If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Texas Soars into Aviation History
RAP,
In the spirit of Kitty Hawk, here's a good story from todays Dallas Morning News. I would have posted a link but they require registration (free) to read their web site. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Texas soars into aviation history 10:49 AM CST on Friday, December 12, 2003 By BRIAN ANDERSON / Dallas Web Staff Texans have been winging it from the very beginning. Almost 40 years before brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright took to the skies over Kitty Hawk, Jacob Friedrich Brodbeck was seeking a bird's eye view of Luckenbach. Details of Brodbeck's alleged first flight are sketchy at best. Some say it was 1865 when his homemade aircraft reached an altitude of 12 feet in a field southeast of Fredericksburg. Others say it was 1868 over a park in San Antonio. Either way, the crash landing was the same. There are no photographs by which to remember or confirm Brodbeck's claim to fame. The same goes for the 1902 flight of Burrell Cannon over the East Texas town of Pittsburg. At least five people claimed to have witnessed Cannon's brief first flurry in flight. However, a brisk wind blew the Baptist minister's airship off a train bound for St. Louis, destroying the aircraft before Cannon could show it to the world. Aviation historian and author Roger Bilstein of Dripping Springs said the Texans might have built "flying machines," but none provided the powered, controlled flight that the Wright brothers achieved Dec. 17, 1903. "Texans did not beat the Wright brothers to the punch," Bilstein said. "If you look at the designs of these other characters, there's no way they could have achieved sustained flight. They didn't know what they were doing. It was the Wright brothers all the way." But that's not to say Texas doesn't have plenty to boast about on the 100th anniversary of flight. "It's been a long and very significant history in Texas for the aviation industry," Bilstein said. Two factors were primarily responsible for propelling the fledgling aviation industry into Texas: "Texas has fairly good weather and two-thirds of the state is flat as a tabletop," said Jay Miller, an aviation consultant and author with 33 books to his credit. Wings for war On the heels of the Wright brothers' success, the U.S. military began to explore the potential advantages of air power. Texas became the testing ground for the nation's first military aviators. In February 1910, the nation's first Top Gun arrived at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. Armed with a wood and cloth Wright Flyer, much like the same twin-prop biplane flown at Kitty Hawk, and instructions provided by the famed brothers, Lt. Benjamin Foulois set about mastering the Army's newest war machine. He began public demonstration flights less than a month later. "That really was the first operational military aircraft in the United States," Miller said, describing the event as one of the most significant in Texas aviation history. While Fort Sam Houston was home to the military's first flight successes, it was also the scene of its first tragedy -- Lt. George Kelly's fatal crash on May 10, 1911. "They weren't trusting this flying contraption for the purpose of warfare," said Fernando Cortez, director of the museum program at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. "There wasn't a broad acceptance in the beginning." Kelly's death was the last straw for the post's skeptical commander, who promptly ordered an end to air operations. "He'd had enough of that type of activity on his base because Kelly got killed and the planes were scaring the horses," Cortez said. The Texas skies were empty for a time. But when Mexican bandit Poncho Villa began conducting raids along the U.S.-Mexico border, aircraft were dispatched back to the state and they quickly evolved into a key reconnaissance tool for the Army. "That was our very first aerial campaign against a foreign country," Cortez said. "It was still very much trial and error." The experience would prove valuable as World War I loomed on the horizon and American aviators rushed to equal their more advanced European counterparts. According to Cortez, battles over airplane patent rights stalled American flight innovation while several European nations were busy developing combat aircraft and tactics. "We had fallen behind," Cortez said. "We had to play catch-up then, but we didn't really come out of the war with a front-line aircraft until the 1920s." With America's entry into World War I, air bases sprung up across Texas to begin training thousands of airmen for duty. Again, San Antonio became the hub of activity with the founding of Kelly Field, named for the pioneer pilot who had died years before. That single base eventually would train almost every American combat pilot to see action in the war. Barnstormers and oil barrels With the war over, scores of pilots returned to Texas to earn a living from the cockpit. But this time, it was out of uniform as barnstorming daredevils. "You had thousands of military aviators who came back home and became entrepreneurs," Cortez said. Cheap surplus aircraft were available for as little as $200 with no license or registration required. And with a general public fascinated by the new world of flight, a skilled pilot with a knack for showmanship could turn a tidy profit. Curious Texans lined up at local air shows, spending up to $1 for their first ride in a flying machine. "A lot of the rural Americans didn't know anything about airplanes," Cortez said. "They'd never seen one." Audiences were wowed as pilots buzzed their planes through makeshift barns and wing-walking stuntmen strutted their way through death-defying acts. Still others found work with the state's flourishing oil business. With limited railroad access to many parts of the state and few paved roadways in