Please note that this text-only version, provided for ease of printing and reading, includes approimately 100 pages and may take up to 25 minutes to print. By clicking on one of these links, you may go directly to a particular text-only section:

Introduction
Essay on Idea of Flight
Essay on Wright Brothers
Essay on Aviation Pioneers
Essay on Modern Aviation
Essay on Air Power
Essay on Space
List of Sites (by theme and chronology)
List of Sites (by state)
Map (must be printed separately)
Begin the Tour
Learn More
Credits

Introduction

As part of the commemoration of the Centennial of Flight, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places and Regional Offices, in partnership with Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, United States Air Force, U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers (NCSHPO), proudly invite you to explore Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms. Much of America’s 20th-century history is inextricably linked to aviation. America's rise to preeminence in aviation was accomplished through the astonishing achievements of men and women in both the public and private sectors. The pioneers of America’s aviation industry built the technological and industrial infrastructure that enabled aviation to succeed, while the exploits of daring flying heroes captured the public imagination and encouraged the support of aviation. The Federal government supported the development of military aviation, conducted important aeronautical research, and established, regulated, and encouraged the development of interstate passenger, postal, and freight commerce. In celebration of a century of flight, this travel itinerary highlights more than 100 listings in the National Register of Historic Places--historic aircraft, airfields, research and testing facilities, aeronautical and engineering research laboratories, military installations, battle sites, launch and control facilities--that tell the stories of the significant people and events that made the United States the world’s leader in aviation.

The American public had a fascination with aviation throughout the 20th century. Aerial combat in the First World War established heroes such as Lt. Edward Rickenbacker, "Ace of Aces" and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The Golden Age of Aviation between the world wars brought enthusiasm for flying to all parts of the country via air shows, air races, barnstormers, and wing walkers. The exploits of daring pilots, including Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes were closely followed as they set speed, distance, and endurance records. Hollywood captured America’s love of the romance of flight in the movies; the first Academy Award for best motion picture was presented to the 1927 film Wings, the story of American Army Signal Corps pilots battling the Germans in the skies over France. America’s entry into World War II was precipitated by a Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. The United States responded with the massive mobilization of men and war materiel that eventually destroyed German Nazism and Italian fascism in Europe and the expansionist Japanese empire. The bombers, fighters and transport aircraft produced by American industry contributed substantially to that victory. After the Second World War, developments in aviation were spurred by the tensions of the Cold War and the expanded civilian growth of air travel for pleasure and business. The military focused on high-speed aircraft to maintain air superiority. The Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik on October 4, 1957, was a pivotal event in the development of the American space program. The United States responded to this challenge with exceptional achievements: manned space flight, lunar landings, exploration of the solar system, and development of the space shuttle program.

Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms offers several ways to discover the places that reflect the history of American aviation. Each highlighted site features a brief description of the place's historic significance, color photographs and public accessibility information. At the bottom of each page the visitor will find a navigation bar containing links to six essays that explain more about the Idea of Flight, the Wright Brothers, Aviation Pioneers, Modern Aviation, Air Power and Space. These essays provide historic background, or "contexts," for the places included in the itinerary. In the Learn More section, you will find links to regional and local web sites that provide visitors with further information regarding cultural events, special activities, and lodging and dining possibilities. The itinerary can be viewed online, or printed out if you plan to visit any of these places in person. Visitors may be interested in Historic Hotels of America, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, located near the places featured in this itinerary.

Created through a partnership between the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places and Regional Offices, Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, United States Air Force, U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission and NCSHPO, Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms is the latest example of a new and exciting cooperative project. As part of the Department of the Interior's strategy to promote public awareness of history and encourage tourists to visit historic places throughout the nation, the National Register of Historic Places is cooperating with communities, regions, and Heritage Areas throughout the United States to create online travel itineraries. Using places nominated by State, Federal and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the itineraries help potential visitors plan their next trip by highlighting the amazing diversity of this country's historic places and supplying accessibility information for each featured site. Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms is the 29th National Register travel itinerary successfully created through such partnerships. Additional itineraries will debut online in the future. The National Register of Historic Places hopes you enjoy this virtual travel itinerary of aviation history. If you have any comments or questions, please just click on the provided e-mail address, "comments or questions" located at the bottom of each page.

Idea of Flight

From the earliest days, humans have dreamed of flying and have attempted to achieve it. Greek and Roman mythology have examples of gods who were gifted with flight. Daedalus and Icarus flew through the air, and Icarus died when he flew too close to the sun. Religions relate stories of chariots that fly through the air and winged angels that join humans in the heavens. Flying creatures that were half human and half beast appear in legends. Birds and fantastic winged creatures pulled boats and other vehicles through the air. The ancient Chinese invented spinning toys that were the earliest helicopters and their designs may have influenced Leonardo da Vinci, one of the world's greatest inventors, artists, and visionaries.

