History of Flight talk - Help required

[Rod1]

I have been asked to give a talk to some young people. The remit is to inspire them towards being pilots & engineers instead of reality TV stars. I have to cover around 10 of the most important steps in the history of flight (I can push that to about 12). To cover the first female airline pilot plus a few other similar female firsts. To predict the next big step. I have come up with “my” list of the top 24 which I have to cut down to 12 (with your help) plus my next step. For my next step I considered Virgin Galactic, the world's first commercial spaceline, but decided on Mars instead. So have I missed anything important and what should make the final 12+1?



History of flight

1st Manned flight, Montgolfier brothers, 1783 France
1st Woman to fly, Élisabeth Thible, 1784 France
1st Flight over the English Channel, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, 1785 France
1st Aviation disaster, Tullamore, County Offaly, 1785 Ireland
1st Manned controlled, heavier-than-air craft, George Cayley,1853 GB
1st Woman to pilot a powered aircraft, Rose Isabel Spencer, 1902 GB
1st Fixed-wing powered, controlled flight, Orville Wright, 1903 USA
1st Flight in a manned rotary-winged craft, Paul Cornu, 1907 France
1st Female military pilot, Eugenie Shakhovskaya, 1914 Russia
1st Landing an airplane on a moving ship, Edwin Dunning, 1917 Great Britain
1st Non-stop transatlantic flight, Alcock and Brown, 1919 Great Britain
1st Female airline pilot, Marga von Etzdorf, 1927 Germany
1st Man-made object in space, V2, 1944 Germany
1st Nonstop around-the-world flight, James Gallagher, 1949 USA
1st Supersonic scheduled passenger flight, Concorde, 1976 GB / France
1st Artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, 1957 USSR
1st Human in space, Yuri Gagarin, 1961 Russia
1st First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, 1963 Russia
1st Space walk, Alexei Leonov, 1965 Russia
1st Soft landing probe on the Moon, Luna 9, 1966 USSR
1st Human on the moon, Neil Armstrong, 1969 USA
1st First space station, Salyut 1, 1971 USSR
1st Manned private spaceflight, Paul Allen, 2004 USA
1st Soft landing on a comet, Rosetta, 2014 Europe

Next big step
1st Human to land on Mars, SpaceX, 2023 USA

(I have avoided tethered flights)

Rod1

[9 lives]

The first landing on earth of a reuseable spacecraft - the space shuttle.

[Genghis the Engineer]

The remit is to inspire them towards being pilots & engineers instead of reality TV stars

Surely the way to do that is to talk about what's there now and in the future, not what happened before they were born.

I am fascinated by aviation history - but it wasn't what got me to university to study aeronautical engineering. It was the exciting current technology and the prospects for the future that I might get to be a part of.


Also, typing as somebody who has done a lot of public speaking - I'd say take the amount you think will fit into your, say, 45 minute talk. Then halve it!

Stuff going on now - Boom, Typhoon, Spaceship II, ISS, FAAM, HypeR? That's probably a full talk, all new and future, and stuff they can genuinely aspire to.

G

[9 lives]

Genghis has made me think - again....

And I see it a little differently... I was inspired growing up, but it was not so much by what people imagined, but by what they had achieved, so history. The development and testing of aircraft, and the tales of those who flew those aircraft in important roles. And, the Thunderbirds.

I've known a lot of aviation people who entertain and seek to inspire (with all good intention) by what they imagine for the future. But, I was attracted by the people who could well me about what had happened, and the effort and dedication to get there. We were let out of school early enough to fast walk the mile and half home from school to watch the first lunar landing. That was inspiring, but what I really recall was captivating was the design and construction of the space suits. They had done it, designed them well, and they worked. Their first true test was life and death.

We need new minds to imagine the future, and we need new minds to be captivated by what has been done, and how it worked, so it is retained as foundation knowledge upon which to build, so we don't have to learn it again.