rural Texas, the airplane became the transportation of choice for oil prospectors scouting for the next big gusher. "Aviation became the way to get around in Texas," historian Bilstein said. "The petroleum industry was an important driver in the growth of general aviation in the 1920s and 1930s." Texan pilots, Texan planes But the call to arms soon sounded again. And as the nation mobilized its military might for World War II, Texas returned to its role as a training ground for thousands of aviators. "We had 48 training fields in Texas alone," Cortez said. "We actually won the training war in World War II more than anything else. We had a much better program for pumping out gunners and bombardiers." The huge influx of men and machines to Texas airfields brought a cultural shift to the state. At Avenger Field in Swee****er, women left their own mark on aviation history, earning their wings as Women Airforce Service Pilots. The WASPs, trained to ferry new aircraft across the country and tow aerial targets for combat training, were the first women to fly U.S. military aircraft. At the same time, Texas factories sprang to life to produce the aircraft that would do battle over Europe and the Pacific. Planes such as the B-24 Liberator and F4U Corsair poured from the assembly lines, turning the tide of the war and transforming the Texas economy. "Think about the economic impact, the technological impact, the social impact on these places," said Dr. Erik Carlson, who oversees the History of Aviation Collection at the University of Texas at Dallas. Military aircraft would remain a fixture in Texas throughout the Cold War and beyond. But with Germany and Japan defeated, Texas aviators could turn their attention elsewhere. Moving the masses The nation's largest commercial airlines got off the ground by hauling mail for the U.S. government in the late 1920s and 1930s. Fighting men became the cargo as those companies surrendered their aircraft to the war effort in the early 1940s. "The carriers got used to that. And after the war, they wanted a piece of the pie," Carlson said, explaining how the airlines saw a bright future in flying civilian passengers around the globe. "It's really an interesting time for commercial aviation. World War II is really the turning point." The postwar era of aviation brought an unprecedented growth in passenger airline service. As the military consolidated air operations, former auxiliary landing fields began to find a new purpose for the civilian sector as municipal airports. "After the war, you see the local service carriers operating in smaller cities. That has an impact in the growth of Texas," Carlson said. "Some are World War II vets. They bought an old DC-3 and wanted to start an airline." Texan Cyrus Smith pushed his company, American Airlines, to the forefront of domestic passenger service and aggressively promoted the safety of air travel. "He built up American Airlines into a major, major transcontinental system," Bilstein said. "American became a good example of how to run an airline." Meanwhile, Braniff Airways relocated its headquarters from Oklahoma to Texas in 1942, building its future on aspirations for international passenger operations. "Commercial airlines start to really grow. It's stimulated by the economy. The middle class is growing. Business is booming after the war and businessmen are flying," Carlson said. Braniff eventually opened service to Central and South America and fueled interest in international flights originating from the Lone Star State. "You see routes developing and maturing out of Texas," Carlson said. "What is going to happen in Texas after World War II is that established carriers are going to start wanting to fly out of the big cities." Future of flight Experts agree that Texas will continue to be a key player in the evolution of aviation. The next generation of advanced tactical fighters and troop transport systems already are beginning production at North Texas defense plants, continuing the state's tradition of producing some the world's most advanced military aircraft. In October 2001, Lockheed-Martin was awarded the largest contract in U.S. military history to build the futuristic Joint Strike Fighter, a project that will keep Texas assembly lines busy for decades to come. Texas remains home to some of the world's most important airlines and busiest airports. American Airlines became the globe's biggest air carrier with its 2001 acquisition of TWA, and Southwest Airlines has grown from its humble beginnings in 1971 to become the new model for successful airline operations. The world's largest airport at the time of its first flight in January 1974, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport remains a mammoth in the industry. According to Airports Council International, preliminary 2003 numbers indicate D/FW is the sixth busiest airport in the world in terms of passengers served and third busiest in actual aircraft traffic. Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport ranked 14th in passengers and 12th in takeoffs and landings. And NASA operations at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where an entirely new breed of Texas aviators began training in 1961, eventually could pave the way for new forms of passenger airline service above the atmosphere and beyond. The facility served as home to the early Gemini, Apollo and Skylab projects. It remains the operational center for space shuttle and International Space Station missions. "It's not just props and jets, but space," Carlson said of Texas aviation history. "Who knows what's going to happen with the space shuttle? But I think space travel is going to be interesting to see what will happen in the next 50 to 100 years." With Texans at the controls, he said, the destinations are endless. |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
And without Lyndon, much of this would be someplace else.
