Now if I can just stay clear of those cows, this should work out all right. How Newsworthy Were the Wright Brothers’
First Flights? It may surprise you to learn that news of the first-ever powered airplane flight was not covered by the mainstream press.
It was actually a
beekeeper named A.I. Root who first wrote about Orville and Wilbur Wright’s early flights in the pages of his obscure journal
Gleanings in Bee Culture. Although Root didn’t witness the first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December 1903, he was on hand in September 1904 when the brothers took a plane up and circled around, returning to their starting place.
The Wright brothers had obtained permission to use a local cow pasture known as Huffman Prairie, a few miles outside Dayton, Ohio. The owner did not charge them, but he did ask that the Wrights make sure his livestock were not harmed. Root witnessed several other flights at Huffman Prairie and reported the successes in his beekeeping journal.
The first family of fearless flying: •The Wrights built a hangar at Huffman Prairie and began experimenting with their second airplane. They started to use a catapult device to assist with takeoff in lighter winds.
•The Wrights added weight to the front of their 1904 Flyer to shift the center of gravity forward and increase stability. They also moved the elevator farther ahead of the wings, which made the plane easier to fly.
•It took 49 flights for the Wrights to equal their Kitty Hawk flight time. The first circular flight lasted 1 minute, 36 seconds and covered 4,080 feet (1.2 km).
http://www.wisegeek.com/how-newsworthy-were-the-wright-brothers-first-flights.htmAgelbert NOTE: Cows do not take kindly to being buzzed by airplanes. Back in 1966, the flight school I was attending at Opa Locka airport in Florida received numerous complaints from ranchers north of us (what was designated as the "practice area" for student pilots) between North Miami and Ft. Lauderdale (mostly open land at that time). The cows were being buzzed and having abortions. I never buzzed any cows or people. But there are stupid, empathy deficit disordered people in every profession, I guess. The only time you were supposed to be below 600 feet (the lowest altitude for ground reference maneuvers like turns about a point, pylon eights and S turns above a road) was when you were simulating an emergency landing (you got to about a 100 feet and then applied power when the instructor was satisfied that you would survive the forced landing and possibly not damage the aircraft).
I never went anywhere near a cow or a person. I saw cows and people and was perfectly aware of where they were at so I assume some idiots thought is was "fun" to buzz them. So it goes. There are way too many
Homo SAPS among
Homo Sapiens.