The Washington times., 1918-12-17
Fifteen Years Ago Today
The First Flight of Real Airplane Lasted % SECONDS
And Wilbur Wright Said: ''We Have
Achieved Our Fondest Hopes"

fight ever made in machine accomplished
which the for aftynne seconds and moved
Ssshsd rs S P9 s9 AZ. and waters Sas
snd e Syev al SeS5 sbo %t twelve
The %se Hs When at .1 f lin1 r s
Wright the machine push the engine started
propeller is speed the INA machine hin 5Ose tho
operator oD3ns oP'd directing rect its flight at Win
able A .aSs dG %S fr nI an and descended the
The the house erected d.. for it
succeeded to of their hopes
Sounds almost like ancient history, but it is instead
the story telegraphed from North Carolina FIFTEEN
YEARS AGO TODAY when on the desolate sand dunes
that stretch foorny out between the Atlantic ocean and
Abemarle sound American genius conquered the air and
made the beginning of form Of transportation whose
final development no one can guess
Last week European plane carried FORTY PAS
SENGERS through the air and could have continued Its
Eight as long as the supply of gasoene aboard held out
The Italians have built bombing machines capable OF
fitting FIFTEEN TONS The endurance record is twenty
four hours of flying without descent. The maximum
heip above the earth to which human fight has reached
ia more than five and half miles, and machines are now
building which are expected to fly $50 miles an hour
Fifteen years has seen more accomplishment in aVia
ton than in all the centuries since mythology equipped
Pegasus with wings; Daedelus escaped by fight from
Crete and Medea was drawn by the winged dragons OF
Heios (The stories of these ancient and imaginary peo
pie are almost as interesting the real achievements OF
Cuynemer and Lufbery You can find them in any good
book mythology
The first chronicled attempt at fight by human was
the endeayor made by Italian to fly from Stirling Cas-
tie in England to France.
Equipped only with some feathered wings he fell, Of
but he excused his failure by saying that some
unfriendy person had mixed the feathers Of barn yard
fowl with the eagle feathers which he was using and that
they attracted him to the earth
Tonr befora tho success of the heavier than air
chimes aerial ascensions had been accomplished with bal
looms.
The first living things that ever looked down from
detached observation point upon the earth revolving in
It's space a sheep. rooster and duck, which
ascending in 1888 in gas balloon from the of the
present peace conference reached height of 1900 feet
and descended gently earth again with greater dam
age than lame wing for the rooster which the sheep in
the excitement had kicked.
One of the first human beings rise above the earth
was the French physicist j. c. A. Charles, who had the
unique experience of seeing two sunrses and two sunsets
on the same day. The feat resulted from his rising early
enough in the morning to the RISE then making his
ascension after the sun had set.
AS he in the air the appeared again his
extended horizon and when he dropped to lower altitude
disappeared for the second time.
How quickly we accustom ourselves to the unusual is
evidenced by the fact that although aeropane has
ried the mail from Washington to New York for
months missing only two trips in the whole time not
Westinghouse in thousand takes the trouble to watch
for these daily flights and the only comment that greet
reduction in aeroplane postage cheap enough you
can afford it,
1t is rather strange thing that the Wrghts as they
conquered the air. little commercial value in
their accomplishment
The chief value of the aeropane they believed would
be IN WAR when it could be used for accommodating pur
poses or perhaps to drop explosives upon enemy.
In how short time their dreams made true.
Had the war lasted forty eight hours longer of
plosves would have fallen Berlin from American planes
driven by American flyers. They loaded and ready
TO go.
the war had lasted six months longer the aeropanes
would have far outsrpped any other mechanical devices
Of destruction
IT, in fifteen years. have advanced from nothing to
the present development of flying what may expect
to do in the NEXT QUARTER OF CENTURY?
Two hundred miles an hour Is a perfectly practical