THE WIND IN THE WIRES

Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the turn of the century, an age in which it seems everyone suddenly wants to fly. From 800 ft up, a bird man prepares to hurl himself to certain death. Yet such was the breathless pace of endeavor and ignorance of the time that this doomed man thought he could fly. [Music] Today it seems inconceivable that a man wearing feathery wings could fly like a bird. But a mere 70 years ago there had only the birds to go on. Man flight, something we now so easily accept, remained a distant dream. Then there came a decade in which the collective genius of a few pioneers transformed that dream into reality and brought the airplane into being. It began one summer, the time 199. That summer was not unlike many others. Eduwardian Britain was rich, content, and comfortable. In the new world, a bicycle maker named Wright had flown a machine some 40 yards, and since then others had flown even further, their extraordinary enterprise to be greeted, alas, with doubt and derision. Flying was not taken seriously by most people until a national newspaper offered a prize of £1,000 for any aviator bold enough to fly the English Channel. And that really started something. The scene 4 a.m. a beach just south of Calala as the intrepid aviator Louis Bleio hobbles away to take up the challenge. Since a catastrophe is to be expected, the event draws a large crowd. Yet an hour later, Blurio's little oil stained monoplane scraped over the high cliffs surrounding Dover Castle and crash landed. The world could talk of little else for days. Blerio accepted his check, sucked with the Lord Mayor, returned home triumphant, and entered the history books. For from this beach one July morning, he made a successful crossing of some 20 mi of water. He conquered the unconquerable, shook Britain's imperial solitude, and heralded the beginning of an age. The summer was a fruitful one. A wind of change resulted in what some termed the beginning of an industry, which indeed through the enterprise of a few, it was. [Applause] The first aeroplanes were trembling mothlike machines of wire and wood, and many a brave pilot flew them. But since there were no books to learn from, they had to lean heavily on their own intuition. But where could they develop and refine the new skills? Standing in the middle of scrub and weeds are the huts of the world's first flying school. And although as yet no such person existed as an experienced teacher, Brooklyn's became the mecca for every wouldbe flyer. What was this field like then? From these huts came the little planes that the early pioneers put together. Craft so delicate that a man could push them or pull them or even hold one of them down against strong winds. Here pilots and designers like Rorow, De Havland, Hawker, and Soopworth met, built, swapped ideas, and flying with their caps back to front set an indelible stamp. Racing round a marker and back, flying forever higher, forever faster. The aviators thrilled the crowds. The machines were still experimental. It took a certain madness to fly them. Crashes often occurred, and a good landing was one from which the pilot walked away and in doing so thanked his maker. A report from the army maneuver Salsbury plane 1910. Today at the flying school at Clark Hill, some trials were carried out with the Bristol biplane. The machine was specially built for the purpose and was commenced and delivered within 17 days, which is probably a record for airplane construction. [Applause] At the dawn of the day, Captain Bartram Dixon took the Bristol on its first essay after erection, and it immediately did a fine flight, showing notable stability. By now, the labor of a few had stirred the imagination of the many. From makeshift hangers emerged the experimental efforts of other men, whose problems were also those of sheer survival. For many, a spiderweb of struts, slats, and spars was built with borrowed money and mortgaged houses. to these trailblaz Men of resolution and determination forged ahead. They invented stable flight, changed skids for wheels, monoplanes for biplanes or triplanes. [Music] With the stimulus of competition, records for speed and altitude were broken almost weekly. They leapt ahead, testing mark after mark, type after type, flying into the unknown and in the process sometimes killing themselves. When we began, said Sir Thomas Sapwith, we just flew by the light of nature. We weren't structural engineers at all. Everything was built entirely by eye. Flying in those days was empirical. It was a constant gamble. Some of us were lucky and some of us weren't. The unlucky ones made the headlines. They included the first Britain to fly, the man who invented stable flight, and countless others. To those who built monuments, they were gay young fellows jockeying winged horses. Their exploits were deemed audacious, never visionary. Those who flew on logged a diary of hardearned progress. With controllable flight, they thought they'd solve the