The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1928-12-14
FIRST M0T0RED AIR FLIGHT
MADE Is YEARS AGO, DEC. II
GENIUS AND PERSISTENCE OF
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS
CONQUERED AIR


recall the newspaper headline
that told of actual flight mad
through the air by one of tn
Wright brothers, December II
1903. This was at Kitty Hawk
on the coast of North Carolina, il
a machine invented and made b,
Orville and Wilbur Wright. Oh,
papers, and private records fur
nish material for a wonderful
story of years of persistent toll
crowned by ultimate success.
In it's December number Popu
lar Aviation tells many thrilling
incidents of the work of the
Wrights. extracts from which fol
low:
Twenty-Five years ago Orville
Wright took off from a monorail
on a Carolina sand dune on the
worlds first solo hop. Together
with his brother Wilbur, Mr..
Wright continued practicing, after
the manner of all ambitious pilots,
accommodating time in the air. 1t is
encouraging to consider that after
more than a year of flying neither
Orville Wright or his brother
had flown an hour, and that sew
eral strenuous months of flying
still remained for both before
either could have hoped to qualify
for a private license under pres
ent regulations.
In December, 1901, the North
American Review published an
article by Rear Admiral George
w. Melville, Engineer-in-Chief of
the United States Navy, entitled
1.-THE Engineer and the Problem of
Aerial Navigation" 1t is difficult
today to believe that Just twenty
eve years ago many of the best
informed minds of the country
were in practical agreement as to
the total incompetency of man to
fly. Nevertheless, Admiral Mel
vile voiced the pessimism and
skepticism common to the major
ity of his colleagues in engineer
ing when he wrote:
"In earlier times many thought
full men have given unqualified
recognition to the Use and de-
of the imagination. But
could they see now, in the light of
history, with what folly human ma
ture has pushed a noble truth to
the extreme, they would realize
that much of it's wisdom and gran
deur has been obscured by the
abuse of the imagination and un-
due revealing in is pleasures.
This folly has been always pc
culiarly manifest in natural sci
ence, whence it generates to the
field of applied mechanics.
Outside of the proven impos-
sible, there probably can be found
no better example of the specula-
tive tendency carrying man to the
verge of the chimerical than in his
attempts to initiate birds, or no
field where so much inventive
seed has been sown with SO little
return as in the attempts of man
to fly successfully through the
air. Never, it would seem, has
the human mind so p%ersistently
evaded the issue, begged the ques-
ton, and 'wrangling resolutely
with the facts insisted upon
dreams being accepted as actual
performance, as when there has
been proclaimed time and again
the proximate and perfect utility
of the balloon or of the flying
machine.
Notwithstanding the amount
of accurate physical knowledge
now possessed by man and the un-
RENTING efforts on the part of
many earnest investigators, pur-
suing methods of observation and
experiment, who have within re-
cent years placed the study of the
problem Of aerial navigation on a
thoroughly scientific basis, it may
De truly said that, so far as the
of a commercial solution of
he problem is concerned, man is t
.oday no nearer fulfillment than ;
le was ages ago when he first
lreamed of flying through the
nd =, 1s+R1O f,,nfID.. IN
"The successful flying machine,
o spring full-fledged from the
tshes of present failure, would
to be a Phoenix"
Professor Simon Newcomb, in
IN article printed some three
months earlier in McClure's Maya
inc, answered his WI question,
Is the Airship Coming?" by point
ng out certain laws of physics
which seemed fatally opposed to
human flight. He called attention
% the fact that in any construc-
ion the weight is cubed as the
'ize is doubted, while the surface
Irea is merely squared. DR.. New
.omb continued: '
I'VE may now see the kernel of
he difficulty. If we had a metal /
rigid and at the same time so !
light that a sheet of it twenty
square and a millimeter
hick would be as stiff as a board
nd would not weigh more than a