FLIGHTPLAN ! - Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

APRIL 2013 

E V E R G R E E N A V I A T I O N & S P A C E M U S E U M 

Volume 8 issue 4 

1 FLIGHTPLAN! A VOLUNTEER NEWSLETTER FOR VOLUNTEERS 

Your Newsletter Staff- 

Co-Editors: 

Ann Trombley, texannt@comcast.net 

Katha Lilley, tootiekat@live.com 

Feature writers: Bob Peterman, Spencer Vail, Bob Osborn, 

Bruce Anderson, Earl Scott , John Jennings, Bud Varty 

Contributors: Don Trombley, Mitch Mason, Jim Lilley 

Guest Contributors: Samatha Boehm, Angie Garcia, Srewart Bailey, 

Owen Griffiths 

FLIGHTPLAN ! “A Volunteer Newsletter by Volunteers” 

Yes, Mr Smith, 

there IS an Easter Bunny 

Image by Angie Garcia


APRIL 

BIRTHDAYS 

Is your Birthday Missing from the list??? 

Send an email to Katha Lilley 

tootiekat@live.com 

Our Mission- 

To inspire 

and educate 

To promote and 

preserve aviation 

and space history 

To honor the 

patriotic service of 

our veterans 

2- John Russell 

2- Bill Litherland 

3- Joan Carter 

3- Gary Sohn 

3- Timothy Guetz 

5- Ronald Skidmore 

8-Greg Macy (cad) 

9- Andy Hines 

9- Allen Herkamp 

11-James Cerar 

11- Laurent Gallipeo 

13- Jim Perkins 

14- Lynn Gelinas 

15-Gerald Heister 

16- Betty Martin 

16- Ryan Johnson Jr 

WELCOME 

NEW MEMBERS 

17- Elmer Amsden 

17- Dale Cook 

19- Neil Arney 

19- Scott Simpson 

22- Ronald Grose 

23- Ray Clevidence Jr 

24-Joel Krane 

25- Stacy Allen 

28- Arthur Molin 

28- Andrew Fitzgerold 

29- Petie Cummins 

29- Paul Russell 

29- Don Robison 

30- Julias Folgate 

Rebecca Kramer 

John Sannes 

Ronald Grose


BOB’S BANTER 

Recently, the United States’ 

use of unmanned aerial vehicles 

(UAVs) has been the subject of 

much debate and scrutiny. But their 

history dates back a lot further than 

the war on terror. The first true 

UAVs, which are technically defined 

by their capability to return 

successfully after a mission, were 

developed in the late 1950s, but the 

American military actually began 

designing and developing 

unmanned aircraft during World 

War I. 

Military aviation was born during 

the years preceding World War I; 

when the war began, the industry 

exploded. Barely more than a 

decade after Orville and Wilbur 

Wright successfully completed the 

first documented flight in history – 

achieving only 12 seconds of air 

time and traveling 120 feet– 

hundreds of different airplanes 

could be seen dogfighting in the 

skies above Europe. Mastering the 

sky had changed the face of war. 

Perhaps due to their distance from 

the fighting, the United States 

trailed behind Europe in producing 

military fliers; but by the end of the 

War, the U.S. Army and Navy had 

designed and built an entirely new 

type of aircraft -- a plane that didn’t 

require a pilot. The first functioning 

unmanned aerial vehicle was 

developed in 1918 as a secret 

project supervised by Orville Wright 

and Charles F. Kettering. Kettering 

was an electrical engineer and 

founder of the Dayton Engineering 

Laboratories Company, known as 

Delco, which pioneered electric 

ignition systems for automobiles 

and was soon bought out by 

General Motors. At GM, Kettering 

continued to invent and develop 

improvements to the automobile, as 

well as portable lighting systems 

and refrigeration coolants. He even 

experimented with harnessing solar 

energy. When the U.S. entered 

World War I, his engineering 

prowess was applied to the war 

effort and, under Kettering’s 

direction, the government 

developed the world’s first “selfflying 

aerial torpedo,” which 

eventually came to be known as the 

“Kettering Bug”. 

The bug was a simple, cheaply 

made 12-foot-long wooden biplane 

with a wingspan of nearly 15 feet 

that, according to the National 

Museum of the U.S. Air Force, 

weighed just 530 pounds, including 

a 180 pound bomb. It was powered 

by a four-cylinder, 40-horsepower 

engine manufactured by Ford. 