Chinese records describe human attempts to sail through the air by attaching themselves to kites-one of the most significant inventions leading to flight which, with its inclined wing, evolved into the airfoil. Da Vinci discovered and analyzed several of the basic principles of aerodynamics and physics and designed machines (but, in most cases, did not fly them) that applied these principles. He wrote prolifically, and it was only because his written works were lost for centuries that his influence on other inventors was not greater than it was. His writings included hundred of sketches that illustrated his observations of flight in nature and the inventions he designed. He wrote and drew on key problems of aeronautics, including action and reaction; the structure of wings, carrying surfaces, and landing gear; and even devices for directional control.

Others in the next centuries took tentative steps toward flight. Various individuals tried to imitate the motion of birds and built apparatus with flapping wings called ornithopters. Sometimes they attached wings to their arms and sometimes also their legs. Some mounted winged devices that they manipulated in various ways and occasionally added foot-pedal power. Although a few were able to travel short distances, others died when they jumped off roofs or towers and they and their devices crashed to the ground. Other experimenters tried gliding rather than flapping. In general, these were more successful than the flapping efforts, although the distances were still very short. In any case, many claimed to have flown but, not surprisingly, few had witnesses or could offer proof.

The first experimenter who a ctually analyzed the various forces that contributed to flight was the Englishman George Cayley at the end of the eighteenth century. Cayley identified and defined the forces of flight and sketched out an airplane that had the primary elements of a modern aircraft. Cayley defined the principles of mechanical flight and stated that, to fly, it was necessary for surfaces to be able to support a weight by applying "power to the resistance of air." In other words, the force that moved an object in a forward direction had to be greater than the opposite force (resistance or drag) that the air exerted on an object. His "On Aerial Navigation" was one of the important early works on aviation. He also introduced the scientific method to the study of aviation-stressing careful analysis of problems and thorough testing. In the mid-nineteenth century, he demonstrated these principles with glider models that actually were able to carry the weight of a passenger a short distance. Cayley also experimented with variously shaped wings and demonstrated the importance that wing shape had on the ability of an aircraft to generate the lift that kept it afloat.

  Cayley's work influenced inventors for at least the next fifty years. Both unpowered gliders and airplanes that were powered by engines were attempted. Gliders were built that progressively could fly farther and farther and over which the pilots gradually gained control. Some of these gliders were outlandish-looking devices with various types of wing designs that had one, two, three, or even more flying surfaces. Some had short stubby wings while others had wings that were extremely long and narrow. In France, the founding of the first aeronautical society, the Sociéte Aérostatique et Météorologique de France, in 1852, marked the recognition of aviation as a legitimate discipline. Louis Charles Letur built and tested a parachute-glider, which was the first pilot-controlled machine to be tested in flight. Michel Loup, Jean-Marie LeBris, and others built flying machines that were modeled after birds.

Inventors added engines to their gliders or balloons to provide forward motion as they became available or built new designs that were meant to use the power provided by an engine. The first engines were steam-driven and generally were too heavy to provide enough power for effective lift in relation to the weight of the apparatus they were meant to power. In England, William Henson designed and patented the Aerial Steam Carriage, a powered device that was based on Cayley's doctrines. It was never built, but the steam engine that was designed to power it was judged the best that had been built up to that time.

However, inventors had more success when an engine was used with a balloon. The year 1852 marked the first time a powered device had been applied to an airframe-in this case, it was Henri Giffard's airship that was driven by a three-horsepower steam engine. Two decades later, Félix Du Temple built a steam-powered monoplane that managed to rise a few feet off the ground-the first powered fixed-wing aircraft that carried a passenger, albeit down a slope. Thomas Moy built an Aerial Steam Carriage that was a monoplane powered by a steam engine that lifted a few inches off the ground. These aircraft displayed various types of propeller assemblies that were all sizes. Other inventors, such as Alphonse Pénaud, used twisted rubber strips, basically a rubber band, to propel their flying machines. He developed theories about wing contours that he successfully applied to model airplanes, helicopters, and ornithopters. He also designed an amphibian monoplane that anticipated features that were implemented later. But he committed suicide before the design took real shape. Others used compressed air to generate thrust, and one inventor used gunpowder to power a propeller. Others reshaped wing to make them more aerodynamically effective and generate more lift.

The final advances before the achievements of the Wright brothers took place in Europe in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The first was that of the French inventor Clément Ader who flew one machine more than 150 feet (50 meters) but only inches off the ground and a second about ten feet (three meters) off the ground. He claimed he was the first to fly, but others categorized his achievements as mere "hops." The second, and more significant development, was that of the German engineer Otto Lilienthal, who was the first to launch himself into the air and fly. He built monoplane, biplane, and triplane gliders--eighteen variations in all--and conducted experiment after experiment that tested their flying abilities. He earned the title the "father of aerial testing" with his more than two thousand glider flights, some which covered distances of over a thousand feet (300 meters) before he died as a result of a crash landing in 1896. The American Octave Chanute also was a major figure at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Chanute, a respected and successful engineer and bridge builder, documented the efforts of others who had experimented with aviation, whether they had been successful or were abject failures. He was the first aviation historian and lent his considerable reputation and analytical skills to publicizing and adding respectability to the burgeoning discipline. He also constructed and flew gliders with his colleague Augustus Herring along the shores of Lake Michigan near Chicago, Illinois. Chanute served as a friend and mentor to the Wright brothers and encouraged them in their efforts.

