The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1958-12-19
MONRO
CONTINUED from Page One)

VISION as the Wright Brothers,
modern pioneers will strike
through the chains that hold man
to the earth's atmosphere just as
Orville and Wilbur Wright broke
the chains which held up to the
ground back in 1918.
CAS- we strike out into the I'M
knowns of this supersonic age, we
will need the realism of the
Wright brothers too. just as the
efforts of today's would-be space
explorers are no fly-by-night Wis
ionary attempts, neither were
theirs. Working in an era when
man had been tied to the ground,
or very close to it, in the millions
of years since his creation, the
Wright brothers, who had not even
bothered to pick up their high
school diplomas, worked scientific
cally.
"They checked Weather Bureau
statistics and wind velocities as
we'll as terrain and distance from
their home base of Dayton, Ohio,
before selecting this site for their
early glider trials. They rugged up
a wind-tunnel for experiments.
They tested more than 200 types
of wing surfaces. The resulting
tables provided one of their real
contributions to aviation.
| "The Wrights were mathemati-
clans, too. Few Americans realize
how many calculations they made
on paper before they made that
frail craft which travelled 852 feet
and stayed up SO seconds in the
best of it's four successful trials
on December II, 1908. In the first
motor-powered flight, the plane
was up II seconds and went a
little over 120 feet.
"Today's pioneers are working
within vast new framework
which includes worldwide COM
petition more intense, l believe,
than the Wrights faced from other
nations.
"While their first flight travelled
against the wind at rate of less
than 35 miles an hour, we are
projecting planes that will go at
least 1000 miles an hour. Whereas
their flight went up about 10
feet, we are pushing outer space
with man piloted aircraft at $4,000
feet up. We necessarily must talk
| in terms of hundreds of millions
of dollars while they flew their
fragile little plane over these tree
lees Dare County sand dunes on a
1000 capital investment including
railroad fares to Kitty Hawk.
Counting their own labor and av-
erage skilled wages of the period,
total expenses still would have
been less than $4,000.
To-day we will have to risk
many million times more than the
bicycle business which financed
the Wright brothers operation.
We can and will break the barriers
of time and space and win our
cold war competition. 1t will be
costly. We must not pinch pennies
in the fierce struggle of today.
"But l am sure the Wrights
knew of the old proverb "wilful
waste makes woeful want" This
proverb is as important today as
it was 55 years ago. Waste in
military procurement of aircraft
can destroy our capacities to
match strength, planning of weap-
ons and design. Needless duplica
ton of missions can lead to weak
ness in striking force and diffusion
and confusion of command and
proficiency.
"Our great engineers who see 50
far in the future as to the capa-
bilities of aircraft and missiles
must be ably directed to maximize
the effective strength of this ma
ton. Our manufacturers and de-
signers of commercial aircraft
must realize that the hard facts of
international competition still are
based on iron rules of economics
as well as gravitation. In stress
ing their aircraft for super-sonic
passenger and freight movements
they must not under-stress the
eventual reckoning of our profit
and loss system.
"In sharp contrast to today's UNI
believable specifications for air.
craft were those met by the
Wright brothers when their bid of
$25, 900 for one plane was accepted
by the Army Signal Corps in 1908.
"Let me read the requirements
for the Army competition: The
machine must carry two men and
sufficient fuel for flight of 125
miles; minimum speed was set at
SO miles per hour with bonuses for
speeds over 40; the machine had
to stay in the air for at least an
hour and to land without serious
damage; it must be steered in all
directions without difficulty and
at all times under perfect control.
1t had to be designed to ascend
in any country which the field
| seyyice might encounter. land in