Every day, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization provides service to more than 44,000 flights and 2.7 million airline passengers across more than 29 million square miles of airspace.
A lot of folks are nervous about flying, and some are even more nervous about small airplanes. But, did you know that General Aviation, or small planes, fly about 10 times more miles and more people every single day that all the airlines of the world fly combined. It’s true. Look at it this way, there are about 5,500 commercial airliners in the world, but over 200,000 private airplanes, just in this country alone. And, just like most things, it’s not the craft….it’s who’s at the controls. Funny part about it is that you don’t think twice about jumping in a car and riding with someone who you barely know, like a taxi driver or Uber. And you probably already know that you stand a 5,000 times greater chance of being killed in a car than in an airplane. As a matter of fact, if all car drivers were required to get the equivalent training that is required to get even a private pilot’s license, you would have to go to driver’s training for nearly 3 years before you got your license.
On average all aviation flies over 100 billion miles safely between accidents. But you only hear about the accidents. And they do happen. And there had to be a first…accident, that is. Do you know who had the first car crash? No? You probably don’t. Do you know who had the first fatal airplane crash? It is a little known fact that the first airplane fatality took place at the hands of the first man to ever fly an airplane to begin with. Orville Wright was demonstrating his 1908 Wright Military Flyer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps division. Thomas Selfridge was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He had designed the Red Wing and was the first U.S. military officer to pilot a modern aircraft when he flew solo in AEA’s (Aerial Experiment Association) newest craft, White Wing. He had arranged to be the passenger while Orville piloted. The Flyer was carrying more weight than it had ever done before and after circling Fort Myer several times, the right-hand propeller broke, sent the Flyer into a nose dive and the craft hit the ground nose first. Wright sustained many injuries but Selfridge was the first Active Duty member of the U.S. military to die in a crash while on duty.
You will see many firsts in the “Up in the Air” exhibit at the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center. Wilber and Orville Wright from Dayton, Ohio had the first flight. Matthew Sellers from Olive Hill, had the first patent on landing gear. Louis Bleriot was a French airplane manufacturer and aviator who made the first flight of an airplane between continental Europe and Great Britain.
In the early years of aviation, although they differed in their origins, temperaments, and design strategies you will see that all of the ‘firsts’ were male and all of them were white. You will also see the ‘first’ that changed the face of aviation both figuratively and literally. Bessie Coleman was the sixth child out of 13 children of black sharecroppers in Atlanta, Texas. She attended Langston University for one year but had to quit for lack of funds. She moved to Chicago and lived with two older brothers, attended a beauty school and worked as a manicurist in a men’s barbershop. When World War I broke out, her brothers joined the Illinois, All-Black National Guard and went to Europe. When they returned they told Bessie about the French women who had much better career prospects – “some even took to the skies as pilots!” She took that as a provocation to learn to fly but she quickly discovered no American Aviation School would train women or minorities.
Undeterred by the limits set on her gender and race she made a plan to make it to France and learn to fly. She “took French lessons, found a better paying job and enlisted the aid of African Americans to bring her plan to fruition.” She applied for a passport, sailed to England and enrolled in Renee & Gaston Caudron’s famous aviation school. She learned to fly in a Newport Kite 82 common trainer doing bank turns, learning how to recover from tail spins and loop the loops. On June 15, 1921 she became the first black person in the world- man or woman- to get her international pilot’s license. American flying schools refused to give her further training so she returned to France. She made her American debut at Curtis Field in Garden City Long Island in 1922. New York’s All-Black 15th Infantry (Harlem Hellfighters) paraded on the field and the flyer herself wore a military style outfit while flying a Curtis JN4. Upon landing she received flowers from Hubert Fauntleroy Julian; a Trinidad-born aviation pioneer nicknamed “The Black Eagle of Harlem.” This event not only was another ‘first’ for Bessie and aviation, but also of social and cultural importance.
Come visit the museum and see all the ‘firsts’ in the Up in the Air Exhibit and build your own planes and rockets in the Mission Aerospace exhibit. KYGMC is also sponsoring an Aviation Celebration on July 20 (notice the date change) at the Fleming Mason Airport starting at 10 a.m. and ending at 2 p.m. Free admission to see helicopters, planes, model flyers and more! Come to the museum at 1:30 on July 27 and make some “Space Food”!
Readers may email questions to [email protected] @ Kentucky Gateway Museum Center, Maysville, KY
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