The final unsuccessful attempt at powered flight occurred in the United States. Samuel Pierpont Langley, astronomer and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, tested several small models that were powered by gasoline engines. These were successful and he was encouraged to try a full-size airplane called an Aerodrome. He attempted two launches in 1903, just days before the Wright brothers made their first powered flight, from a houseboat anchored in the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. Both attempts were unsuccessful.

Aside from the airplane, the aerial explorers of balloons and lighter-than-air (LTA) airships also deserve mention in the prehistory and history of aviation. The balloon predated the airplane by more than a century, and like the airplane, was used for both scientific study and military observation. The later LTA airships were a continuation of the idea of using buoyancy in transporting people, materials, and even weapons, through the air.

Balloons Airplanes are heavier than air and fly because of the aerodynamic force generated by the flow of air over the lifting surfaces. Balloons and airships are lighter-than-air (LTA), and fly because they are buoyant, which is to say that the total weight of the aircraft is less than the weight of the air it displaces. The Greek philosopher Archimedes (287 BC - 212 B.C.) first established the basic principle of buoyancy. While the principles of aerodynamics do have some application to balloons and airships, LTA craft operate principally as a result of aerostatic principles relating to the pressure, temperature and volume of gases. A balloon is an unpowered aerostat, or LTA craft. An airship is a powered LTA craft able to maneuver against the wind.

There are only two practical methods of producing a buoyant aircraft. If the air inside a suitably large and lightweight envelope is heated to a high temperature, the gas expands and a sufficient amount of fluid (air is a fluid) may be forced out of the interior so that its weight decreases and the total weight of the craft becomes less than the amount of fluid (or air) displaced. Hot air balloons were flown by the brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier as early as the spring of 1783. While the materials and technology are very different, the principles used by the earliest eighteenth-century experimenters continue to carry modern sport balloons aloft. Since 1960, hot air sport airships have also been constructed.

The other means of achieving buoyant flight is to fill the envelope with a gas that is sufficiently lighter than air. The first hydrogen-filled balloon was designed and constructed by Jacques A.C. Charles and launched from the Champs de Mars in Paris on August 27, 1783. Jean Pierre Blanchard, a French aeronaut, made the first free flight with a gas balloon in the United States from Philadelphia in January 1793. First-generation aeronauts quickly realized that hydrogen balloons would remain in the air longer, and fly higher and farther, than hot-air balloons. The basic elements of gas balloon technology fell quickly into place. A valve at the top of the balloon, controlled by a valve line dropping through the appendix of the balloon into the basket, is used to release gas, making the balloon heavier and causing it to descend. Jettisoning a small amount of ballast, usually water, shot, or sand, would lighten the balloon and cause it to rise. A combination hot air and gas balloon is called a Rozier balloon, in honor of it inventor, Pilatre de Rozier, who with Francois Laurent, the Marquis d´Arlandes, was the first human being to make a free flight.

While there were no revolutionary changes in free balloon technology until the development of the hot-air sport balloon following World War II, there were significant refinements during the nineteenth century. In Europe and America, city illuminating gas was commonly used where possible rather than hydrogen. In cases where inflation was undertaken in rural areas of towns where illuminating gas was not available, portable hydrogen generators were often used. The best known of these was produced by the American Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, who pioneered observation ballooning with the Union Army during the Civil War. The use of the drag rope was commonly adopted to assist in maintaining a fairly constant altitude close to the ground. A long line was allowed to drag on the ground behind a balloon in flight. When the balloon rose, it lifted additional rope, and weight, off the ground, slowing its rise. If the balloon began to drop, it would trail additional line on the ground, reducing the weight of the craft and slowing the descent.

Balloons served a variety of purposes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They provided a spectacular means of public entertainment throughout this period. Show people who dazzled ground-hugging spectators with their death-defying feats of aerial daring-do were popular in both Europe and America. Attempts to put tethered balloons to work as battlefield observation platforms began with the wars of the French Revolution and continued through World War I. There can be little doubt, however, that the balloon was most successfully used gathering scientific information on the upper atmosphere. From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the dawn of the space age, the balloon carried instruments and human beings to the roof of the atmosphere. The most important change in ballooning in the twentieth century was the introduction of inert helium as the primary lifting gas for American balloons and airships. As the United States controlled the entire world's supply of helium, other nations continued to fly with inflammable hydrogen.

Science and sport remain the most common applications of ballooning today. Balloons remain meteorological workhorses and continue to carry instrument packages aloft for short and long-term voyages into the atmosphere. Hot air balloons are an important part of modern sport aviation. Finally, the highly visible attempts to accomplish one record after another, from nonstop crossings of the oceans, to altitude records, to flights around the globe, capture the imagination of the press and public. Aerostation, the oldest form of flight, is alive and well and as capable of exciting public interest and enthusiasm as it was two centuries ago.