|
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Blanche wrote: And without Lyndon, much of this would be someplace else. If it existed at all. George Patterson Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is "Hummmmm... That's interesting...." |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Also just read in some aviation history books that the jet engine was first
tested in Texas and blind flying was perfected here, as well. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
A,
Thanks for the post. I guess nobody clued in the folks that the French flew in 1783. But, being French isn't politically correct right now, and because they weren't Texans, they should be ignored g. Kind of fun to watch the "pre-Wright" claims pop up from time to time now that we are at the centenary of powered, controllable flight...wish I could recall the name of the book that examines all of the other claimants and debunks the myths. Terrible to get old. All the best, Rick "A" wrote in message m... RAP, In the spirit of Kitty Hawk, here's a good story from todays Dallas Morning News. I would have posted a link but they require registration (free) to read their web site. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Texas soars into aviation history 10:49 AM CST on Friday, December 12, 2003 By BRIAN ANDERSON / Dallas Web Staff Texans have been winging it from the very beginning. Almost 40 years before brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright took to the skies over Kitty Hawk, Jacob Friedrich Brodbeck was seeking a bird's eye view of Luckenbach. Details of Brodbeck's alleged first flight are sketchy at best. Some say it was 1865 when his homemade aircraft reached an altitude of 12 feet in a field southeast of Fredericksburg. Others say it was 1868 over a park in San Antonio. Either way, the crash landing was the same. There are no photographs by which to remember or confirm Brodbeck's claim to fame. The same goes for the 1902 flight of Burrell Cannon over the East Texas town of Pittsburg. At least five people claimed to have witnessed Cannon's brief first flurry in flight. However, a brisk wind blew the Baptist minister's airship off a train bound for St. Louis, destroying the aircraft before Cannon could show it to the world. Aviation historian and author Roger Bilstein of Dripping Springs said the Texans might have built "flying machines," but none provided the powered, controlled flight that the Wright brothers achieved Dec. 17, 1903. "Texans did not beat the Wright brothers to the punch," Bilstein said. "If you look at the designs of these other characters, there's no way they could have achieved sustained flight. They didn't know what they were doing. It was the Wright brothers all the way." But that's not to say Texas doesn't have plenty to boast about on the 100th anniversary of flight. "It's been a long and very significant history in Texas for the aviation industry," Bilstein said. Two factors were primarily responsible for propelling the fledgling aviation industry into Texas: "Texas has fairly good weather and two-thirds of the state is flat as a tabletop," said Jay Miller, an aviation consultant and author with 33 books to his credit. Wings for war On the heels of the Wright brothers' success, the U.S. military began to explore the potential advantages of air power. Texas became the testing ground for the nation's first military aviators. In February 1910, the nation's first Top Gun arrived at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. Armed with a wood and cloth Wright Flyer, much like the same twin-prop biplane flown at Kitty Hawk, and instructions provided by the famed brothers, Lt. Benjamin Foulois set about mastering the Army's newest war machine. He began public demonstration flights less than a month later. "That really was the first operational military aircraft in the United States," Miller said, describing the event as one of the most significant in Texas aviation history. While Fort Sam Houston was home to the military's first flight successes, it was also the scene of its first tragedy -- Lt. George Kelly's fatal crash on May 10, 1911. "They weren't trusting this flying contraption for the purpose of warfare," said Fernando Cortez, director of the museum program at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. "There wasn't a broad acceptance in the beginning." Kelly's death was the last straw for the post's skeptical commander, who promptly ordered an end to air operations. "He'd had enough of that type of activity on his base because Kelly got killed and the planes were scaring the horses," Cortez said. The Texas skies were empty for a time. But when Mexican bandit Poncho Villa began conducting raids along the U.S.