Invention of flight created the brave air pilot
Tommorow, the world will commerorate a 100 years agoof the aeroplane. Two bicycle shop owners in the United States changed the world forever when they flew the very first aeroplane.
Tommorow, the world will commerorate a 100 years agoof the aeroplane. Two bicycle shop owners in the United States changed the world forever when they flew the very first aeroplane.
The names possess a mythic aura –– Baron Manfred von Richthofen, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Chuck Yeager, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong.
The list is short and incomplete, yet the image of the pioneering pilot towers tall over the 20th century.
After Orville and Wilbur Wright launched the world into the era of powered flight 100 years ago on December 17, 1903, a new breed of self-confident, cool-headed daredevils stepped forth, willing to risk all on the newest frontier of human technology.
Origins didn’t matter.
Whether it was the “Red†Baron von Richthofen, a noble who was born on a Prussian estate and flew risky missions for Germany in a World War I Fokker Albatros, or Yeager, who left the backwoods of West Virginia to become the first person to break the sound barrier in 1947 in the X-1, they all shared a singular ability: They could clamber into the latest aircraft and fly it, often under enemy fire.
“Yeager flies an airplane as if he is welded to it, as if he is an integral part of it,†said Colonel Fred Ascani, who helped select Yeager for the rocket-powered X-1 flight. “The fact that he was absolutely fearless in his pursuit of technical knowledge was an added plus.â€
In 1961, Russian Gagarin became the first man in space, but his accomplishment was overshadowed by U.S. astronaut Armstrong’s first walk on the moon in 1969.
Being first was important but typical of the new breed, whose pioneers often flew themselves to early deaths.
The Red Baron downed a record 80 enemy planes before succumbing to an attack by a Canadian in a Sopwith Camel in 1918.
Earhart disappeared in 1937 over the Pacific in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra as she tried to become the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe at its widest point, around the equator.
But for the 100,000 U.S. pilots who flew war missions during World War II, flying was not about “firstsâ€, it was about fleeing their mill towns and farmland with little education for the ongoing love affair of boys for things that fly.
“The closer they could get (to an airplane), the better,†retired colonel W.R. “Bill†Stewart, 84, of San Antonio, Texas, recalled in a telephone interview.
Flying fired up the popular imagination and also inspired civilians to reach for the skies. By 1980, there were 827,0000 pilots registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States.
Douglas Carr of the National Business Aviation Association in Washington, wil never fade the scene. Carr, who wanted to be airborne since he was five years old. entered the Navy to learn, but got stuck underwater in a submarine instead.
He persisted after military service.
“Being a pilot has shown that nothing is unachievable –– that you can achieve whatever goal you have,†he said.
dpa
The names possess a mythic aura –– Baron Manfred von Richthofen, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Chuck Yeager, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong.
The list is short and incomplete, yet the image of the pioneering pilot towers tall over the 20th century.
After Orville and Wilbur Wright launched the world into the era of powered flight 100 years ago on December 17, 1903, a new breed of self-confident, cool-headed daredevils stepped forth, willing to risk all on the newest frontier of human technology.
Origins didn’t matter.
Whether it was the “Red†Baron von Richthofen, a noble who was born on a Prussian estate and flew risky missions for Germany in a World War I Fokker Albatros, or Yeager, who left the backwoods of West Virginia to become the first person to break the sound barrier in 1947 in the X-1, they all shared a singular ability: They could clamber into the latest aircraft and fly it, often under enemy fire.
“Yeager flies an airplane as if he is welded to it, as if he is an integral part of it,†said Colonel Fred Ascani, who helped select Yeager for the rocket-powered X-1 flight. “The fact that he was absolutely fearless in his pursuit of technical knowledge was an added plus.â€
In 1961, Russian Gagarin became the first man in space, but his accomplishment was overshadowed by U.S. astronaut Armstrong’s first walk on the moon in 1969.
Being first was important but typical of the new breed, whose pioneers often flew themselves to early deaths.
The Red Baron downed a record 80 enemy planes before succumbing to an attack by a Canadian in a Sopwith Camel in 1918.
Earhart disappeared in 1937 over the Pacific in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra as she tried to become the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe at its widest point, around the equator.
But for the 100,000 U.S. pilots who flew war missions during World War II, flying was not about “firstsâ€, it was about fleeing their mill towns and farmland with little education for the ongoing love affair of boys for things that fly.
“The closer they could get (to an airplane), the better,†retired colonel W.R. “Bill†Stewart, 84, of San Antonio, Texas, recalled in a telephone interview.
Flying fired up the popular imagination and also inspired civilians to reach for the skies. By 1980, there were 827,0000 pilots registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States.
Douglas Carr of the National Business Aviation Association in Washington, wil never fade the scene. Carr, who wanted to be airborne since he was five years old. entered the Navy to learn, but got stuck underwater in a submarine instead.
He persisted after military service.
“Being a pilot has shown that nothing is unachievable –– that you can achieve whatever goal you have,†he said.
dpa