Airships
The dream of a navigable, or dirigible, balloon can be traced to the late eighteenth century. Not until the middle years of the nineteenth century were the first serious attempts made to realize that dream, however. A French experimenter, Henri Giffard, is usually credited with flying the first primitive airship in 1852. Airships are traditionally divided into three classes: rigid, semi-rigid and non-rigid. Non-rigid airships, or pressure airships, depend on the internal pressure of the gas in the envelope to maintain their shape. The blimps so familiar to viewers of major sporting events are pressure airships. Semi-rigid airships are pressure airships with a rigid keel structure.

Beginning in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, French constructors were active and successful in the design and operation of very large semi-rigid military airships. During the period 1900-1906, small, usually single-person, blimps of the sort popularized by the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont were used to entertain mass audiences in Europe and America. It was the emergence of the German Zeppelin during the years 1900-1913 that marked the genuine coming of age of the rigid airship, however.

Vehicles of commerce and weapons of war, Zeppelin airships offered the first practical means of transporting very heavy loads over very long distances through the air. As such, they served as transitional vehicles, performing a variety of duties from bombing enemy cities to providing transoceanic passenger service in an era when those tasks were beyond the capability of heavier-than-air craft. The era of the great rigid airship came to an end before World War II, when airplanes were able to carry substantial payloads over transoceanic distances at far higher speeds. Ultimately, basic technological limitations led to the demise of the rigid airship. The catastrophic destruction of the airship Hindenburg by fire in May 1937 marked the effective end of the rigid airship, although the dream of reviving the era of the "ships in the sky" continues to capture the imagination of enthusiasts.

Blimps continued in service with the U.S. Navy through World War II and into the era of the Cold War before being dropped from the inventory. Pressure airships continue to thrill spectators and to serve the needs of the media and advertisers. Proponents of the rigid airship continue to search for an economic niche that would justify a return of the large rigid airship.

This essay, titled in its original form The Prehistory of Powered Flight--an Overview by Judy Rumerman can be found in its original form on the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission's website. Added to this essay is another one, slightly edited here, which can also be found in its original form on the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission's website, titled Lighter-Than-Air-an Overview, by Tom D. Crouch, Senior Curator, Aeronautics, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

Wright Brothers

Orville and Wilbur Wright were the sons of Milton and Susan Wright. Milton rose from circuit preacher to bishop of the Church of the United Brethren of Christ. Susan Wright attended Hartesville College in Indiana where she studied literature and science and was the top mathematician in her class. As an adult, she frequently built household appliances for herself and toys for her children. Wilbur was born in 1867 near Millville, Indiana, and Orville was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1871. Their home had two libraries-the first consisted of books on theology, the second was a large, varied collection. Looking back on his childhood, Orville once commented that he and his brother had "special advantages...we were lucky enough to grow up in a home environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate whatever aroused their curiosity."

Both Wilbur and Orville did well in school, although Orville was known for getting into mischief. Orville and Wilbur were the only members of the immediate Wright family who did not receive a high school diploma, attend college, or marry. Because of Milton's position in the church, the Wrights moved frequently-twelve times before finally settling in Dayton, Ohio, in 1870. He traveled widely on church business, but always sent back many letters and often brought presents home. In 1878, he brought Wilbur and Orville a rubber band powered toy helicopter. Wilbur and Orville made several copies of this toy-it was the first powered aircraft they built together. Orville later recalled that the helicopter was based on a design by French inventor Alphonse Pénaud. They later studied his work in aeronautics as grown men.

During the winter of 1885-86, Wilbur was injured in an ice skating game. Complications-both mental and physical-followed. His illness derailed his plans to enter Yale College and become a teacher. It took him three years to recover his health. During his convalescence, he read avidly and nursed his mother, who had been suffering from tuberculosis since 1883. By 1886, she required constant care. In 1888, Milton Wright broke with the liberal leadership of the church and started his own conservative sect, Church of the United Brethren, Old Constitution. Susan Wright died in 1889.

The year 1889 was a turning point for the family. After many years of convalescing and caring for his mother, Wilbur recovered from his illness and joined Orville in the printing business. As soon as they had mastered the printing process, they moved on to building their own printing presses and briefly published two local newspapers. In 1892, the brothers went into the bicycle business -first selling and repairing bicycles, and then, in 1896, building them. The brothers added a few original improvements to the customary components, including an oil-retaining wheel hub and coaster brakes, which are still used today.

Ever since Milton brought home the helicopter toy, Wilbur and Orville had an interest in aviation. They followed the accounts of the German gliding pioneer, Otto Lilienthal, with great interest. Lilienthal's death in 1896 inspired the brothers to seriously investigate flight.

The Wright Brothers' 1900 Kite and Glider Experiments
By 1899, the Wright brothers had become seriously interested in the problem of human flight. After they exhausted the references locally available to them, they wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for further information. When they read the works of others, particularly Lilienthal, Octave Chanute, and Samuel Pierpont Langley, they realized the one factor that had prevented others from achieving successful flight was the pilot's lack of ability to balance and control the craft once it was airborne. They believed the other difficulties of propulsion and determining the most efficient wing shape were minor in comparison, or had already been solved.