-Mexico border, aircraft were dispatched back to the state and they quickly evolved into a key reconnaissance tool for the Army. "That was our very first aerial campaign against a foreign country," Cortez said. "It was still very much trial and error." The experience would prove valuable as World War I loomed on the horizon and American aviators rushed to equal their more advanced European counterparts. According to Cortez, battles over airplane patent rights stalled American flight innovation while several European nations were busy developing combat aircraft and tactics. "We had fallen behind," Cortez said. "We had to play catch-up then, but we didn't really come out of the war with a front-line aircraft until the 1920s." With America's entry into World War I, air bases sprung up across Texas to begin training thousands of airmen for duty. Again, San Antonio became the hub of activity with the founding of Kelly Field, named for the pioneer pilot who had died years before. That single base eventually would train almost every American combat pilot to see action in the war. Barnstormers and oil barrels With the war over, scores of pilots returned to Texas to earn a living from the cockpit. But this time, it was out of uniform as barnstorming daredevils. "You had thousands of military aviators who came back home and became entrepreneurs," Cortez said. Cheap surplus aircraft were available for as little as $200 with no license or registration required. And with a general public fascinated by the new world of flight, a skilled pilot with a knack for showmanship could turn a tidy profit. Curious Texans lined up at local air shows, spending up to $1 for their first ride in a flying machine. "A lot of the rural Americans didn't know anything about airplanes," Cortez said. "They'd never seen one." Audiences were wowed as pilots buzzed their planes through makeshift barns and wing-walking stuntmen strutted their way through death-defying acts. Still others found work with the state's flourishing oil business. With limited railroad access to many parts of the state and few paved roadways in rural Texas, the airplane became the transportation of choice for oil prospectors scouting for the next big gusher. "Aviation became the way to get around in Texas," historian Bilstein said. "The petroleum industry was an important driver in the growth of general aviation in the 1920s and 1930s." Texan pilots, Texan planes But the call to arms soon sounded again. And as the nation mobilized its military might for World War II, Texas returned to its role as a training ground for thousands of aviators. "We had 48 training fields in Texas alone," Cortez said. "We actually won the training war in World War II more than anything else. We had a much better program for pumping out gunners and bombardiers." The huge influx of men and machines to Texas airfields brought a cultural shift to the state. At Avenger Field in Swee****er, women left their own mark on aviation history, earning their wings as Women Airforce Service Pilots. The WASPs, trained to ferry new aircraft across the country and tow aerial targets for combat training, were the first women to fly U.S. military aircraft. At the same time, Texas factories sprang to life to produce the aircraft that would do battle over Europe and the Pacific. Planes such as the B-24 Liberator and F4U Corsair poured from the assembly lines, turning the tide of the war and transforming the Texas economy. "Think about the economic impact, the technological impact, the social impact on these places," said Dr. Erik Carlson, who oversees the History of Aviation Collection at the University of Texas at Dallas. Military aircraft would remain a fixture in Texas throughout the Cold War and beyond. But with Germany and Japan defeated, Texas aviators could turn their attention elsewhere. Moving the masses The nation's largest commercial airlines got off the ground by hauling mail for the U.S. government in the late 1920s and 1930s. Fighting men became the cargo as those companies surrendered their aircraft to the war effort in the early 1940s. "The carriers got used to that. And after the war, they wanted a piece of the pie," Carlson said, explaining how the airlines saw a bright future in flying civilian passengers around the globe. "It's really an interesting time for commercial aviation. World War II is really the turning point." The postwar era of aviation brought an unprecedented growth in passenger airline service. As the military