One day, airplanes will be so automated that their pilots will honestly wondered how we managed to keep a taildragger straight on the runway, or judge a flare - some inspired minds figured out how to automate those functions. But we will still need people who have the inspired foundation knowledge of how to fly needle, ball, and airspeed, appreciate the merits of a biplane, and drive a car with a standard gearbox!

So inspire them with the future Rod, but on the foundation of what so many have accomplished thus far!

[Rod1]

I have no control of the format other than walking away which I am not going to do, so how about some help;)

Rod1

[300hrWannaB]

It may be factual, and probably accurate, but it is awfully DRY.
The primary aim is to inspire. Nobody is likely to question about missing facts or milestones. Even as a flying geek I have never heard of ~8 of the first 12 in the list.
Clearly they didn't inspire historical authors of old.

So then , which females do I feel were both inspirational and overlooked?
- Amelia Earhart
- Amy Johnson
- The whole of the ATA
- Christa McAuliffe

Which events (sometimes called facts) do I feel inspirational?
- Louis Bleriot crossing the Channel
- Some others in your huge list.

There is one factor that I've ignored. Presumably you have a specific audience. Being Nationalistic is a solid move for being inspirational. UK folk ignore many US folk, and the other way around it's even more parochial.

[Genghis the Engineer]

In my experience, there'll be nobody else prepared to do it - so you have a lot more latitude than you think.


Attention span of youngsters - you're looking at 40 minutes, plus some discussion before they start getting bored. Absolute tops, that's 8 topics, five minutes each.

Look to what video material is out there?

I'd say three major early landmarks - Montgolfier brothers is great (don't forget the wildlife), maybe the Wrights - talk about all the effort, being bitten to death by mosquitos at Kittyhawk, fighting for recognition, going around the world - the fact that they came to England and France, the enormous amount of work by Katharine - not just Wilbur and Orville...

Battle of Britain, Spitfire, RJ Mitchell, contribution of Beatrice Shilling and the ATA pilots, fighter controllers - emphasis on massive team effort, dozens of skills

Helen Sharman - first British astronaut, trained as a food scientist, still out there running a chemistry department in London, that famous advert "Astronaut required, no experience necessary".


Two major things going on now, here are my suggestions

- Airlander, biggest aircraft in the world, hopes for future roles in eco-tourism, delivering science, disaster relief. How it's been crowd funded.

- Tim Peake: Left school with average A-levels, British army helicopter pilot, test pilot, competition to get to the ISS, huge amount he's done, what he's still doing.


Three things going into the future

- Spaceship 2, Richard Branson, Dave Mackay, Mojave, the accident, everybody keeping on going - hopes for a future space tourism industry more than doubling the number of people in space, sexy material science, hybrid motors

- HypeR - latest high performance microlight, designed by Bill Brooks in Marlborough, still in flight testing, about to be available to ordinary people to buy and fly. Mention that the wings all started with Francis and Gertrude Rogallo?

- Mars, plans, aspirations, how, who, when... (Nick a clip or two from The Martian?)



If in doubt, take it out! Give them impressions, sexy pictures, good video clips. DO NOT BOMBARD THEM WITH DETAIL. Inspire them, don't aim to fill them with facts. Avoid wiring diagrams and complex timelines - that will bore adults silly, let alone kids. My list of 8/9 topics here is *probably* 50% more than I'd actually deliver if it was me, and I've lectured on aviation subjects to a lot of audiences in a lot of countries.

Do take hardware with you - bits of flying machine they can pass around (don't take anything breakable that you want back).

Don't be too worthy, include about half the detail you think you need. A talk of this nature - absolutely nobody will care about copyright, so nick lots of good imagery from the web.

Have some extra material tucked away in case they ask interesting questions (I always have extras on the end of my slides if I'm doing powerpoint, for example), don't be at-all upset if you don't get to use it.