In May 1900, when Wilbur was 33 and Orville 29, Wilbur wrote to Octave Chanute and introduced Orville and himself. At 68, Chanute was a well-known engineer and leading authority on aviation. He had conducted his own flight experiments and documented the efforts of the many people who had attempted to build flying machines. Chanute would become a good friend and encouraged Wilbur and Orville's efforts for many years.

At the time, most inventors were designing flying machines that were inherently stable. These craft would maintain a straight and level course with little maneuvering by the pilot. In contrast, Wilbur believed that the pilot had to have a means of controlling and balancing the motion of an aircraft in every axis. To solve the lateral control issue, he developed the concept of "wing-warping." This control system worked by twisting the wings in opposite directions, which increased the air pressure on one wing while decreasing it on the other. The resulting effect lifted one wing and lowered the other. In July 1899, Wilbur built a kite to test a wing-warping control system. When he tested the kite, he was able to make it climb, dive, and roll by manipulating the kite strings. The Wrights were ready to move on to the next step.

In 1900, they methodically began designing their first full-size, man-carrying aircraft, which they originally intended to use as a kite and control from the ground. This craft had two sets of wings, one above the other, a framework that allowed wing-warping, and an elevator in front of the wings to control the pitch (or angle) of the aircraft. When their design was nearly complete, they wrote to the U.S. Weather Bureau for help in finding the best place to build and test their invention. Based on the information they received, they decided Kitty Hawk, a wind-blown village on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, offered them the most suitable wind conditions and plentiful sand dunes to cushion their landings.

Wilbur departed Dayton and arrived at Kitty Hawk on September 12, 1900. He began assembling their kite, a biplane, with a 17-foot (5.2-meter) wingspan. Orville joined him two weeks later, bringing a tent and more supplies. The brothers began their test flights during the first week in October. Their kite had a wing area of 165 square feet (15 square meters) and a forward elevator for pitch control and some protection in the event of a crash. The first flights of the tethered kite were made without a pilot on board. The aircraft did not develop as much lift as they had expected and the flights were disappointing. On October 10, the wind caught the aircraft while parked, hurling it 20 feet before it struck the ground, which damaged it in several places. It was repaired and design adjustments were made, and the test continued. On October 18, Wilbur climbed on board and flew-gliding without the constraints of a tether-as much as 300 to 400 feet (91 to 121 meters) for up to 15 seconds. During the next week, the wind was too light for manned glides, and the brothers broke camp for the winter on October 23. They returned to Dayton with plans to come again the next year with a larger glider.

Further Gliding and Wind Tunnel Experiments - 1901
The brothers returned to Kitty Hawk the next summer and set up at Kill Devil Hills, in what is today the Wright Brothers National Memorial. From July 17 to August 16 they conducted tests with a new glider featuring 290 square feet of wing area. It also incorporated a foot actuated wing-warping control system that the pilot used to turn the aircraft. The brothers also made sure the wing camber matched Otto Lilienthal's calculations. The glider would nose-dive into the ground, and, once, only the front-located elevator saved Wilbur's life. The brothers realized how Lilienthal had been killed when his glider crashed on his final flight. They began questioning the validity of Lilienthal's aerodynamic calculations they were using and suspected Lilienthal's data for camber contributed to the problem.

Although the brothers succeeded in making one flight of 389 feet (120 meters), outdistancing Chanute's gliders of 1896, they decided to return to Dayton and perform their own calculations for airfoil lift and drag. Back in Dayton, they received an invitation from Chanute, inviting them to speak at the distinguished Western Society of Engineers meeting. Wilbur's speech, titled 'Some Aeronautical Experiments,' was made to an appreciative crowd of society members and their wives, where he showed slides of his machines in the air. He suggested that Lilienthal's lift and drag tables were wrong. Once Wilbur had publicly stated they believed that Lilienthal's data was wrong, they had to find a way to determine the correct data.

Setting out to collect accurate information with a wind tunnel constructed in the back room of their bicycle shop, they designed and operated wind tunnel balances; the instruments placed inside the tunnel to accurately measure the forces operating on small model airfoils. Tom D. Crouch, in his entry on the Wrights in the American National Biography, wrote "Constructed of bicycle spoke wire and hacksaw blades, the balances enabled Wilbur and Orville to gather those precise bits of information required to design the wings of a flying machine."

During late October and early November, Orville and Wilbur conducted tests on some 200 different wing shapes in the tunnel. By mid-December 1901, they had discovered, much to their surprise, that Lilienthal's tables were largely correct. It was Smeaton's coefficient that was wrong. The brothers also found the camber, or curvature, of Lilienthal's wings was inefficient. To remedy this, they designed wings with more of a parabolic curve that placed the high point of the wing about one-fourth of the way back down the chord from the leading edge rather than at its center, as Lilienthal had. There was one other area where they had erroneously relied on Lilienthal's tables. They did not correct for the differences in the aspect ratio between Lilienthal's wing and the wings of their gliders. In other words, the proportion between the wingspan and the wing's chord length was different. This also affected the amount of lift generated.

