The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1922-01-20

IL oA1t OtS
When Wilbur Wright, in a heavier
than-air machine, flew S52 feet at
/ Kitty Hawk on December II, 1903, the
feat was pronounced one of the mar
wells Of the century. The whole world
rang with the accomplishment.
Recently a m%onoplane, piloted by
Edward Stinson, accompanied by
Lloyd Bertaud, a mechanic, finished q
continuous flight of 26 our IL
minutes 80 seconds. In eighteen years
a span of less than a minute a been
stretched to more than a day and a
night. Yet the marvellous perform
ance at Mineola is heralded as simply
the breaking of a worlds endurance
flight in aviation.
Many Lives Sacrificed.
While the advance in the science OF
flying has peer both rapid and star
Ting, when the period involved is CON
sidered, a careful analysis shows that
the progress came not by leaps and
bounds. but rather through hundreds
of experiments, sacrificed lives and de-
termination seldom devoted to similar
projects.
Five years after Wrlght's initial
flight he still held the worlds record
with seventy-seven miles, made in :
hours 20 minutes and 70 seconds at
Anyours. France. Two years before
that. A. Santos Dumont covered I2O
feet in the first flight ever made in
Europe. In 1909 Henry Farman had
gained the flying honors for France
with a fight of 1S7 miles in 4 hours
6 minutes and 25 seconds.
lust a decade after Wright a
made his first HOP off" national and
international flying races for famous
trophies were the vogue in both
Europe and America. Then came the
war. and the sporting side of aviation
gave way to the more serious combat
of the air, with hundreds OF aviators
killing and being killed in a realm
foreign to mankind but a few years
before.
Before the transition, however, the
feats of the Wrights, Farman, Santos
Dumont and the other pioneers of the
plane had ceased to be impressive.
Flying had passed to the competitive
plane, with records for speed, endur-
ance, altitude and passenger carrying
being pushed upward annually. Seven
years after Wright's 50-second flight,
G.. Tourney held the endurance record
with eleven hours Of continuous flying.
~ L. .1oro 80 1O1A th1c roaNrd hod
been almost doubled, for w. Land
mann maintained a continuous flight
Of 81 hours 48 minutes and 40 seconds,
in Germany, between June 26 and n
of that year.. The records also show
that l.. Noel Of England flew for more
than 10 minutes with nine passengers,
and fifteen passengers had been car
ried to a height Of nearly a thousand
feet by the Russian aviator Sykorsky.
Stinson added 2 hours and % sec
onds to the worlds best previous en-
durance record previously held by
Bro~ussoutrut and Bernard as the re-
suit Of a flight made in France a year
ago last June. A span of four and a
half hours was thus added by Stinson
to the record made by Landmann some
seven years ago.
Flying at a speed of ninety-five
miles an hour, they had battled with a
snowstorm while skimming over the
earth at a height of less than 100 feet,
with cold below zero, with a seventy
mile gale, and with hot singing oil
that splashed in their faces and al
most blinded them.
Fly $500 Miles.
While no official record was kept of
the distance flown by the Americans,
competent observers estimated that
their plane had covered approximately
800 miles. In distance covered Stin-
and Bertaud undoubtedly sur
passed all former records, and more
than equaled the transatlantic flight
Of 1860 miles made by late Capt. Sir
John Alcock and Lieut.. Arthur w.
Brown from ST. Johns, Newfoundland,
to Clifden, Ireland.
The endurance flight came as q
climax to the achievement of
American aviation in 1921, when four
records were made by Yankee
ayiators. The other three were:
An altitude and efficiency record for
flying boats made when a Looming
reached 1880 feet with
four passengers on August 16.
An altitude record made by Lieut..
7. A. McCreedy OF the army air SER
ice, who piloted IN airplane to the
height Of 1880 feet at Dayton, Ohio,
IN September %, breaking the pre-
,ious mark Of SO, ia feet set by Maj.
Rudolph Schroeder.
A speed record for a closed course In
he Pulitzer trophy race was made by
Bert Acosta, WHO drove a Curtiss navy
acer at an average speed OF 1857
niles an hour for $50 miles at Omaha, =
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