Kettering believed that his Bugs 

could be calibrated for precision 

attacks against fortified enemy 

defenses up to 75 miles away – a 

much greater distance than could 

be reached by any field artillery. 

The accuracy of this early “drone” 

was the result of an ingenious and 

surprisingly simple mechanism. 

After determining wind speed, 

direction, and desired distance, 

operators calculated the number of 

engine revolutions needed to take 

the Bug to its target; the Bug was 

launched from a dolly that rolled 

along a track, much like the original 

Wright flier (today, smaller drones 

are still launched from a slingshotlike 

rail). After the proper number 

of revolutions, a cam dropped into 

place and released the wings from 

the payload-carrying fuselage – 

which simply fell onto the target. To 

be sure, it wasn’t an exact science, 

but some would argue that drones 

still aren’t an exact science. 

The Dayton-Wright Airplane 

Company built fewer than 50 Bugs, 

but the war ended before any could 

be used in battle. That might be for 

the best. Much like today, there was 

a lot of doubt about the reliability 

and predictability of the unmanned 

aircraft and the military expressed 

concern about possibly endangering 

friendly troops. After the war, 

research into unmanned aircraft 

continued for a short time, but 

development halted in the 1920s 

due to the scarcity of funding. 

Research on UAVs wasn’t seriously 

picked up again until the outbreak of 

World War II. Although by today’s 

standards, the Kettering Bug has 

more in common with a guided 

missile than a drone, its conception 

as a pilotless plane represents an 

important step in the historical 

development of unmanned aerial 

vehicles. 

Bob Osborn 

The Kettering “Bug” (image: 

The United States Air Force) 

The Kettering “Bug” (image: The 

United States Air Force)


KEPLER -- The Search for Exo-Planets: Results 

In the January Flightplan, we described the Kepler spacecraft. Now let‟s look at the star fields and what is 

being found. 

It has been more than three-and-a-half-years since the Kepler mission launched in March, 2009. The 

spacecraft has continued in its heliocentric, drift-away orbit and is now more than 45 million miles away from 

Earth. Kepler is fixed looking at about 115,000 stars, 24/7 and takes a light measurement every 30 minutes. 

Discovering earth-like planets is expected to take three years or longer. 

In January during a semi-weekly contact with the spacecraft, the team detected an increase in the amount of 

torque required to spin one of the three remaining reaction wheels that stabilize the spacecraft. On January 17, 

2013, the reaction wheels were „rested‟ and were returned to normal operation on January 28, 2013. Before 

describing results, terms must be defined. 

Habitable Zone (more accurately, circumstellar habitable zone or CHZ) is the scientific term for the 

region around a star within which it is theoretically possible for a planet with sufficient atmospheric 

pressure to maintain liquid water on its surface, to denote various regions that are considered favorable 

to life in some way. 

Period – The number of Earth days a Kepler candidate or confirmed planet takes to orbit its sun. From 

the period, the orbital size can be calculated and its location relative to the habitable zone determined. 

Transit – The process where a candidate or confirmed planet crosses across its exosolar sun as viewed 

from the Earth. 

Brightness – The luminosity of a star is measured using “magnitude” as its unit of measure from the 

Earth. 

False positives – the photometer outputs an indication of light variances which may come from sources 

not indicative of a planet transiting its star. Binary stars can cause false positives by varying the light 

themselves rather than from a transiting planet 

As of January, 2013, Kepler has detected 2740 planet candidates with 105 confirmed. The Kepler team 

completed another monthly science data download over July 29-30, 2012. Kepler planet candidates are 

subjected to a rigorous vetting process before the candidate planet is recognized as a real planet. Discovery 

announcements made: 

The Kepler-47 system was announced on August 28, 2012. This is another Kepler first– a circumbinary 

system with more than one transiting planet, one of which is in the habitable zone of its parent binary star 

system. 

41 New Transiting Planets. Two newly submitted studies verify 41 new transiting planets in 20 star 

systems. These results may increase the number of Kepler‟s confirmed planets by more than 50 percent to 

nearly 120 planets hosted in nearly 70 star systems, over half of which contain more than one planet. 

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that one in six stars have an Earth-sized planet 

in an orbit closer than Mercury is to our sun. The study concludes that since the Milky Way has about 100 

billion stars, there are at least 17 billion Earth-sized worlds out there and that at least 70 percent of stars host at 

least one planet of any size. It is the planet-less star that is rare. 