Success! Orville's and Wilbur's 1902 Glider Flights
The brothers returned to Kill Devil Hills on August 27, 1902, and spent their first week there repairing the aircraft hangar and setting up camp. They then began to assemble their new machine. Based on their wind tunnel data, their 1902 glider had a new wing with a shallow camber and high aspect ratio. It was a major departure from their earlier machines. It had roughly the same wing surface area as the 1901 machine, but the similarities ended there. The wingspan was ten feet (three meters) longer and the chord two feet (0.6 meter) shorter than the old machine, making the glider look larger and more graceful. It had an overall length of 16 feet (5 meters) and weighed 112 pounds (51 kilograms). The wing camber followed a shallow parabolic curve, and the elevator was extended farther out in front of the pilot. This gave it more leverage, which allowed better control. The 1902 glider also had a new rudder that consisted of two fixed vertical surfaces located behind the aircraft. Wilbur and Orville calculated that these would help prevent the skidding that had occurred when they warped the wings.

After adjusting the wing trussing to provide more stability in a crosswind, they began their tests on September 19. From the first test flight as a kite, it was evident their new glider was vastly superior to their two previous machines. One problem persisted. The glider still slipped in turns. The tail did little to stop it; in fact, Orville suspected it made the problem worse. When the wings were warped and the airplane began to turn, the set of wings inside the turn was moving slower (and therefore generating less lift) than the wings on the outside. At the same time, the fixed tail-no longer parallel to the air stream-presented a broad surface that dragged in the air, increased the skid, and further slowed the inside wings. The wings dropped as they lost more and more lift, and the glider went into an uncontrolled spiral and struck the ground. The brothers called this "well-digging." Orville determined that they could avoid "well digging" if the fixed tail was changed into a movable rudder with its own separate control. This would allow the pilot to adjust its angle during a turn to overcome the drag from the high wing, keep the inside wing from losing too much lift and prevent the aircraft from skidding. Wilbur accepted the idea but suggested the pilot already had enough to do without the addition of another control. Instead, the brothers coupled the wires that turned the rudder with the wing warping mechanism. On October 6, 1902, they replaced the double rudder with a single movable rudder.

They had finally solved three-dimensional control. The movable rudder, which had an area of 5.7 square feet (0.5 square meter), made the 1902 Wright glider the first aircraft capable of being precisely balanced in flight. This glider was the world's first aircraft with three-axis control-control around the longitudinal, lateral, and vertical axes-and was the heart of the Wrights' first pioneer "flying machine" patent. This breakthrough was so basic every aircraft and spacecraft flying today still use the same fundamental controls of roll, pitch, and yaw first developed by the Wright brothers. Altogether, the brothers flew their glider almost 1,000 times during September and October. The best flying came in late October, after all the visitors had left. Wilbur made a glide covering 622 feet (190 meters) with a duration of 26 seconds; Orville's best was 615 feet (187 meters), staying aloft just over 21 seconds.

They returned home to Dayton on October 28, ready for the next step, powered flight. The 1902 glider was, for all practical purposes, the first true airplane. It was this machine that would form the basis of there 1906 patent. All that was now needed for powered flight was a propeller and an engine.

Before the First Powered Flight
Orville and Wilbur Wright returned to Dayton at the end of October 1902. In December 1902, Wilbur wrote to ten engine manufacturers with his specifications. He needed a gasoline motor weighing no more than 180 pounds (82 kilograms). It needed to provide at least 8 horsepower (6 kilowatts).

While they waited to hear from the engine companies, they begin working on the propeller. Realizing that a propeller was simply an airplane wing that turned on a spiral course rather than moving ahead, they turned to the wind tunnel to provide the information they needed. They built a larger wind tunnel to test their propeller theory. They first used the tunnel to develop their equations; then they tested small-scale models of propellers. In February 1903, they hand-built and tested their first full-size propeller. They ended up with two 8.5-foot (2.6-meter) spruce propellers with tips covered in muslin to keep the wood from splitting.

To eliminate the effect of torque, the two propellers would turn in opposite directions by means of crossing one of the drive chains. When coupled with the motor that the Wright brothers built through the effective chain drive transmission, the propellers provided a combined thrust of 90 pounds, just enough to let their airplane rise under its own power, fly, and land. The propellers had a high efficiency of 66 percent.

This compared to propellers designed in nineteenth century Europe that had an efficiency of only 40 to 50 percent and propellers designed by Samuel Langley with an efficiency of 52 percent. (Propeller efficiency is defined as the power output of the propeller divided by the shaft power input from the engine, expressed as a percentage.) In practical terms, the propellers converted two-thirds of the energy applied to them to thrust.

In the meantime, they had heard from the engine manufacturers. All replies were negative-no one had an engine that met the Wrights' specifications and no one was willing to develop one. They decided to build their own engine with the help of their talented mechanic, Charlie Taylor. After their first effort failed, the four-cylinder engine was finally ready in May 1903. The airplane on which they planned to mount the engine and propellers was their largest so far-40 feet (12.3 meters) from wingtip to wingtip. Orville referred to it as the "whopper flying machine." It was too large to assemble in Dayton, and the brothers packed up the parts to assemble when they arrived at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. On September 23, 1903, Wilbur, Orville, the parts of their machine, and a launch system they had constructed, left Dayton for Kitty Hawk.

