Show avii 5 ft 16 RaffA 6 wm tib saw doe gl xa 1 ak P MY 6 VP V P J X W of X AP SW atea ay ELMO WATSON HE B seventeenth of december of this year marks tile the twenty firth fifth anniversary of one of the most important dates in tho the history of mankind for it la Is tho the anniversary of the first successful flight in n pow er operated airplane in recognition of tile the importance of this event the united states government lins spon fored an international civil aeronautics conference lu in washington to which uncle sam has invited te representatives of 65 05 nations to come and help hil him m lionor honor one of tits his sons of whom lie Is justly proud wilbur wright the pioneer of american aviation this silver jubilee celebration which uncle sam has arranged for this month recalls the he epochal achievement of two young ohio brothers who realized the dream of mankind for centuries and startled tho the world with the news newa that on Decem december bez 17 1003 at kitty hawk N 0 they had bad mude mode a successful flight tn hi a power driven airplane what if the night flight lasted only twelve seconds and the distance covered was only feet tile the fact remained that they accomplished what others had llad failed to do and there and then they laid the foundations for a development in iq a new activity by roan man which in the comparatively short time of twenty five years has become one of the alio greatest of modern miracles to understand tile the Imp importance oriance of the achievement of wllbur wilbur and orvllle orville wright it will bo be helpful to go far back into history early curly stories of flights belong in the realm of pure legend othere there Is the fiction of Dea dalus who was said to have flown from crete where lie he had been in prison for revealing the secrets of the laby irintha irintha it has been pointed out that hla his was probably the attempt to adopt sails ln in 0 greek reek waters arid tile the astonished mistook aror for wings tile the first sails which they beheld cat but a spying model in imitation of n dove made of wood and made to fly by regulated mechanics Is said to have been constructed prior to B 0 find and the satires of published in 11 C ridiculed the various means which had been suggested to enable men and ships to soar through the air which shows allows that tile the iden idea of flying was waa fairly common then during the reign of emperor vero nero the scientists scientist endeavored to build ome machine which would conquer the air in 1070 francisco lana an italian jesuit published a study on the physical properties of air ibar in advance of tile general knowledge of its his time ile he proposed a vessel Eus suspended from four hollow copper globes from which the air was to be evacuated by filling them with water anter and then allowing water to run out through a pipe 34 feet long but concluded that led shall never allow such a machine to be successful in practice and added for who does docs not see that no city would ile be secure from surprise as a ship could descend tit at any hour from the very most places and from it issue men intent on ruin what appears to he be the first fars t authentic record of an aerial trip wits wa that of 1 1783 when a frenchman named resler nosier took a trip in a balloon built aby by two friends the lers they filled a large cloth bag with hot air and attached to it a fire pot to keep keel a continuous supply of air in the ball balloon and sen cent t it up with animate as the first passengers when the animals came down alive roster itaster enthusiastically offered himself as the first human passenger ile he finally did succeed in getting up cp and Is reputed to he be tile the first man who ever took a trip into the air that was the beginning of what Is now known as tighter lighter than air craft one of the first recorded attempts to build a heavier than air lying flying machine which would lift I 1 itself without the he use of gas was made in 1500 by the artist leonardo da vinci vencl he made several small models and la 14 reputed to have gotten some of them in the tha air to in 1842 two r englishmen mg lishman lish men named and hanson built a model that resembled closel 1 some of our serial aerial mono planes it was driven by a one cylinder steam en gine and succeeded in getting into the air be i cause of lack of money the englishmen never got farther than this after this little progress was made for a time until the wrights and langley in america in germany and one or two french men started their experiments with gliders and it was awas from these glider gilder experiments that the practical aIr airplane pInne evolved these experiments developed principles which made it possible to con arol an airplane in flig flight lit that Is to keep it stable aurini this period a power driven machine was developed by dr samuel P langley in 1691 he made several models for alch power was furnished by rubber hands n ne finally succeeded in constructing ft power plant big enough to alve a full size plane hut but the machine crashed into ino the Poti potomac mac river during iti it i test in september 1003 Ti I ingle wils was ridiculed for the crash of his lying flying nin machine chine which has since been proved to have been capable of night people seemed scorned him and tie he died a failure only to be granted tits his recognition it in another decade on an december 17 a queer loo ing contras tion called a flying machine and made by two unknowns orville and wilbur wright glit was pushed onto mite a runway nt at KI kitty tty hawk N 0 the wright brothers had bad been experimenting jhb aeronautics forien for years rs ond and th all ts of their A evl V W 6 I 1 n ak OE wr w ARY C arf AM I 1 fat dzur fiobo fi assouf it su glider in IWO 1002 convinced them of the effic efficiency tency of their system of maintaining equilibrium before they left their camp at kitty hawk in they were at work on the general design of a new machine which they proposed to operate with engine driven propellers unable to get the type of engine they wanted they built their own finally the engine and the airplane were assembled endless acuities ensued when it came time for the first trial the brothers tossed a coln coin to see who would fly the plane wllbur wilbur won the first flight ended when the airplane climbed a few jeet leet stalled and then settled to the ground slightly damaged the plane was repaired for the second attempt which proved to bo be the first successful light flight of a man in a heavier aban air machine wllbur wilbur having used his bla chance in the unsuccessful attempt on the fourteenth the right to the next trial belonged to orvllle orville the engine was heated up and the wire that held the machine to the track was wag released the machine started forward into the wind wllbur wilbur ran bt at the side alde holding the tha wing to