On the morning of December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilber Wright stood on the beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and actually flipped a coin to see who would be the one to fly their hand-made aircraft which was aptly named "The Flyer". Although their first flight lasted only 12 seconds and covered only 120 feet, it was historic as it was the first powered and adequately controllable flight to have ever taken place.

The two brothers took turns and made other successful flights that day - the longest being 59 seconds that traveled 852 feet. Remember that this took place in 1903. My parents were 1 and 2 years old at that time and I was born about 23 years later. So most of the aviation progress of developing from merely being an "invention" to have reached the moon and being about to travel to the stars, has taken place during my lifetime. Although man has dreamed and studied the potential for flying since the beginning of his time, once the technical break through took place, has anything ever developed so rapidly? It is just too hard to believe.



Henry Ford of Ford Motor Company recognized the potential of air transportation and after WW 1 developed the "Ford Tri-Motor" which first flew in 1929.



This flight was just in time for the stock market crash and the beginning of our great depression. But this plane was the beginning of the airline industry and unfortunately was the end of Henry's adventures into airplaning.

It is said in hanger talk that many of these Tri-motor airplanes were modified to allow the pilot to sit in an open cockpit as many of the few pilots of the day doubted that a plane could be flown without a direct "feel of the wind".

We lived on the east side of Columbus, Ohio and the new Columbus Airport was (dinky by today's standards) about 3 or 4 miles further east. So there I was, about 6 years old and seeing these beauties fly overhead on their way to the airport. Who could resist.

According to the web, the Douglas Corporation also was in the airplane development business and developed and quickly superseded their DC-1 and DC- 2 with the DC-3. Literally thousands (10,000, I am told) of this plane were built and used by almost every airline and every country. It first flew on December 17, 1935, just 32 years after Orville and Wilber's successful first flight. My attraction became even stronger as these beautiful birds flew overhead. I have been a passenger on many DC-3 flights, as a scheduled airline, military transportation, and several of my clients had DC-3s as their corporate planes. It was one tough bird.

A few years back a neighbor of mine told me about his escapades in a C-47, which was the military conversion of the DC-3. His name was Jim, and Jim flew many flights loaded with 55 gallon drums of tank fuel in support of General Patton’s move toward Germany. Jim said that they would fly as close as possible to the advancing line of tanks and land, someplace, anywhere, keeping in mind that the plane and he were expendable, but the fuel was not. He would pick out a spot on the ground and put the C-47 on it, one way of the other. They would quickly unload and take off to make another run before dark.

They were being shot at most of the time and his copilot was killed. After the war Jim went to see his copilots intended and they ended up getting married. They were great people. Believe it or not, Jim's vocation was that of a professional magician, which I am sure contributed to his survival.



In about 1933 at the age of 9, I couldn’t stand it any longer and got on my bike and rode out to the airport. Security wasn't the issue it is today as people had a natural trust of each other and I was able to freely walk anyplace I wanted, talk to anyone I could get to talk to me and explain stuff, and no one stopped me when I walked up the steps to the top of the Control Tower. After my first visit to their tower I became an almost regular and visited with the tower operators at least once a week.