John Jennings


OCTOBER SKY 

A few weeks ago, I was 

visiting with one of our “rocket 

guys” in the break room and 

happened to mention that we had 

watched the film “October Sky” 

the night before. He said that he 

had never heard of it. I was 

really surprised, considering the 

“rocket guy’s” background and 

interest. Then I thought that 

maybe many of you have not 

seen this 1999 film based on the 

book Rocket Guys, the 

autobiography of Homer Hickam, 

who trained astronauts for their 

rides into space. Homer is 

portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal; 

Chris Cooper is his Dad, and 

Laura Dern is the science 

teacher. 

Homer grew up in the 

1950’s mining town of Coalwood, 

West Virginia. His only future in 

sight would be to join his father in 

the coalmine. In October, 1957, 

everything changed for Homer 

when the Russians sent Sputnik 

into space. With that event, 

Homer became inspired to build 

rockets. He recruits some 

friends and the local nerd; and 

they start designing rockets by 

trial and error. Unfortunately 

most of the town, particularly 

Homer’s father, thinks they are 

wasting their time. Only one 

teacher in the high school 

understands their efforts and 

encourages them to become 

contenders for the national 

science fair which would 

guarantee college scholarships. 

The young high school students 

must learn to perfect their craft 

and overcome the obstacles as 

they shoot for the stars. 

At the end of the film are home 

movies showing the young men 

and what they accomplished with 

their scholarships. October Sky 

is frequently on cable television 

and can also be rented through 

Netflix. Plus you’ll love the 

music. I know you will enjoy it 

– it’s “prodigenous”. Watch it 

and you’ll hear this word. 

Ann Trombley

6 

Eight EASA students (mostly juniors and seniors) in the Engineering Projects 3 class are 

working with Evergreen docents to construct paper and balsa model aircraft. Students meet in 

the Model Aircraft area in the Evergreen Space Museum every other day for 80 minutes to cut, 

glue, sand and assemble their planes. After all is complete the propeller and rubber band are 

attached and the plane takes a test flight. This opportunity gives EASA students a chance to do 

something that would not normally be offered in a regular classroom instruction and is also a 

project that gets them focused on step-by-step procedure, detailed assembly and 

documentation. Thanks to Evergreen docent mentors Cecil and Mitch! 

Dr. Owen Griffiths, Lead Engineering Instructor 

MHS- EASA program 

Images by Mitch Mason 

APRIL EVENTS AT THE MUSEUM 

Home School Day – Space Race and Beyond April 12 8:30AM – 2PM Registration Fee 

education@sprucegoose.org 

Gettysburg Movie Night April 20 5:30PM – 10PM $10/person 

reservations@sprucegoose.org 

A Night to Honor U.S. Marines April 27 5:30 – 8PM $20/person 

reservations@sprucegoose.org 

*Watch Sands of Iwo Jima, special presentation afterward


What Else Happened in 1903? 

American Aida d’Acosta becomes the first woman pilot when she flies a Santos- 

Dumont dirigible in Paris. 

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen begins the first successful navigation of the 

Northwest Passage. 

Voters authorize the creation of the New York State Barge Canal. . 

The first stage of New York City's subway system nears completion. 

The Williamsburg Bridge carries its first traffic between Manhattan and Brooklyn. 

The Buick Motor Co. is founded in Flint, Mich. 

The Ford Motor Co. is incorporated in Detroit. 

William S. Harley and Walter and Arthur Davidson build their first motorcycle in 

Milwaukee, Wis. 

Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson of Burlington, Vt., completes the first transcontinental 

automobile trip, from San Francisco to New York. The United States has about 

8,000 cars but only about 150 miles of paved roads. 

New York City enacts the first automobile traffic code. 

Massachusetts and Missouri begin to issue driver’s licenses. 

Mary Anderson invents the windshield wiper. 

EASTER EGG HUNT AT THE MUSEUM 

Greeting the Easter Bunny 

Bunny Hugs 

Images by Angie Garcia


“Sketches of a Black Cat” 

The temporary exhibit, “Sketches of a 

Black Cat” has been installed in Gallery 

201 (room 201) on the mezzanine of the 

Aviation Museum. This is an exhibit of 

artwork and photos done by Howard 

Miner, a World War II PBY Catalina pilot, 

and will be on display through at least 

April 15 th . (We are working to see if we can 

extend it beyond that date) 

Please leave the doors to that room 

open and the lights turned on every day so 

that visitors will feel welcome to come in 

to see the art. 

