Mate, if you didn't fly, - without the insight that you now so obviously have,- and it was 100 years ago - you would be no different from the superstitious masses. Why do you think the people went wild over Hinkler and Kingsford-Smith in the twenties and thirties. I applaud them for their courage for 'having a go' and ' being the first' and 'being the best of their generation' and being the 'pioneers', not just because some one else thought they were the local heros. Kingsford-Smith even accepted the position of patron of our local Club, so there is a personal connection, but ultimately it was because they had a go and succeeded - for a while -. The smart a*ses and carpet-baggers come later, but my hat goes off to the PIONEERS, so the pilots (and doctors and hangers-on) who come later with nothing to contribute but criticism about how it could have been done better at the time - can go jump. Bet the Wright Brothers were told numerous times that they were mad too, even though they approached the solution of powered flight in a structured technical way building on the experience of all the pioneers who had gone before.
And after the Wrights there were other pioneers who advanced the art at the cost of their lives put on the line, - sometimes forfeited. What other industry, medicine ? dentistry ? agriculture ? horticulture ? animal husbandry ? - does it to that degree ?