The First Flight
Thursday, December 17, 1903, dawned, and was to go down in history as a day when a great engineering feat was accomplished. It was a cold day with winds of 22 to 27 miles an hour blowing from the north. The Wrights waited indoors; hoping the winds would diminish. But they continued brisk, and at 10 in the morning the brothers decided to attempt a flight, fully realizing the difficulties and dangers of flying a relatively untried machine in so high a wind.

In strong winds, hills were not needed to launch the machine, since the force of the winds would enable the machine to take off on the short starting track from level ground. Indeed, the winds were almost too gusty to launch the machine at all that day, but the brothers estimated that the added dangers while in flight would be compensated in part by the slower speed in landing caused by flying into stiff winds. As a safety precaution, they decided to fly as close to the ground as possible.

A signal was again displayed to notify the men at the Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station that further trials were intended. They took the machine out of the hanger, and laid the 60-foot starting track in a south-to-north direction on a smooth stretch of level ground less than 100 feet west of the hanger and more than 1,000 feet north of Kill Devil Hill. They chose this location for the trials because the ground had recently been covered with water, and because it was so level that little preparation was necessary to lay the track. Both the starting track and the machine resting on the truck faced directly into the north wind. The restraining wire was attached from the truck to the south end of the track.

Before the brothers were quite ready to fly the machine, John T. Daniels, Willie S. Dough, and Adam D. Etheridge, personnel from the Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station, arrived to see the trials; with them came William C. Brinkley of Manteo, and John T. Moore, a boy from Nags Head. The right to the first trial belonged to Orville; Wilbur had used his turn in the unsuccessful attempt on December 14.

After running the engine and propellers a few minutes, the takeoff attempt was ready. At 10:35 a.m., Orville lay prone on the lower wing with hips in the cradle that operated the control mechanisms. He released the restraining wire and the machine started down the 60-foot track, traveling slowly into the headwind at about 7 or 8 miles an hour--so slow that Wilbur was able to run alongside holding the right wing to balance the machine on the track. After a run of 40 feet on the track, the machine took off. The airplane then climbed 10 feet into the sky, while Orville struggled with the controlling mechanisms to keep it from rising too high in such an irregular, gusty wind.

Orville sought to fly a level flight course, though buffeted by the strong headwind. However, when turning the rudder up or down, the airplane turned too far either way and flew an erratic up-and-down course, first quickly rising about 10 feet, then suddenly darting close to the ground. The first successful flight ended with a sudden dart to the ground after having flown 120 feet from the takeoff point in 12 seconds time at a ground speed of 6.8 miles an hour and an airspeed of 30 miles an hour. In the words of Orville Wright:

This flight lasted only 12 seconds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started.

Orville found that the new, almost untried, controlling mechanisms operated more powerfully than the previous controls he had used in gliders. He also learned that the front rudder was balanced too near the center. Because of its tendency to turn itself when started, the unfamiliar powered machine's front rudder turned more than was necessary.

The airplane had been slightly damaged on landing. Quick repairs were made. With the help of the onlookers, the machine was brought back to the track and prepared for a second flight. Wilbur took his turn at 11:20 a.m., and flew about 175 feet in about 12 seconds. He also flew an up-and-down course, similar to the first flight, while operating the unfamiliar controls. The speed over the ground during the second flight was slightly faster than that of the first flight because the winds were diminishing. The airplane was carried back to the starting track and prepared for a third flight.

At 11:40 a.m., Orville made the third flight, flying a steadier course than that of the two previous flights. All was going nicely when a sudden gust of wind from the side lifted the airplane higher by 12 to 15 feet, turning it sidewise in an alarming manner. With the airplane flying sidewise, Orville warped the wingtips to recover lateral balance, and pointed the airplane down to land as quickly as possible. The new lateral control was more effective than he had expected. The airplane not only leveled off, but the wing that had been high dropped more than he had intended, and it struck the ground shortly before the airplane landed. The third flight was about 200 feet in about 15 seconds.

Wilbur started on the fourth flight at noon. He flew the first few hundred feet on an up-and-down course similar to the first two flights. But after flying 300 feet from the take-off point, the airplane was brought under control. The airplane flew a fairly even course for an additional 500 feet, with little undulation to disturb its level flight. While in flight about 800 feet from the take-off point, the airplane commenced pitching again, and, in one of its darts downward, struck the ground. The fourth flight measured 852 feet over the ground; the time in the air was 59 seconds.

The four successful flights made on December 17 were short because the Wrights, not desiring to fly a new machine at much height in strong winds, sometimes found it impossible to correct the up-and-down motion of the airplane before it struck the ground. They carried the airplane back to camp and set it up a few feet west of the hangar. While the Wrights and onlookers were discussing the flights, a sudden gust of wind struck the airplane and turned it over a number of times, damaging it badly. The airplane could not be repaired in time for any more flights that year; indeed, it was never flown again. Daniels gained the dubious honor of becoming the first airplane casualty when he was slightly scratched and bruised while caught inside the machine between the wings in an attempt to stop the airplane as it rolled over.