unsolvable. But there still remained the elements and the hazards of every new untried machine. But come what might, there was no halting the advance, and gifted young designers were doodling in penny exercise books newer, sleeker, and more powerful shapes. [Applause] Within 5 years, the early frailty was gone. Tubular steel replaced wood. And the target of so many pioneers, the true beauty of safe, reliable flight seemed now within reach. The summer of 1914 is said to have been glorious, and there were few who basked in it, who foresaw the approaching Armageddon. The spark that was referred to as some little trouble in the Balkans, burst into flames, and the ensuing war spread throughout Europe. Battle planes replaced airplanes. And as Orville Wright said, the dream has turned into a nightmare. The military spoke of fleets of aerial dreadnots. But at the outset, the legacy of years of official neglect amounted to little more than a 100 illequipped machines for the Allies. While the first dog fights were fought with pistols and handthrown bombs, the official distrust remained. The cavalry complained that the machines frightened their horses. Yet to break the stagnation of trench warfare, much depended on those airplanes and on those pilots. The pictures that survive show groups of tender-looking youngsters, British, French, German, equally brave, equally vulnerable, most of them to die in their early 20s. In a world short of heroes, the public rose to these daring aces. Although thousands were dying daily in the mud below, it was the flyers who became the national heroes. Pilots like Manach, Funk, Bishop, Balmer, Ball, and the host of others became the knights of the sky. They devised aerial warfare, yet mourned the deaths of each other's heroes. They spoiled for a fight, yet were known to break off combat with a wave of the hand. Their exploits became legend, their stories legion. The skies will never see flyers like this again. The apparently benign smiling German ace Vanritoven was glorified in charge of his flying circus. The Red Baron shot down over 80 planes prior to his own death at the age of 22. Crashing behind Allied lines, his plane was torn to pieces by souvenir hunters. Yet so great was the respect for the enemy flyer. He was given a general's funeral. To our gallant and worthy foe, inscribed the British aces. An enemy in life, a brother in death. The war accelerated the development of the airplane quicker than a thousand newspaper prizes. From every corner came new ideas, new demands. Engines and structures became more reliable and thereby more deadly and finally instrumental in speeding the end of the last hopelessly landlocked war. [Music] At the start of the war, airplanes were counted in tens and towards the end counted in tens of thousands. Now the fighting flying machine commanded respect and the men who lined up for the final pictures were aware of the effort that had led to their final recognition. [Music] On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918, the war ended. Within its duration, the aeroplane had altered from a single engineed delicate device to a sturdy 4engineed monster. And from the turmoil of the war to end wars came the men and machines to tackle the last great aerial barriers. [Music] [Applause] Within months of the armistice, the crowds cheered yet again. This time to welcome the safe arrival of two new style pioneers, John Olock and Arthur Witten Brown. Flying a Vimemy which was conceived as a bomber. They had crossed the Atlantic. They had survived a radio failure, engines choked with ice, and a crash landing. [Music] In their slipstream came two brothers, Ross and Keith Smith, who in a remarkable flight, also in a made it to Australia. Voyaging over hostile jungle, they were forced to land in countries like Borneo and Guinea, where the natives had never seen a white man, let alone an airplane. Flying forever onwards, these trailblazers and others linked Britain with the far corners of the empire and formed an image of the world, a smaller place, which indeed it had become. Now the makers of monuments saw the flying heroes in a different vein. But alongside so much progress, there came the setbacks. A multitude of winged wonders collapsed, crashed, thrashed, splashed, or just shook themselves to death before the camera. And of course, there was still the gent who thought he could fly like a bird. [Music] By 1919, a decade had passed. And although in the countryside little had visibly altered, by this autumn, with a different king, more auto cars, and peace with plenty, came aviation. Now man had flying machines to fight, challenge height, and span distance. And in his vision of the future, the sky was his and it had no limits. [Music] the airlines to travel to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Shapes pioneered by a few who felt and heard the wind in the wires. Men who could now dive, loop, spin, dance over the highest cloud, and feel a harmony with the elements over which they'd triumphed. [Music]