If you can find any way to make it interactive, do. I did a talk at last year's Schools Aerospace Challenge, where I had the children in groups trying to work out how to use an aeroplane to count penguins in the Antarctic. I met one of the children 6 months later, and it was the first thing they mentioned, and they said it was one of the most memorable parts of the week. Ask them questions, get ideas for discussion from the audience, let them throw paper aeroplanes at you...


G

[Buster11]

The Voyager round the world unrefuelled flight in 1986 by Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager; several interest-grabbers there - the look of the aircraft itself, the fact that it took nine days and that it was flown by a man and a woman. Wiki link here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager

[mary meagher]

Rod, don't forget to mention they can start flying from age 12 - 13 IN GLIDERS. Acquiring the basics at low cost; start of many a flying career. And go solo at 14. I have introduced quite a few teenagers to flying at my club, and have served for years as Child Protection Officer.
Around the midlands there are many gliding clubs that welcome young people. Husbands Bosworth, Stratford, Shenington, Bicester. Usually offer special rates.

Alas, ATC has managed to mismanage their aircraft, so not a lot of opportunity in the last 3 years for youngsters to fly in ATC.

[Littlest Hobo]

Rod, Genghis has some great advice in post #7 that you should really consider drawing from, as these are the sort of things I find successfu in my talks.

You don't say what age group the young people are. There's a huge difference in giving a talk to 9-11 year olds versus 14-16 year olds. Really think about your audience and tailor it to suit.

I find that a brief overview of history does the job - start at the beginning of 20th century and highlight how quickly aviation technology advanced in short bursts of time. Great examples are comparing 1938-1939 with 1944-1945, and then talking about what was developed during the Cold War - the 1950s and 1960s were a fascinating time for advancements in technology, and done with pencil and paper! But as Genghis said, don't bombard them with detail.

Props are great, and though your talk is about aviation don't be afraid to dip in to other engineering areas too. Motorsport is a great one to use because lots of kids are interested (or at least aware of) in F1 and there are a lot of similarities you can draw on from an education perspective.

If you know people working in cool jobs in aviation (or indeed other engineering areas) then drop that in too. A lot of children I meet don't really understand just what opportunities could be available to them if they consider an engineering career and when you start listing out what your old classmates are doing now (e.g. working on the F-35, testing engines at GE, helping to design next year's Mercedes F1 car, etc) then you can see the inspiration growing in their eyes right there in front of you and the questions start to roll in thick and fast!

I don't tend to talk much about a career as a pilot other than a brief overview because most children are already aware of it as a job. I do however talk more about flying as a hobby and I find that children tend to be more impressed by the fact that it's possible to fly for fun than actually becoming an airline pilot.

Good luck!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Just picking up on Mary's point - there is something valuable and fundamental there. The link from "here's stuff happening / has happened / will happen" to "here's how you can be involved in this yourself" is a really valuable one to include.

G

[Victorian]

Hello Rod

If some of your audience are considering engineering as a career, it might be interesting to explain that aviation only became practical when the Wright Brothers analysed the problem scientifically, and that approach remains completely true in all flying today, and in Apollo, and in the Mars trip when we get there. All the earlier experimenters were just that - empirisists who essentially jumped off a cliff to see what happened (highly worthy as many of them were). The Wrights were the first to understand flying theoretically, which is why Kitty Hawk was no accident, and they set the course upon which all of modern engineering is based.

There's nothing quite as moving, in my opinion, as standing on that hill in N Carolina and imagining that you are trying to replicate the Wright's achievement. Even with all of our vast hindsight, it would be extremely difficult for any of us to build an aeroplane (and engine) that could fly, and remain under control, for 100yds with 12HP in a 30kt wind and be able to be used again. It's the measure of just how powerful the analytical approach to engineering problems is, and always will be. I think it's an interesting observation for young people who've grown up with all our technology around them to take for granted. The problem of flight was and remains too difficult to be solved by trial and error.

Sorry if this getting a bit heavy!!!

