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The gift of flight: A Virginia celebration
The gift of flight: A Virginia celebration
Historical events happen when they happen, whether or not that is most advantageous to them.
A historically resounding commemoration of the centennial of practical human flight approaches this fall and next, with headlines dominated by a major election, an unpopular war and and deep worries over the economy.
This should, by all rights, be a time of great celebration in the commonwealth for it was 100 years ago this fall in Virginia that the Wright brothers erased any lingering doubts of the arrival of the age of aviation.
In a series of challenging flights aimed at winning the first contract for purchase of an airplane by the U.S. Army, the Wrights achieved far more than financial success.
Indeed, in those epochal demonstrations, they touched off not only an explosion of innovation in aviation but also an entire new industry which, in turn, led to a cultural shift in the way Americans and the world would conduct business, international and personal affairs.
The parade ground at Fort Myer was the focus of attention for these flights, attended by throngs of ordinary citizens as well as Washington's most influential leaders, including the president.
The Wrights, of course, had conquered the air five years earlier with their first flights at Kitty Hawk, N.C., but those activities, while reported in the press, were generally met with more of a yawn than a yell.
Sometimes, when events are so fraught with significance, not seeing is not believing. And those first flights — intentionally conducted in secret — may have succeeded only too well in producing this subdued response.
Five years ago in December 2003, the attention of the world was again riveted on the Outer Banks, when Warrenton's Ken Hyde celebrated the centennial of the dawn of flight with a reproduced Wright Flyer on the same grounds where the first trials had been conducted.
If the Wright's initial flights brought only a subdued public reaction, the opposite was true among dozens of "aerial experimenters" elsewhere in this country and in Europe.
These were the people who knew only too well what the brothers from Dayton had accomplished, and they set off in hot pursuit to surpass them.
But beginning in late summer 1908, and once again the following fall — both times at the Arlington County Army base, the Wright brothers brought flight out of the darkness, conducting dozens of varied flights, carrying passengers, achieving records for speed, distance and endurance and leaving all doubters — and their competitors — speechless.
In the process, those flights, as well as demonstrations in France that year, left their pursuers — some of them openly skeptical — gasping in amazement.
Planning is underway this year for a celebration of the Fort Myer flights.
And, once again, there is feverish activity underway at the workshops of the Wright Experience, just outside Warrenton, to shine a deserving spotlight on this centennial.
The airplane that made the world sit up and take notice of the Wrights was vastly improved over the 1903 machine. This 1908 Wright Model A is now being recreated with the same painstaking care and accuracy as the original was at Ken Hyde's Wright Experience.
Due to be completed in July, it will become the centerpiece of all centennial efforts planned through 1909 and, according to Hyde, will be extensively tested and flown. And when that entire program, as well as public display at Fort Myer, is complete, this artifact of aviation history will go on long-term display at a major Virginia museum.
All this is heartening news at a time when good news is scarce. It is something Virginians can be proud of.
But there is a caution: Support, including financial backing, is greatly needed for this activity. To date, the U.S. Army and Arlington County are said to be committed to taking part and supporting the commemoration.
But where is the state of Virginia?
Even in these tight times, with so many other conflicting demands for funding and support, can the state where aviation really took off afford not to take part?
There is much at stake here, both in prestige and in hard economic return from visitors and tourism, when the celebration of the birth of both military aviation and the aviation industry is expected to shine such a bright spotlight on Virginia.
Sullivan is a freelance writer who lives in Spotsylvania.
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