On April 6 th , a talk will be presented in 

the Gallery by a PBY pilot from VP-54, 

the Black Cat Squadron, and the son of 

the artist. Copies of the book “Sketches of a 

Black Cat” will be available for sale. 

For questions, contact Curator Stewart Bailey. 

2013 Tuesday Aerospace MuseumTraining Schedule 

Apr 2 Richard Kyle 

F-105G Thud! The Wild Weasel transition from the F-100 to the G 

model, exactly like the one outside the Space Museum! 

Apr 9 DVD Review Assessing time/scheduling needed for cleanup of DVD files & index 

needs 

Apr 16 Donn Anderson Pluto & other dwarf planets. All my growing up years, Pluto reigned as 

the 9th planet in our Solar System. Then just a few years ago came the controversial announcement: 

Pluto was no longer one of the nine planets! It was assigned to a new category of Dwarf 

Planet! Learn why and find out about Pluto's companions as well as current space probe explorations 

of this interesting new category of Solar System objects. 

Apr 23 Ed Uecker 

Apr 30 Linda Thompson 

TBD 

TBD 

May 7 Elliott Abram Curiosity’s power source: The technology it took to power Curiosity’s 

instruments through the use of Thermo-electric materiel. What are they and how they are 

used. 

Guests are always invited; Training class time: 0930-1030. 

For a copy of the complete listing of classes conducted, contact the training coordinator, Elliott 

Abram at shellback243@me.com or call 503-476-5973 (cell) 503-435-2856 (home).


MARCH BOARD OF CAPTAINS MEETING 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jean Mead will no longer be in charge of collecting the volunteer hours. Space docent Chuck Howell is 

taking over the task. 

Phil Jeager will have fire drill procedures in place in April when we will have evacuation drills. Information 

will be available beginning April 1. 

New Waterpark hours: Thursdays, 3-8 p.m.; Fridays, 12 noon – 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. 

– 7 p.m. 

Training and new information regarding the new levels of membership are ongoing and available. 

Development Director Steven Guntli is working on developing a committee of volunteers to help with fundraising 

events. A proposal to Mr. Smith will be presented in the fall. Steven also attended the Ford 

Institute, a Ford Foundation organization, which sets up community leadership programs. He will be 

recruiting McMinnville residents who are also volunteers and will be familiar with community leaders. 

Volunteers are needed to help with identifying candidates for the Hall of Honor. Suggestions are needed 

for those involved in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. 

The Education Department has been reduced by two staff members. Volunteers may be asked to help 

with school tours. 

Lost and found: Lost articles from any EASM building will be taken to the Aviation Museum, logged in, and 

placed in a tote under the back cabinet. Expensive items (cell phones, cameras, jewelry, etc) will be 

placed in a safe in the Aviation Museum. 

Jim Lilley 

APRIL LAUNCH PAD 

DATE LAUNCHER DESCRIPTION 

15 PROTON International Launch Services deploys Anik satellite to provide 

Breeze M 

Ku-band TV broadcasting services to Canada, C-band & Ku- 

Upper Stage band programming to the Americas; commercial X-band payload 

for military users for Telesat of Canada. 

16 ANTARES Orbital Sciences – simulated Cygnus spacecraft on a 

demonstration flight. 

19 SOYUZ Launch Bion M1 capsule into LEO with an international payload 

of live animals, plants, & other life science experiments for exposure 

to microgravity. Back to Earth after one-month mission. 

19 VEGA 2 nd flight with the Proba-V Earth observation satellite for the 

European Space Agency & VNREDSat 1A imaging satellite 

for Vietnam. Proba-V has instrument to provide overview of global 

vegetation growth. VNREDSat 1A – collect optical imagery. 

24 SOYUZ 51 ST Progress cargo delivery ship to ISS 

26 SOYUZ Glonass K navigation satellite. Fregat upper stage 

TBD LONG Chinese to launch a CBERS 3 sensing satellite – 3 rd China- 

MARCH 4B Brazil Earth Resources Satellite for collecting global imagery 

for environmental, urban planning, & agricultural applications. 

John Jennings


5-MINUTE 

HISTORY LESSON 

The general public has 

been lead to believe that 

barrage balloons, as utilized in 

England during WWII, were to 

deter low level bombing 

attacks. Sufficient time has 

passed that information 

previously protected by Great 

Britain's Official Secrets Act is 

now available for public review. 