[megan]

The Wrights were the first to understand flying theoreticallySorry don't agree with your characterisation of the Wrights. Yes, they approached the tasks in a rigorous scientific manner, but they recognised that they were standing on the shoulders of giants who preceded them. From Wiki.Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet (27 December 1773 – 15 December 1857) was a prolific English engineer and is one of the most important people in the history of aeronautics. Many consider him to be the first true scientific aerial investigator and the first person to understand the underlying principles and forces of flight.

In 1799 he set forth the concept of the modern aeroplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control. He was a pioneer of aeronautical engineering and is sometimes referred to as "the father of aviation." He discovered and identified the four forces which act on a heavier-than-air flying vehicle: weight, lift, drag and thrust.Modern aeroplane design is based on those discoveries and on the importance of cambered wings, also identified by Cayley. He constructed the first flying model aeroplane and also diagrammed the elements of vertical flight. He designed the first glider reliably reported to carry a human aloft. He correctly predicted that sustained flight would not occur until a lightweight engine was developed to provide adequate thrust and lift. The Wright brothers acknowledged his importance to the development of aviation.The problem of flight was and remains too difficult to be solved by trial and errorTrial and error is done today. Flight testing often involves trialling various methods to resolve issues.

"About 100 years ago, an Englishman, Sir George Cayley, carried the science of flight to a point which it had never reached before and which it scarcely reached again during the last century." — Wilbur Wright, 1909

[Genghis the Engineer]

Trial and error is done today. Flight testing often involves trialling various methods to resolve issues.

Generally at the end of a process of many man-years of analysis and careful design, by people with a very deep technical education. Flight testing is at the sharp end of that process, but there is much which sits behind it. For that matter, the design of flight trials is a complex specialist field in its own right.

G

[longer ron]

megan

Sorry don't agree with your characterisation of the Wrights. Yes, they approached the tasks in a rigorous scientific manner, but they recognised that they were standing on the shoulders of giants who preceded them. From Wiki.

Careful Megan - we might get Simplex1 back on here trying to sell more copies of the Gustave Whitehead book 'first in flight' :)

[Genghis the Engineer]

Somebody promoting that view is currently following me on Twitter, I'm not quite sure what they hope to gain from my occasional comments on current aerospace engineering and earth sciences issues !

G

[Rod1]

OK – probably should have shared that I am ok with giving presentations to challenging audiences. I am struggling with the list though. Below is a further reduced list and why I think each item should be in.



History of flight

1st Manned flight,Montgolfier brothers ,1783 France

Has to be in - it is the first of the first

1st Aviation disaster, Tullamore, County Offaly, 1785 Ireland

Aviation is dangerous and the destruction of over 100 houses is a good story

1st Manned, controlled, heavier-than-air craft, George Cayley,1853 Great Britain

He was more important than the Wright brothers in my opinion.

1st Woman to pilot a powered aircraft, Rose Isabel Spencer, 1902 Great Britain

3/5 of the audience will be female and I have been asked to avoid a long list of white men.

1st Female military pilot, Eugenie Shakhovskaya, 1914 Russia

Keen to stress that being female is not a barrier.

1st Landing by an airplane on a moving ship, Edwin Dunning,1917 Great Britain

Leads in to the aircraft carrier.

1st Non-stop transatlantic flight, Alcock and Brown,1919 Great Britain

Incredible tail of daring do, climbing out on the wing to fix both engines etc

1st Female airline pilot,Marga von Etzdorf,1927 Germany

Specifically asked to include this.

