon my near catatonic state as cool courage but having watched much of that flight, my brothers begged off citing something implausibly general like: "sports practice."
My older brother and I lay on our backs in the grass and reveled in the experience for hours.
"How'd you get him to do all that exciting stuff?" he asked.
"I'm seven," I explained, "I wasn't back there begging for more I was begging for mercy."
He had only months to live but neither of us knew that.
On the ground, I had said something to Mr. Wittman about not being afraid of crashing into the lake.
"You should have been," he said, "it's about the last place you'd want to put one down. Better to go into a cornfield," and that, a little over forty years later. is what he did.

George and bebe!!!❤
You (and all of the village really) lift my heart.

Stoney, some of my biggest aviation thrills weren't over the machines (although many still make my knees weak) they were meeting those who piloted them into new eras. Two exceptional ones were Jimmy Doolittle and Chuck Yeager. Neither would let anyone make a fuss over them or what they did. But they were kind enough to make a fuss over a one-stripe airman while generals stood by, because I was the first to do something. I will never forget that almost every great man or woman I've met has treated others that way.

LL- Performance over brawn. Here Here! The old fable of Tortoise v Hare still plays out. And impressive moments are comprised of indelible footage...always there and you go back and look at the tape looking for something you might have missed.  It makes you wonder as David Crosby sings What's going on....

Wow, Stoney. What an incredible memory.

As Mr. London would say Stoney- "I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."

Stoney- You flew with that Mr. Wittman???!!! What a story...what else can I say?
 
JaxZ- You are so very right about 'great' people. In the past I've wondered which came first... the achievement or the humanity, approachability, the common touch. I don't wonder anymore. I'm humbly convinced the latter came first in every instance I've known. BTW, I saw General Chuck Yearger from my office window fly the lead plane of a large formation over DCA as part of the premiere/introduction to The Right Stuff (the movie)...does that count? As backup I slapped hands with General Chesty Puller at the 1954 Marine Corps Birthday Party, Camp LeJuene NC and, believe it if you can, I'm still humble.
 
What was it you were first to do? Don't leave us out here hanging by our fingernails...if you can't trust us, who can you trust?
 
 

George YES that counts!! That must have been one heck of a flyby! I fell in love with Sam Shepherd in that movie. ;)

{{laughing}} It's not a big deal George, just to me. ;-) I was 17 when I joined the Air Force. I was in a hurry so I didn't pick a career field before basic training. The feminist movement was raising a ruckus about jobs that didn't allow women. I was in the right place at the right time. They pulled me out of class one day and asked me if I wanted "A safe, routine job, or an interesting but dangerous job?" C'mon, I was 17! So I was the first woman Fighter Aircraft Armaments Systems Specialist.

They thought I'd wash-out because it was heavy, stressfull work and they put me in the hardest (technical) position, but after my homelife it was just exciting and challenging to me. I did well and went straight to USAFE (U.S. Armed Forces Europe). This was during the Cold War so among other things I was loading nukes (I can say that now, 30 years later) which required a high-ranking officer with a stopwatch, and 6 heavily armed SP's with their guns trained on each of us for the duration of the load. One mistake and you were face down on the concrete with a boot on your neck and a gun at your head, not because the bomb would go off (nothing could do that accidently), but because they could be sabotaged NOT to. It was.....intense.

My crew (4 of us) hated me (not personally) because whenever an Inspector General Team came they'd elbow the Wing commander and say "Hey, we heard you got a woman loader" and my team would get tapped. They have an Excellence in Performance competition called the Daedalian award, which our base was close to winning. They called our team to do a nuke loadout with several generals and a lot of brass watching. We got within a minute of the record with a flawless performance. Then they asked us to do it again and we broke the record. Our base won the award. It was the first and only time I have been truly $%&*-faced drunk in my life. Once was enough. I was 18.