The real story surrounding the 

"Barrage Balloon" can now be 

told. 

A little background 

information is required to fully 

understand the true facts. The 

barrage balloon was simply a 

bag of lighter than air gas 

attached to a steel cable 

anchored to the ground. The 

balloon could be raised and 

lowered to the desired altitude 

by use of a winch. Its purpose 

was ingenious: to deny lowlevel 

airspace to enemy 

aircraft. This simple mission 

provided three major benefits: it 

forced aircraft to higher 

altitudes thereby decreasing 

bombing accuracy; it enhanced 

ground based air defenses and 

the cable presented a definite 

mental and material hazard to 

pilots. 

The principle of flight for 

these balloons is simple 

enough to grasp. The uplift of 

the hydrogen gas is such that it 

gave more uplift to the balloon 

than the balloon weighed. As 

you may remember from high 

school physics class, 

Archimedes (287-212 BC) Law 

states that;" A body completely 

immersed in a fluid it displaces 

a quantity of fluid equal to its 

own volume." - This applies 

equally to ships, submarines 

and airships and balloons. The 

"Lifting Power" of a balloon can 

be calculated for various gases 

under identical conditions. All 

that need be done is calculate 

the weight of air that the 

balloon will displace at a 

specific altitude and then 

subtract from that figure the 

total weight of the balloon in 

question. 

Each balloon was filled with 

70,000+/- cu.ft. of hydrogen 

and had a buoyancy factor of 

one ton. The balloon had a 

rudder that kept it facing into 

the wind. Principle dimensions 

for the typical balloon were 64 

feet in length with a diameter of 

25 feet and weighed about 550 

lbs. 

The British government, in 

1938, formed a Balloon 

Brigade under the command of 

Air Marshall Sir E. Leslie 

Gossage to oversee the 52 

operational balloon squadrons. 

By the middle of 1940 there 

were 1400 such balloons. By 

the time of the D-Day invasion 

in 1944 that number had 

increased to nearly 3000 

balloons. But why so many? 

Now for the rest of the 

story. The rationale about 

Barrage Balloons deterring 

enemy bombers is just so 

much bilge water. It was the 

vast troop buildup in England, 

together with all their 

equipment and other support 

material that was the real 

reason for the balloons. 

With some 2.5 million men 

stationed in England, with an 

average weight of 145 lbs or 

about 180 tons, countless B- 

24s and B-17s weighing in at 

about 18 tons each, fighter 

aircraft at about 3.5 tons each 

and the millions of gallons of 

fuel in both the above ground 

and the secret below ground 

facilities at about 7 pounds per 

gallon, bombs and ammunition, 

thousands of 2.5-ton tanks, 

trucks, and other the other 

material required for the 

pending invasion caused the 

island country to begin sinking 

into the sea. The balloons 

were necessary to keep the 

country afloat and the number 

of balloons increased 

proportionately as the 

additional weight accumulated. 

Spencer Vail


Docent profile: 

Tom Maloney 

Every Wednesday morning a 

quiet, distinguished gentleman 

handles the north desk in the 

Aviation Museum. He is Tom 

Maloney, a highly decorated 

Navy dive bomber pilot in WWII, 

and a 2005 inductee into the 

Oregon Aviation Hall of Honor. 

Tom joined the Navy in 1941, 

before the US entered the war. 

“I knew war was coming, and 

when it came I wanted to fly 

airplanes,” he told us. “I joined 

the Navy because it was a first 

class outfit, and I wanted to fly 

for them.” 

After flight training he was 

assigned to the aircraft carrier 

Princeton. In 1942 he flew off 

the carrier to join the forces on 

Guadalcanal. He had been 

assigned to a dive bomber 

squadron and piloted the SBD 

Douglas Dauntless. 

Tom also learned to fly the 

F4U Corsair fighter and the TBF 

Avenger torpedo bomber. “The 

Corsair was a great fighter,” 

Tom remembers. “It was fast, 

tough and agile.” He is not as 

enthusiastic about the Avenger. 

“The TBF was a flying coffin. It 

was slow, and you had to keep it 

steady and low as you 

approached your target. You 

were a sitting duck.” 

As US troops captured more 

Pacific Islands, Tom’s squadron 

moved to Munda Island, 

Bougainville Island, and Green 

Island, all the while keeping up a 

steady series of raids on 

strategic Japanese bases. His 

missions included several to the 

heavily defended port of Rabaul, 

effectively isolating that 

stronghold for the remainder of 

the war. 