1st Supersonic scheduled passenger flight,Concorde,1976 GB / France

An amazing achievement and shows what can be done with collaboration

1st Artificial satellite,Sputnik 1,1957 USSR
1st Human in space,Yuri Gagarin,1961 Russia
1st First woman in space,Valentina Tereshkova,1963 Russia
1st Human on the moon,Neil Armstrong,1969 USA

All big firsts
1st Rover,Lunokhod,1970 USSR

This is a great engineering story – traveled further than Spirit & Opportunity managed 40 years later and the designers were puled out of retirement to help with Chernobyl clean up and had kit on site in two weeks! Joke about Lord Britain owning the Moon

1st First space station,Salyut 1,1971 USSR
Another big first

1st Soft landing on a comet,Rosetta,2014 Europe

A big first and the only one the kids might remember actually happening

Next big step
1st Human to land on Mars,SpaceX,2023 USA?
Or do I go with Virgin Galactic

I have to cut out another 4 – Ideas and why please!

Rod1

[RAT 5]

You've missed out Icarus & Leonardo Da V. The first was a gun pilot who disobeyed flight safety issues: the second was an engineer par excellence.
For me the biggest problem you have is to design an inspirational talk to potential pilots & engineers. They are different animals and enthused by very different elements of aviation. There are many different types of pilots from airforce, crop sprayers, biz-jets & airlines. They too are motivated by different dreams. Engineers the same; those working at Rolls Royce design, those at a major airline and those specialised in light and antique a/c. Not so easy; it needs to be very general, amusing, inspirational with anecdotes to make it reality.

[Rod1]

So which 6 would you remove to get Icarus & Leonardo Da V in?:{

Rod1

[mikehallam]

Icarus is simply a fairy tale character & Leonardo just a whimsical sketcher with little idea of the detail requirements (his drawings replicate a kid's toy well known back then).

Neither worth it if padding being stripped out as even the Wright bros. have got the chop !

mike hallam.

[xrayalpha]

Hi,

I know you have a list, and now you are asking who to leave out.

And you have been told there are some you can't leave out!

I can see - very much so - why you want to put some women in. But the problem with "firsts" is that they all happened a long time ago!

I am thinking in respect of your first woman commercial pilot. She appears to have been a First officer. Perhaps Winnie Drinkwater was the first Captain a few years later. But all that was almost 100 years ago. Back then, and for a long time since, women were definately restricted in careers and jobs (my mother's pal was the first female resident in a certain Glasgow hospital in the 1950s, for instance)

Perhaps more appropriate is Lynn Barton, the BA captain. She started as a "first" with BA back in 1987 age 30 - so perhaps shows positive things like barriers are being broken down, and then leads onto Easyjet's female recruitment policy.... and even ours?

(For our 2017 bursaries we are guaranteeing female applicants an interview. So still choosing on merit, but trying to encourage as many as possible to apply)

ps. If you want a "first" to inspire, no-one - not even Richard Branson - has yet flown around the world in an autogyro!

[Rod1]

Thanks - I can use some of that:ok:

[xrayalpha]

pps.

So, dump the first woman military pilot. It was 1914 in Russia, and nothing happened in the UK for 80 years! (except ATA, which was not RAF)

Ist female RAF pilot was not until 1990, 1st female red Arrow in 2009.

And maybe replace your 1st female commercial pilot?

In a way, you have a problem with your speech:

In their time, the only folk with money and facilities to try out this new fangled stuff were white men. So the Firsts were by white men! Can't rewrite history.

And, in effect, many of these women "firsts" were exceptional beings who could push their way to the forefront. But it is arguable whether they really changed perceptions or "shattered" the mould: it took our UK community 50-odd years for BA to recruit a female pilot, the RAF 80-odd years!

Unfortunately, we are not all exceptional, or well off, or lucky enough to know the right people... etc etc. Perhaps all we can aspire to do, and motivate those around us to do, is "just" become decent humans doing our best?

[Genghis the Engineer]

I still think you're daft to try to cram so much detail, and probably too little and understanding in, but in the spirit of what you're doing...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Coleman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._R._Braithwaite

(They're likely to have studied one of his books, and a very interesting quote on Wikipedia... "During World War II, he joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot – he would later describe this experience as one where he had felt no discrimination based on his skin colour or ethnicity. He went on to attend the University of Cambridge (1949), from which he earned a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in physics.")

