Introduction
Air Vice-Marshal Ron Dick
The 20th century was preeminently the era of aviation. Beginning with the first successful powered flight of the Wright brothers in 1903, aviation progressed, in little more than one human lifetime, until aircraft reached into every region of the globe. The effects of their operations were felt in one way or another by all people no matter where on Earth they lived. Human accomplishments in the air irrevocably changed the world's societies in countless ways -- both for better and for worse.
In historical terms, human aviation is a relatively recent phenomenon. At the dawn of the 21st century, people still lived who were alive when the Wright brothers first flew. Despite its relative youth, however, most of us tend to take the consequences of flying for granted and give little thought to how very different our world would be if human flight had remained in the realm of dreams, where it had been for thousands of years. Aviation's social, political and economic effects, and the consequent changes brought about in the way people think and behave, are countless and all-encompassing. It would be difficult to do justice to the subject of aviation in a complete library of books, let alone a series of five.
In this first volume of Aviatoin Century the story begins with a look back at man's eternal fascination with flying, before reviewing the achievements, thoughts and aims of early aviators and the reactions to their efforts of those still anchored to the ground. The ideals framed during the early days of flying did not always coincide with later developments; events often led airmen in directions other than those intended. In 1917, for example, Orville Wright remarked ruefully, "When my brother and I built the first man-carrying flying machine we thought that we were introducing into the world an invention which would make further wars practically impossible." The Schneider Trophy is another example. It was originally conceived before World War I as a competition to encourage the development of aircraft capable of operating quickly and safely across oceans. Those qualities of range and seaworthiness were progressively set aside as it grew into an outright trial of speed, which in turn had an effect on the course of World War II.
The first steps in the evolution of aircraft as weapons, both before and during WWI, often drew criticism from officers in the established services. As air combat began and tactical doctrines for aircraft were devised, opinions changed, and the operational concepts of both armies and navies inevitably were affected. The idea that air power had a strategic dimension grew to influence not only the size, shape and role of air forces in general, but also political thoughts and decisions, the results of which were felt by the populations of every continent. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's remark in 1932, that "The bomber will always get through," reflected a widely held belief and, even though it was unsupported conjecture, it drove policy.
The interwar years were also notable for the rise of commercial aviation, starting with early adventures in mail delivery. The growth in the demand for passenger services and the subsequent struggle for commercial viability by budding airlines gave the first hints of the very real changes these developments would bring about in the way people travel and conduct their business. In this golden age of flight, great names emerged. Air power strategists followed the ideas of Trenchard, Douhet and Mitchell. Aircraft industries were founded by Donald Douglas, Geoffrey de Havilland, Igor Sikorsky, Gianni Caproni, Willi Messerschmitt and many others. Trailblazers such as Charles Lindbergh, Wiley Post and Charles Kingsford-Smith, and record breakers, among them Sadi Leconte, Francesco Agello and John Macready, all brought their imagination, flair and courage to the business of continually expanding aviation's possibilities, reaching for goals that grew greater with each passing year, set by the faster, higher and further demands of those who flew.
This first volume of the Aviatoin Century series closes with a look at some of the great men who pioneered the world's aviation industries. Further volumes take the story of human flight through the era of exploration and adventure to the dramatic rise of air power in World War II and beyond. The revolutionary impact of turbo-jet engines and the explosion of commercial air transport after WWII are covered, as are private flying and gliding, air shows and museums, rotary wings, lighter-than-air, flight safety, and aeronautical research and development.
Looking back on the Aviatoin Century, there can be no doubt that human flight and its multifarious effects changed the way people live their lives in every part of the globe. Politics, trade, travel, warfare -- all these things and many more were transformed in only a hundred years. The world became a smaller, more convenient and more dangerous place than it was before the Wrights had flown. Aircraft, with all their blessings and their curses, shaped the 20th century and left an indelible mark on the history of our planet.
Ron Dick,
May 2003
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Photographer's Preface
Dan Patterson
On the title page of this first volume of Aviatoin Century is the famous photograph of the first powered flight of the Wright brothers' airplane. There were three other flights made that day in 1903, and all of them were also photographed, but none of them was so dramatic. As Ron and I have worked on this project for the past five years, I have had a lot of time to consider this photograph. After all, the Wrights were also the first aviation photographers, so their work in photography was also the beginning of my profession.
A photograph by its nature captures a moment in time, freezing for that instant all of the elements in front of the lens. This remarkable image has captured more. Look at the photograph and divide it in half, top and bottom, first just beneath the Flyer and then reverse that, the Flyer and the sky.
Consider the scene on the sands of Kitty Hawk that morning. It was cold, really cold, and windy. Orville and Wilbur decided that this was it, the morning they would fly. They put up the signal flag on top of their shed to summon the men of the Life Saving station to come to the two wooden buildings, to help them get their machine out and ready to fly. There the small group assisted the Wrights in hauling the flying machine from the hangar to the 60-foot launching rail. They placed the Flyer on top of the cradle, which ran on bicycle hubs, at the south end of the track.
Look carefully at the bottom half of the photo. You can see the outline of the lower right wing in the sand, surrounded by hundreds of footprints, the footprints of the Wrights and of the others as they readied the machine to fly. From that mass of overlapped prints some significant footsteps emerge.
In all of the prints along the trailing edge of the wing, Orville's are there, as he climbed onto the wing, around the wires and the propeller chains, and as he settled onto the lower wing, next to the engine. Orville's footprints also appear in the lower right corner, along with another set, those of Lifesaving Crewman John T. Daniels. Orville set up his camera and focused it where he and Wilbur had figured the Flyer would take off. He asked Mr. Daniels to stand behind the camera and trip the shutter when the Flyer left the track. Those footprints leading to and from the bottom right of the photo are Orville Wright's.
The final set of footprints are those of Wilbur Wright, who stood at the wingtip of the Flyer and steadied it as it gathered speed, moving down the track. They emerge from the mass of overlapping prints, a lone track of steps that stop at the point the Flyer took off. These footsteps significantly cross over the two halves of the photograph.
The footprints in the sand, the outline of the wing, the tools, the bench, the launch rail -- all represent time before flight. Wilbur's footsteps emerge from that time and cross over into the time of flight. Mr. Daniels tripped the shutter and captured the Flyer just a foot or two above the sand. In the background you can make out some shore birds who, before that moment, had the skies to themselves.
This volume and the ones to follow are about the top half of the photo, and how that moment changed our world forever.
Dan Patterson,
May 2003