After over 100 missions, Tom 

and the 20% of his original 

squadron that remained were 

sent back to the US. They were 

told that they had done their 

share of fighting and that they 

would spend the remainder of 

the war training new pilots and 

handling administrative duties. 

For Tom, it was not to be. 

A key officer of Navy Air 

Group 6 in Santa Rosa, 

California, was killed in an 

accident, and the Squadron 

Commander flew to San Diego 

to review the records of pilots 

with war experience. He found 

the record that he wanted and 

ordered that man to report within 

24 hours. That man was Tom 

Maloney. 

AG6 soon reported aboard 

the aircraft carrier Hancock, and 

Tom was on his way to the 

Pacific again. His second tour 

included bombing raids on 

Formosa, the Philippines, 

islands around Iwo Jima, 

Okinawa, and Japan itself, all 

launched from the aircraft 

carrier. At Okinawa Tom single- 

handedly destroyed a key 

bridge. His plane was damaged 

during that bombing run, but he 

landed in the sea and was 

rescued. 

For his wartime actions Tom 

received two Navy Crosses, the 

Distinguished Flying Cross, and 

five Air Medals. When asked 

about surviving two Pacific war 

tours and nearly 200 missions 

without a scratch, Tom said, “I 

was just lucky.” 

Bud Varty


Famous Aviators – The Wright Brothers 

Installment 1 –The Quest for Flight 

“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their 

grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously 

on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on 

the infinite highway of the air.” Orville Wright 

Wilbur and Orville Wright were 

unlikely candidates to become the 

first to fly an airplane. From Dayton, 

Ohio, they had less than high 

school educations and had dabbled 

in publishing and bicycle 

manufacturing prior to putting their 

minds to the possibility of heavierthan-air 

powered flight. 

Wilbur began the process in 1899 

with a letter to the Smithsonian 

Institution, asking for all information 

they had and saying, “I am an 

enthusiast, but not a crank in the 

sense that I have some pet theories 

as to the proper construction of a 

flying machine. I wish to avail myself 

of all that is already known and 

then, if possible, add my mite to 

help on the future worker who will 

attain final success.” 

From the outset the brothers saw 

that control of a flying machine 

would be the key to success. Lift 

and power would be relatively easy 

to achieve with known technology. 

They theorized that control would 

be achieved through three axes: 

pitch, yaw, and roll. It was much 

like balancing on a bicycle, they 

thought. Pitch and yaw were 

quickly accomplished with elevators 

and a rudder. It was roll that eluded 

them at first. Wilbur noticed that 

when birds rolled (or “banked”) they 

twisted their wings. He theorized 

that by similarly twisting an 

airplane’s wing, banking could be 

done. To test his theory he built a 

kite with flexible wings and took it to 

the air. 

The flexible wing kite worked. They 

had solved the problem of roll and 

named the process “wing warping.” 

In 1900 the Wrights first went to 

windy Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to 

test gliders built on their theories of 

flight. The gliders’ wings were 

constructed on tables generated by 

previous flight experimenters, but 

the tests were unsatisfactory, and 

the brothers suspected that those 

lift tables were flawed. They 

returned to Dayton and, through a 

sophisticated procedure that 

included one of the first wind 

tunnels, found the error and 

improved their wing design. 

The next two years saw the 

Wrights back and forth between 

Dayton and Kitty Hawk with everimproving 

glider designs. In early 

1902 they took a new glider design 

for testing. It performed every 

maneuver well. It was time to add 

power. 

The Wrights determined that they 

needed a light internal combustion 

engine developing nine horsepower. 

Finding no manufacturers that could 

match their needs, they and their 

bicycle shop mechanic, Charlie 

Taylor, built one of the first 

aluminum block, four-cylinder 

engines themselves. 

It was in the propeller design that 

they showed their inventive genius 

and creativity. Shaping the wood 

like wings, they were 80% efficient. 

Today’s best wood propellers are 

only three percent better. 

On December 17, 1903, they and 

volunteers from the beach lifesaving 

team took their flyer out to the Kitty 

Hawk sands. Against a 26-mph 

wind, they achieved the first 

sustained, controlled airplane 

flights. 

That day they sent the following 

telegram to their family in Dayton: 

"SUCCESS. FOUR FLIGHTS. 

INFORM PRESS. HOME 

CHRISTMAS" 

Bud Varty

FLIGHTPLAN ! - Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

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