G

[RAT 5]

Leonardo just a whimsical sketcher with little idea of the detail requirements (his drawings replicate a kid's toy well known back then).

Somewhat harsh and oversimple.

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

You said you were looking to inspire pilots. Well the quote from Leonardo shows his soul was in the correct place. All the guff about the first lady this and the first bloke that..... that's just who did what. Inspiring people is about the Why.

And if you introduce Orville & Wright you'll have to expect the odd Australian history student trying to contradict you.
Icarus might have been a myth about a dreamer, but isn't it dreams that inspire? Flight is a magical experience.

The list you have is a history of aviation and personnel. IMHO to make it inspiring it needs a story, both for pilot & engineers.

If you consider the very start in early 1900's it is astonishing that there were fighter planes in WW1. Things went slowly then, but WW2 generated huge advances. And within 60 years there was Chuck Yeager & X2. The rate of progress, before computers, was astonishing and unprecedented. The engineers made it to the moon and back using slide-rules. Amazing.

[Rod1]

"the odd Australian history student trying to contradict you"

Not somthing that is likly to be an issue this time:cool:

Rod1

[gasax]

I've a small experience of speaking to 'young people' about sailing and flying. I think Rat5 is on the right track. a lisitng of dates and people they have never heard of is about as much fun as listening to their parents on the dangers of, well nearly anything. Their attention span is short. You have to catch it or they will spend the whole duration of your talk texting their mates.

What has made people want to do this? So Icarus and Leonardo are part of that. Your own experience of toddling around the Scottish islands neatly illustrates dreams becoming a reality for more ordinary people. The Paul Allen and Virgin stuff tells you those dreams are just reaching higher.

You can add in the 'first' stuff, dates and people only if you have their attention and are perhaps answering their questions

Best of luck!

[Rod1]

Ok, not seeing some of the issues so lets take an example which is connected to why I was asked to do this;

Some young people have a less than ideal home life, but are still intelligent and do better than expected in early school;

I want to be a pilot.

Girls do not fly aircraft dear, but if you work really hard on your makeup and look pretty you may get to serve the drinks, which is a good job.

Well actually the first female airline pilot was in 1927 and it is common now – some airlines actually prefer to employ women.

You get the general idea...

Rod1

[Genghis the Engineer]

Very laudable Rod, and power to your elbow, but it still reads to me that your emphasis should be on what can be done now and in those children's personal futures - not what happened in 1927, 1903, or 1945.

G

[Rod1]

All done - appears to have gone well - guess history will show how well;)

Thanks for the help.

Rod1

[terry holloway]

Opinions, enthusiasm and encouragement from old, wise and crinkly people looking at the past and imagining the future might help persuade parents and teachers, but I believe that real success comes from young people talking to young people. Right now EasyJet seem to be "on a roll" with attracting some very talented young people onto the flight deck. It would be interesting to know what motivated them, and how much better a 26 year old Captain would be in the classroom with a group of 12 year olds.

[Littlest Hobo]

Terry - agreed. I am often booked for STEM talks (particularly to girls) but before accepting I always remind the teacher/organiser that those in the audience weren't even born when I started university and give them the opportunity to consider a younger STEM Ambassador who may be more relatable to the young people...

Having said that, when I was a teenager I definitely felt inspired by some "old, wise and crinkly people" and still do now!

[Genghis the Engineer]

A lot of universities have had excellent responses sending enthusiastic undergraduates to talk to schoolchildren about careers and opportunities.

G

[terry holloway]

A lot of universities have had excellent responses sending enthusiastic undergraduates to talk to schoolchildren about careers and opportunities.

G
A lot of companies, including Marshall of Cambridge are also sending their talented young people into schools.
The "Leading Edge" ( the young people ) of The Air League are doing an equally good job of motivating young people, as well as trying hard to bring various organisations together in order to deliver consistent message to young people. However there is much work to be done.........