Jax.....always love this pix of you...beauty juxtaposed against a mean machine <3
http://www.petermanseye.com/photos/260881
Hazel....as usual, you have a reservoir of life stories that you seem to effortlessly pull out from
I don't have much to add today. I envy those who are able to fly their own planes but I dont think I will ever be able to do that. I've flown commercially many times of course, the most dreaded from the East out to America. I love some of the landings - the old Kowloon landing in HK (skirting over rooflines), the one battling the cross currents in Kathmandu are the more memorable ones.
Airport security is now a nightmare which makes flying less fun. In the past, younger, prettier and flying business class, with no security scare then, I was invited to sit in the cockpit to view a landing. I think I was flying into Heathrow; that was awesome. And no, I declined the thereafter contact.
On airport scanners, seems Israel has pooh-pooed full body scanners....maybe there is a better solution a/c to what I received in my inbox...
 http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Full+body+scanners+waste+money+Israeli+expert+says/2941610/story.html
 
 
 
FINALLY ! - A practical alternative to body scanners at airports . . .

The Israelis are developing an airport security device that eliminates
the privacy concerns that come with full-body scanners at the airports.

It's a booth you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will
detonate any explosive device you may have on you. They see this as a
win-win for everyone, with none of this crap about racial profiling.   
It also would eliminate the costs of a long and expensive trial.  Justice
would be swift.  Case closed!

You're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly
thereafter an announcement comes over the PA system . . . "Attention
standby passengers - we now have a seat available on flight number XXXX. Shalom!"

whoops I lied, I was 19.

Israel doesn't need the scanners because they've always had the best airport security of any country in the world. But other countries (ours especially) would protest some of their methods. Israel is the one place my husband flies that I don't worry about.

Thank you Patricia. ♡

Aren't we all glad that the Wright Brothers and others in other endeavors did what they did so that we are able to do what we do.

Spring Fragrance- "...thereafter contact", eh? How diplomatically put! I'll have to jot that down...maybe I can use it sometime.
 
 JaxZ- You're my hero(ine?), girl! It is a BIG deal! I love it when women excel/win! I have sons but I have a daughter!!! "Its only your only daught-uh...I think?" she says.
 
When she was small she'd endlessly write notes  "I love you. Do you love me? Yes__ No__ Maybe__, check one." Once in a moment of insanity I checked NO! She was slain.
 
Segue forward several years, we were having a reminising conversation and I ask if she remembered the notes. She answered "No. It must have meant more tp you than it did to me. I just don't remember." Thinking here was my chance to get off the hook, I said  "Once I think I checked 'Maybe'" She yelled at the top of her voice "You checked NO!"... you gotta be careful with the girls or you'll pay.
 
 

Can't let today go by without giving honourable mention to Amy Johnson, female small plane aviator.

I have had several fictional characters, as well as real life characters that have been portrayed fictionally in books and movies and such....... whom I have often wished, at one time or another, that I could be more alike..... (one such fictional character being Peter Lake for example).... But on top of my shortlist, I really admired the quiet confidence and self actualization of Pete Yeager as portrayed by Sam Shepard in the movie "The Right Stuff". What an awesome movie. ..... What a triumph of the spirit it must be to be a jet pilot..... to ‘fly toward the sun without burning a wing'...... but meanwhile and far away; have a splendid evening one and all.

Early on today, Ummgawa made reference to stainless steel ball bearings.  At some point in my childhood, they made my world go round, being the essential ingredient for perfect wheels on a go-kart, cobbled together with scrounged wood and pram wheels & a crude steering mechanism that might have involved stealing somebody's clothes line ... yipeeee! those things went downhill like the wind & it felt like you were flying.

Icarus.

Icarus!!  http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4o34s_flying-men-with-flying-suit-best-vi_sport

JaxZ~  You are a marvel!

STONEY.........................Now that was d*mn fantastic....wonderful and as always

bittersweet...........

JAX................Take credit where credit is due.....................way to go you ballsy woman!

Stoney, bebe!!!❤, George: you are SO kind and affirming. I've been labeled "freakish" and irresponsible much of my life because I never settled responsibly into one place or thing (except when I was raising my babies, but we played hooky a lot) Most of the time I don't mind so much, sometimes it's really lonely, but YOU don't seem to mind and that's an amazing thing (I tell myself it's because we've never met, but "acceptance" can be skin-deep; I think you're truly kind to the bone). At the risk of outright sappiness, I'm very grateful. It's like breathing after holding your breath, to tell a story (and not be ripped to shreds) that's been in you for 20-30 years.

Stoney, I'm so sorry over the loss of your brother as a child. It's so hard as an adult, I can't imagine it at 7.

JAXXY JAX...........It's my pleasure...............good is as good does............sappiness is okay; I get sappy & it means you care.................