Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 45

DECATUR SUNDAY Editorials Theaters Radio Real Estate Sccfioif IV IV Decatur Herald, Founded 1880 Decatur, Illinois, Sunday, October 4, 1953. Decatur Review, Founded 1878 Aviation 50 Years Both Wonderful and Frightening FIFTY YEARS BETWEEN FORERUNNER OF MIGHTY CARRIERS Section 3tttMiii FIRST WOMAN TO FLY Military Aided Air Progress Sftkau-ow fjj1 in July 1909. Later Lahm became the first Army pilot to take a plane off the ground. Lahm, who retired as a brigadier general and now lives in Hollywood, says no one dreamed, in those days, of the strides aviation was to make. "No one could have foreseen it," said Lahm.

"We knew it was the beginning of something wonderful. What that would be we could not conceive. It was beyond even the conception of the Wrights." None Could Conceive The Fantastic Future Something wonderful a network of airlines, with speeds of. 300 miles an hour common today and 500 an hour coming up soon. Air freighters moving perishables in a hurry.

Helicopters landing on rooftops, laughing at surface traffic jams. Hospital planes saving lives through swift transport. Something terrible, too. The threat of atomic bombs at every man's doorstep. The accessibility of familiar skies to enemy intruders.

The contraction of time and distance between bitter foes as well as between friends. Bqt all this came slowly. Back in July 1909, Louis Bleriot startled and delighted the world by flying across the English Channel, 25 miles from Calais to Dover. The implications of this first flight between nations fired the imagination. Only a month later 38 airplanes took part in the first international air near Rheims, France.

The Navy began to open its eyes to the possibilities when Eugene Ely, an exhibition flier for Glenn Curtiss, made the first takeoff from the deck of a ship the cruiser Birmingham off Norfolk, Nov. 14, By The Associated Press Washington Aviation, increasingly the master cf time and distance, owes much of its swift development in 50 years to the military through adaption of the airplane to war. Yet, ironically, some of the greatest indifference and outright resistance to aviation's' progress has been generated from time to time by these same, armed services. It demonstrated itself in the very first year after the Wright brothers made their historic powered flight at Kitty Hawk. Twice in 1904 the brothers tried to interest the War Department in.

their new invention. They Suggested that a flying machine might well be useful to the Army for and to carry messages. -( The War Department's reply was a cold "no." But in the next couple of years the light began to dawn in Washington. More and more authentic reports were coming in of longer, faster, higher, more frequent flights, both in the United States and in Europe. In July, 1907, the Army-Signal Corps established ati aeronautical division.

Five months later the Army advertised for bids on its first airplane. Wright Brothers Did What, Experts Called 'Impossible'' The machine must be able to carry pilot, passenger and fuel for 125 miles. It must average 40 miles an hour on a 10-mile course, and must stay in the air an hour. in an imposing head-on view. The Langley attempt was made shortly before the Wright Brothers made aviation history with their first flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

(AP Photo) The houseboat, at top, where a plane built by Samuel P. Lang-ley rests just before its ill-fated plunge into the Potomac River on Oct. 7, 1903, was the forerunner of modern aircraft carriers such as the USS Boxer, shown below giant 8-jet heavy bomber, the Boeing YB-52, shown at bottom. Jhe Wright Brothers' plane flew 120 feet on its first flight, less than one-half the over-all length of the Boeing bomber. (AP Photo) Aviation has made great strides between the Wright Brothers' historic flight at Kitty Hawk, N.

Dec. 17, 1903, at top, and the most modern superfortress of the air, the U. S. Air Force's Blanche Stuart Scott, the first woman to fly in an airplane, before making the flight which startled the world in 1910. The chic bloomers she wore were the original design of a New York Fifth Avenue tailor.

(AP Photo) found itself abrupdy faced with famine. Army leaders, never convinced of the utility of planes, reverted to thinking in terms of traditional surface combat. Military orders were canceled, factories closed right and left. Gen. Billy Mitchell Fought for Air Power A small but vocal military group, with Brig.

Gen. Billy Mitchell as its spokesman, began espousing the cause of air power. Mitchell hit hard at some of his superiors. His based on the gallant Lafayette Escadrille, a squadron of American volunteers. But disappointment was in the cards.

U. S. fliers arrived inadequately American companies failed to design their own, were put to work building European models. When the war ended in November, the U. S.

had .45 squadrons in operation, with 1,270 aviation personnel, but only 196 American-built planes. With the armistice, the LT. S. aircraft industry, now geared to produce 21,000 planes a year, plane up on a 6-hour night flight and served the first hot meal in the air. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the French army had 1,500 airplanes and was able to requisition 500 more that' were privately owned.

Germany had 40 air ships and 1,000 military planes. Yet U. S. entry into the war three years later found this country with only a half-dozen qualified aviators and just 55 planes. All the latter were obsolete or nearly so.

None was armed. France appealed for 5,000 pilots and 4,500 planes from its newest ally- No doubt its high hopes were The following January, Ely landed on the afterdeck of the bat-deship Pennsylvania, in San Francisco Bay, and then took off from it again in the first demonstration of aircraft carrier potentialities. Sikorsky Pioneered Multi-Engine Planes Igor Sikorsky built the first 4-engine airplane in 1913, and Milton J. Bryant initiated sky writing with smoke over Seattle. The nation's first regularly scheduled airline started operating across Tampa Bay between St.

Petersburg and Tampa, in 1914. Sikorsky took a 7-passenger whom the -brothers had met as a balloonist in France. Lahm was one of three Army officers who called at the White House and persuaded President Roosevelt to make $25,000. available for an airplane. The Wrights won the contract, built the" plane and Lahm rode with Orville in thequalfying flight "Fantastic," said the experts of the day.

"Absurd. Impossible." But the Wright brothers had practically written the specifications, after acquiring a friend in court. They were sure they, could accomplish this particular impossibility. The influential friend was a young lieutenant, Frank P- Lahm, Turn to page 47 "Aviation.1 BESTFORM Your Tiimiiiv's Your, Waistline's TINY CRISS-CROSS GIRDLE Bestform's All-Nylon The New Criss-Cross Inner-Belt Pares Your Figure To Its Slimmest, Trimmest Best Subtracts Inches Here's why Criss-Cross Inner Belt gives you light-as-air control and comfort: Sizes 26 to 36 16" or 18" Length White Only CRISS-CROSS BELT Elastic inner belt banishes tummy bulges without bones. LIGHT-AS-AIR NYLON Easy to wash, quick to dry.

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