consolidated air operations, former auxiliary landing fields began to find a new purpose for the civilian sector as municipal airports. "After the war, you see the local service carriers operating in smaller cities. That has an impact in the growth of Texas," Carlson said. "Some are World War II vets. They bought an old DC-3 and wanted to start an airline." Texan Cyrus Smith pushed his company, American Airlines, to the forefront of domestic passenger service and aggressively promoted the safety of air travel. "He built up American Airlines into a major, major transcontinental system," Bilstein said. "American became a good example of how to run an airline." Meanwhile, Braniff Airways relocated its headquarters from Oklahoma to Texas in 1942, building its future on aspirations for international passenger operations. "Commercial airlines start to really grow. It's stimulated by the economy. The middle class is growing. Business is booming after the war and businessmen are flying," Carlson said. Braniff eventually opened service to Central and South America and fueled interest in international flights originating from the Lone Star State. "You see routes developing and maturing out of Texas," Carlson said. "What is going to happen in Texas after World War II is that established carriers are going to start wanting to fly out of the big cities." Future of flight Experts agree that Texas will continue to be a key player in the evolution of aviation. The next generation of advanced tactical fighters and troop transport systems already are beginning production at North Texas defense plants, continuing the state's tradition of producing some the world's most advanced military aircraft. In October 2001, Lockheed-Martin was awarded the largest contract in U.S. military history to build the futuristic Joint Strike Fighter, a project that will keep Texas assembly lines busy for decades to come. Texas remains home to some of the world's most important airlines and busiest airports. American Airlines became the globe's biggest air carrier with its 2001 acquisition of TWA, and Southwest Airlines has grown from its humble beginnings in 1971 to become the new model for successful airline operations. The world's largest airport at the time of its first flight in January 1974, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport remains a mammoth in the industry. According to Airports Council International, preliminary 2003 numbers indicate D/FW is the sixth busiest airport in the world in terms of passengers served and third busiest in actual aircraft traffic. Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport ranked 14th in passengers and 12th in takeoffs and landings. And NASA operations at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where an entirely new breed of Texas aviators began training in 1961, eventually could pave the way for new forms of passenger airline service above the atmosphere and beyond. The facility served as home to the early Gemini, Apollo and Skylab projects. It remains the operational center for space shuttle and International Space Station missions. "It's not just props and jets, but space," Carlson said of Texas aviation history. "Who knows what's going to happen with the space shuttle? But I think space travel is going to be interesting to see what will happen in the next 50 to 100 years." With Texans at the controls, he said, the destinations are endless. |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
|
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Rick Durden wrote:
Terrible to get old. Is it? It's a part of my plans. - Andrew P.S. But not in Texas! |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Andrew Gideon wrote: Rick Durden wrote: Terrible to get old. Is it? It's a part of my plans. It beats the alternative. Or so I'm told. George Patterson Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is "Hummmmm... That's interesting...." |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
New aviation history interview: Fokker/Curtiss/Messerschmitt ace Mauno Fräntilä | Jukka O. Kauppinen | Military Aviation | 0 | September 22nd 04 11:18 PM |
Aviation Insurance History, data, records? | cloudclimbr | General Aviation | 0 | February 17th 04 03:36 AM |
How find out one's aviation insurance claims history? Aviation Claims Information Bureau? | cloudclimbr | Owning | 1 | February 15th 04 11:16 PM |
Enola Gay: Burnt flesh and other magnificent technological achievements | me | Military Aviation | 146 | January 15th 04 10:13 PM |
FS: Aviation History Books | Neil Cournoyer | Military Aviation | 0 | August 26th 03 08:32 PM |