Congratuations -Pilots 100 years Old

[Phoney Tony]

Congratulations to our 2 winged colleagues who celebrate today the 100th year of aircraft piloting.

The Wright brothers flew 2 flights 100years ago today thus creating a new profession – PILOT.

I note with interest that the total flight time was 1 minute and 12 seconds. Thereafter both pilots went home.

Nothing much has changed there then!

When did the first Navigator fly?

[Britney Spears]

So Tony, do the people-who-flew-the-gliders-around-before-powered-flight not qualify as PILOTS then? I understood a PILOT was the controller of an aircraft whether it was powered or not!

I think you'll find the flight lasted less than 2 minutes because the pilots realised they hadn't calfed the map, checked the NOTAMS, triple-checked the met and warned-out trhough ops and Air traffic. The aircraft had only 3 minutes and 1 landing till its first major and the F700 was full of lims. I believe the pilots fell out over who wanted to fly (no change there then) and the subsequent teddy-throwing upset the delicate weight and balance calculations (calculated by the load-master who wasn't allowed to join them because it was a J model).

[Tonkenna]

It would have flown 2 months earlier if the supplyers hadn't been ordering the bits on the "just to late".....sorry, the "just in time" system that we still use to this day.:=

[tony draper]

I think they were supposed to be called Avianonotraters, or aeronaugticalatatoraters, not pilots, just shows, nobody listens.

:rolleyes:

[Nozzles]

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 In fact, a mere 66 years later, the three-foot altitude of the flight had been superseded by men walking on the moon.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.

[BlueWolf]

Nozzles, what a brilliant post.

I would have prefaced your thank-you list with Richard Pearse, but you have humbled such sentiments into silence.

Your questions raise further questions, because if it transpires that signs of life, present or former, are discovered shortly in other parts of the solar system, history and religion will be thrown into a flat spin.

Who then will provide stability of thought and action to a troubled world? Probably pilots; as we soar above the masses (no elitism intended) we get to see the bigger picture, and we get to see beyond the horizons of others.

Perhaps as we slip the surly bonds and touch the face, we are priveliged to understand the greater design, and to help others understand it too.

I echo your sentiments - thank you for flight, and for the marvelous future which awaits us all up beyond the clouds - in more ways than one.

Respect, Sir.

[PPRuNe Pop]

This fits very nicely into this forum and I draw your attention to 'Nozzles' post on a 100 years of flight. One of the best I have seen.

PPP

[Cloudwatcher]

:* It could have been so different if Percy Pilcher hadn't died in such tragic circumstances. the centenary would probarbly have been at least 3 or 4 years earlier and the flight been of a much longer duration.

No offence to Wilbur or Orville intended.

Another British near miss!