PILOT TRAINING SECTION A

ornithopter is virtually incapable of flight due to the dramatic difference in the strength-
to-weight ratio of birds compared to humans. Da Vinci's manuscripts also contained
well-developed descriptions of finned projectiles, parachutes, and the helicopter. These
ideas could have advanced the course of aviation history and flight may have been
achieved centuries sooner, but unfortunately, the manuscripts were not made public
until 300 years after da Vinci's death.

While the story of aviation has its share of missed opportunities, unrealized dreams, and
failures, it is nonetheless a story of unparalleled success. When you learn to fly you
become a part of this success story. You may never break a record or have your flying
feats recorded in the history books, but as a pilot, you make your mark as one of the
unique individuals who has dared to do what others only dream about. At the
controls of an airplane, you can experience some of the same magic that
the pioneers of aviation realized.

November 21, 1783 — Launched from the gar-

den of the Chateau La Muette near Paris, the
first manned flight in history is made by Pilatre
de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes in a hot-air balloon
designed by the brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier.

We went up on the 21st of November, 1783, at near two o'clock. M.

Rozier on the west side of the balloon, I on the east. The machine,
say the public, rose with majesty . . . I was surprised at the silence
and absence of movement which our departure caused among the
spectators, and believed them to be astonished and perhaps awed at
the strange spectacle . . . — the Marquis d'Arlandes in letter to a
friend from The Saga of Flight, ed. by Neville Duke and Edward
Lanchbery

1881 through 1896 — German engineer and inventor, Otto

Lilienthal with the help of his brother Gustav proved to the west-
ern world that flight in a heavier-than-air machine was
achievable. The Lilienthal brothers used their
mechanical training to translate conclusions
made about the flight of birds into practical air
vehicles. From an artificial hill constructed
for launching his gliders, Otto Lilienthal made
over 2,000 successful glides.

There can be no doubt, in my opinion, that

by perfecting our present apparatus, and by
acquiring greater skill in using it, we shall
achieve still more favorable results with it,
and finally succeed in taking long sails
even in strong winds . . . Of course it will be
a matter of practice to learn how to guide such
a flying machine . . . Actual trial alone can decide
this question, as we must let the air and the wind have their say
in the matter. — Otto Lilienthal 1-3
 CHAPTER 1 DISCOVERING AVIATION

December 17, 1903 — Near Kitty Hawk,

North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur
Wright achieved the first powered, sus-
tained, and controlled airplane flights in
history. Four flights were made; the first
for 12 seconds, the last for 59 seconds.

Flight was generally looked upon as an

impossibility, and scarcely anyone
believed it until he actually saw it with
his own eyes. — Orville Wright

The flight lasted only twelve seconds,

but it was nevertheless the first in the
history of the world in which a machine
carrying a man had raised itself by its
own power into the air in full flight, had
sailed forward without reduction of
speed, and had finally landed at a point
as high as that from which it started.
— Orville Wright

May 21, 1927 — Charles

Lindbergh lands his airplane,
the Spirit of St. Louis, at Le
Bourget field in Paris after com-
pleting the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.
His total flight time from New York to Paris was 33
hours, 30 minutes and 29.8 seconds.

The Spirit of St. Louis swings around and stops

rolling, resting on the solidness of the earth, in the
center of Le Bourget. I start to taxi back toward the
floodlights and hangars—But the entire field
ahead is covered with running figures! — Charles
Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis

What Lindbergh was the first to do, by an act oj

superb intelligence and will, millions of us accom-
plish regularly with the expenditure of no more
intelligence and will than is required to purchase
a ticket and pack a bag . . . That first New York —
to — Paris flight, with its awesome risk coolly
faced and outwitted by a single valorous young
man had led to an ever-increasing traffic in the sky
above the Atlantic and an ever-decreasing aware-
ness of awe and risk on the part of the army oj
non-flyers who have followed him. His valor is
hard to keep fresh in our minds when the most we
are asked to face and outwit above the Atlantic is
boredom. — Brendan Gill, Lindbergh Alone

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PILOT TRAINING

May 21,1932 —
Amelia Earhart
became the first
woman to pilot
an airplane solo across the Atlantic.
Gaining fame for being the first woman
passenger in a flight across the Atlantic
four years earlier, Earhart was disap-
pointed that pilot Wilmer Stultz did all
the flying while she just rode along like
"a sack of potatoes" as she phrased it.
She was determined to prove that she
could accomplish the flight herself, and
she did when she landed in Northern
Ireland after taking off from
Newfoundland 14 hours and 52 minutes
earlier. On August 25 of the same year,
Earhart completed the first woman's solo
nonstop transcontinental flight which
covered 2,448 miles from Los Angeles to
Courtesy of The Ninety-Nines Inc. International Organization of Women Pilots Archive Newark.
Collection, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

If Amelia wanted to do something, she

was going to do it, and there really was-
n't much point in saying, "You can't do
this." — Mrs. Muriel Morrissey, sister of
Amelia Earhart as quoted in The
American Heritage History of Flight

October 1, 1942 — Piloted by

Robert M. Stanley, the Bell
XP-59A Airacomet, the United
States' first turbojet aircraft
made its inaugural flight at
Muroc Dry Lake, California.
The Bell XP-59A is the direct
ancestor of all American jet-
propelled airplanes.

One day in 1945, I landed to

refuel at a California base, and I heard a noise, a sound totally
new to me, insistent, demanding, permeating the whole revet-
ment area. I tumbled out of my cockpit and joined a group of
pilots and crew chiefs beside the strip. And we watched a Bell P-
59, the first American jet, begin its takeoff. Engines howling, it
lumbered forward, then strode, then raced and finally was aloft.
We watched it quietly, staying close together as people do when
they meet the future. — pilot Edwards Park as quoted in The
Smithsonian Book of Flight
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 CHAPTER 1 DISCOVERING AVIATION

October 14, 1947 — Captain

Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager
becomes the first man to fly |
an aircraft beyond the speed
of sound. He pilots the air-
launched experimental Bell
X-l rocket-propelled research
airplane named Glamorous
Glennis (after Yeager's wife)
at a speed of 700 mph at
42,000 feet over Muroc Dry
Lake, California.

Leveling off at 42,000 feet, I

had thirty percent of my fuel,
so I turned on rocket chamber
three and immediately reached .96 Mach. I noticed that the faster I got, the smoother the ride.
Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. It went up to .965 Mach—then tipped right off the
scale. I thought I was seeing things! We were flying supersonic!. . . I was thunderstruck. After all the
anxiety, breaking the sound barrier turned out to be a perfectly paved speedway. — Yeager: An
Autobiography by General Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos

In those few moments, the supersonic age was born.

May 25, 1961 — I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal,
before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to
earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more
important for the long-range exploration of space. And none will be
so difficult or expensive to accomplish. — President John F. Kennedy

July 20, 1969 — As astronaut Michael Collins

maintained orbit in the Apollo 11 Command
Module Columbia, astronauts Neil Armstrong
and Edwin Aldrin landed the Lunar Module
Eagle on the moon and become the first
humans to step on another celestial body.

HOUSTON: Okay, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now.
NEIL ARMSTRONG: Okay, I just checked — getting back up to that
first step. Buzz, it's not even collapsed too far, but it's adequate to get
back up ... It takes a pretty good little jump . . . I'm at the foot of the
ladder. The LM footpads are only depressed in the surface about one
or two inches. Although the surface appears to be very, very fine-
grained, as you get close to it. It's almost like a powder. Now and then,
it's very fine ...I'm going to step off the LMnow... THAT'S ONE SMALL STEP FOR A MAN,
ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND.

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