I just watched, live on CNN, the day's first attempt to recreate the famous first flight using a replica aircraft. This failed, apparently due to a combination of drag from a very muddy surface and significantly less headwind than the brothers had on this day 100 years ago. It illustates to me how difficult and dangerous their task was, and therefore how incredible their achievement. Watching it also brought home to me the unbelievable progress that has been made since then. From the first, jogging-pace flight to breaking the sound barrier took less than half a man's lifetime. In fact, a mere 66 years later, the three-foot altitude of the flight had been superseded by men walking on the moon.
Nowadays we have an incredibly diverse plethora of flying machines: from sports props to mammoth airliners (we even had a supersonic one for a while). We've got aircraft that can fly at several times the speed of sound, aircraft that can land on ships, oil rigs, and on water itself. Jets, props and helicopters that don't need runways, aircraft that are almost silent, aircraft that are almost invisible to radar, aircraft without pilots-the list seems endless. And from aviation was born spaceflight. As I mentioned, we have walked on the moon. We have launched probes that have left the solar system and are currently venturing out into interstellar space. On Christmas day, a probe is scheduled to land on Mars and search for signs of life. We have sent a probe on its way to explore one of Saturn's moons. We have sent telescopes and other scientific instruments into space to try to answer humankind's most important questions: Are we alone? Why are we here? How did this place get built? The answers are already beginning to come in.
For most of us that read these threads, aviation is a huge part of who we are, so in a way our dream was born one hundred years ago today. I hope we will continue to meet the challenges aviation offers us with the spirit exhibited by people like the Wright brothers, and if we do that, our progress into the next hundred years will be even more astonishing.
I hope my fellow ppruners will join me in wishing those spending Christmas in hostile airspace a safe mission and speedy RTB. And maybe you will join me in raising a glass to friends and colleagues who took off one day in pursuit of the dream of flight, but never came back.
Today is not just a birthday for pilots, it's a celebration for everybody who has an interest in aviation. And from all of us:
Thank you Orville
Thank you Wilbur
Thank you for flight.