balance it on the track the craft faced a 27 mlle mile wind the machine lifted from the ground after a 40 foot run and the course of tile first flight was erratic due to lr ir regularity of the air and partly to lack of expert ence in handling this machine the control of the front elevator was on account of its being balanced too near the cef center iter this gave it a tendency to turn itself when started so that it turned too far on one side and then too far on the other As a result the machine w would rise suddenly to ab outten feet and then as suddenly dart for the ground A sudden dart when a little over a hundred feet from the end of the track or a little over feet from the point at which it rose into the lie hir air ended the flight As the velocity of wind was vai over 35 feet per second and the speed of the machine over the ground against this wind 10 feet per second the speed of the machine relative to the air was over 45 feet per second and the length of the flight was equivalent to a flight of B 10 feet made in calm air this flight lasted only twelve seconds hut but it was nevertheless the first in the history lil story of the world in which a machine carrying a man had ralser itself by its own power into tse nir in full flight had sailed forward without reduction of speed and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started that vas twenty five years ago aviation developed slowly despite the pioneers who saw its possibilities unless a world war had developed it Is probable that aviation today would be in the doldrums previous ioui to 1914 when the europeans at war were striving to develop the airplane as a weapon of destruction the aviation enthusiasts were few the war forced the airplane to the front after it bad hibernated hibe mated for eleven years following the historic flight of the wright plane the aircraft of 1913 was but little different from that of 1003 in 1010 the american navy had only one airplane under the charge of a lieu tenant who was the ardys air force pilot ground squad quad ani mechanic but the world var r ar showed the possibilities ol of the airplane and when ance came the airplane began to be developed as an instrument of peace pence and commerce the effect of the world conflict on the development of civil aviation in the united states was profound many new aircraft factories had been built hundreds of aeronautical T and designers were given an opportunity to demonstrate their skill pilots were taught to fly nearly planes were manufactured scores of thousands of artisans became skilled in aircraft production nil all of which created A a personnel and material out of which was vas to develop the pot poat war aviation which differs so widely from european civil develop with peace no inconsiderable percentage of those who had been engaged in tile the manufacture of aircraft or trained e pilots became actively interested to in the civil possibilities As a result america today Is doing a prodigious amount of civil hying flying A great transcontinental system of air mall mail express and passenger service rapidly growing has been in actual operation for two years air service operators are flourishing in hundreds of cities execute executives ves are ara flying their own airplanes in the conduct of dally 1 business more than a tousand airports are in existence and the manufacturing industry la Is behind on its orders while the public la Is best familiar with the airplane as a mall mail express and passenger carrier it Is used in a wide variety of pursuits such as aerial photography airplane dusting of crops forest work scientific studies aerial advertising geographical study spotting schools of fish observing traffic congestion searching for lost persons surveying nap map making representation of properties engineering surveys carrying supplies up to inaccessible regions first ald aid to devastated devastated cities and in many other ways there are now 17 air mall mail companies operating 25 lines with important additional routes scheduled ached for early operation tho the mall mail planes are lying flying now at the rate of more than miles a year and in 1029 wll will fly more than 10 miles a year the mal planes are flying 94 per cent of the lie total mileage P scheduled nod that record includes night flying in bath cireo eions over miles of lighted airways the air mall mail planes now traverse 37 states with scheduled stops planes flying united states mall mail this year will lv more than half as much us as the total mileage flown by mall mail express and passenger planes in europe the post department predicts that within two years every city of will lie he on an air mall mail and transport route that soon mall mail planes will carry pounds of mall mail dully dally that 1000 pounds of air mall mail will be a rural load that within five years nil all first cirl class mall mail between cities will be carried by airplane that the planes will carry mall mail clerks clerics who will sort the mall mail while the plane Is in transit others point out that the air mall mail lines will soon be extended to south america already we have foreign lines to british columbia eastern canada mexico city and a contract ha has s been let for a route to the panama canal anal zone with a possible extension to dutch guiana untied united states department of commerce scouts are now working on air lines to latin america knowing that tant this speedy transportation will give america a real trade advantage over europe in addition to the air mall mileage the air passenger services have expanded rapidly in r recent months the pacific coast area with its great dl di between cities took the lead in providing dally air ps passenger enger service some of the important por tant strictly passenger lines now in operation include those from san francisco to los angeles which makes the trip in three hours los loa angeles i to son san diego in 70 minutes los angeles to phoenix ariz in three hours los log angeles to salt lake in six elx while there Is a regular passenger service from los angeles to seattle ft a distance negotiated to in 14 hours in the middle west regular dally passenger service ervice i Is provided between the twin cities and chicago hi cago fargo and the tha twin cities chicago and cleveland chicago and st louis and chi cago detroit cleveland and chicago to omaha tri trl motored 12 passenger planes are now operal 1 ins ing from son san francisco to chicago a night flight of 20 hours by june 1929 it will he possible to fly in large trl motored planes equipped with pull roan man berths from new york to the const coast such Is the record to which this lusty fusty youth american aviation can point on its twenty birthday and nil all of this amazing development grew out of ek a 12 second foot flight by orville and wllbur wilbur wright at kitty fawk N C Q en do rember ember 17 I 1 J |