Orville made this matter-of-fact entry in his diary: "After dinner we went to Kitty Hawk to send off telegram to M. W. While there we called on Capt. and Mrs. Hobbs, Dr. Cogswell and the station men." Toward evening that day Bishop Milton Wright in Dayton received the telegram from his sons:

Success four flights Thursday morning all against twenty-one mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through air thirty-one miles longest 57 seconds inform press home Christmas. Orevelle Wright.

In the transmission of the telegram, 57 seconds was incorrectly given for the 59-second record flight, and Orville's name was misspelled. The Norfolk telegraph operator leaked the news to a local paper, the Virginian-Pilot. The resulting story produced a series of false reports as to the length and duration of the December 17 flights. Practically none of the information contained in the telegram was used, except that the Wrights had flown.

Their father gave out a biographical note: Wilbur is 36, Orville 32, and they are as inseparable as twins. For several years they have read up on aeronautics as a physician would read his books, and they have studied, discussed, and experimented together. Natural workmen, they have invented, constructed, and operated their gliders, and finally their 'Wright Flyer,' jointly, all at their own personal expense. About equal credit is due each.

The world took little note of the Wrights' tremendous achievement and years passed before its full significance was realized.

After the First Flight
After 1903, the Wrights carved brilliant careers in aeronautics and helped found the aviation industry. The successful flights made at Kill Devil Hills in December 1903 encouraged them to make improvements on a new airplane called Flyer No. 2. About 100 flights were flown near Dayton in 1904. These totaled only 45 minutes in the air, although they made two 5-minute flights. Experimenting chiefly with control and maneuver, many complete circuits of the small flying field were made.

A new and improved plane, Flyer No. 3, was built in 1905. On October 5 they made a record flight of 24 1/5 miles, while the airplane was in the air 38 minutes and 3 seconds. The era of the airplane was well on the way. The lessons and successes at Kill Devil Hills in December 1903 were fast making the crowded skies of the Air Age possible.

Believing their invention was now perfected for practical use, the Wrights wanted the United States Government to have a world monopoly on their patents, and more important, on all the aerodynamic, design, and pilotage secrets they knew relating to the airplane. As early as 1905 they had received overtures from representatives of foreign governments. The United States Army turned down their first offers without making an effort to investigate whether the airplane had been brought to a stage of practical operation. But disbelief was on the wane. In February 1908 the United States War Department made a contract with the brothers for an airplane. Only 3 weeks later the Wrights closed a contract with a Frenchman to form a syndicate for the rights to manufacture, sell, or license the use of the Wright airplane in France.

During their Dayton experiments, the Wrights had continued to pilot their airplanes while lying prone with hips in the cradle on the lower wing. Now they adopted a different arrangement of the control levers to be used in a sitting position and added a seat for a passenger. The brothers brought their airplane to Kill Devil Hills in April 1908 to practice handling the new arrangement of the control levers. They wanted to be prepared for the public trials to be made for the United States Government, near Washington, and for the company in France.

They erected a new building at Kill Devil Hills to house the airplane and to live in, because storms the year before had nearly demolished their 1903 camp buildings. Between May 6 and May 14, 1908, the Wrights made 22 flights at their old testing grounds. On May 14 the first flight with two men aboard a airplane was made near West Hill; Wilbur Wright being the pilot, and Charles Furnas, a mechanic, the passenger. Orville and Furnas then made a flight together of over two miles, passing between Kill Devil Hill and West Hill, and turning north near the sound to circle Little Hill before returning over the starting point close to their camp to land near West Hill on the second lap.

Byron R. Newton, a newspaper reporter, was concealed in the woods with other newsmen near camp to watch the Wrights fly. Newton predicted in his diary just after seeing his first flight: "Some day Congress will erect a monument here to these Wrights." Nineteen years later the Congress established the area as a National Memorial.

Wilbur journeyed to France after completing the tests at Kill Devil Hills, while Orville returned home to complete the construction of an airplane for the United States Government. As Wilbur set about methodically to assemble his airplane at Le Mans, some 125 miles from Paris, skeptics greeted the delay by accusing him of bluffing. But Wilbur refused to hurry. "Le bluff continue," cried a Paris newspaper. However, when Wilbur took off on August 8, circling the field to come in for a perfect landing, the crowd could scarcely believe its eyes. Skeptics were confounded, and enthusiasm was uproarious.

Wilbur's complete lack of conceit, together with his decency and intelligence, won a hero-worship attitude from the French people, while the press was unsparing in its praise and lamented having called him a bluffer. The Figaro commented, "It was not merely a success but a triumph; a conclusive trial and a decisive victory for aviation, the news of which will revolutionize scientific circles throughout the world." It was a statement to the press by a witness, Maj. B. F. S. Baden-Powell, president of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, that is most often quoted: "That Wilbur Wright is in possession of a power which controls the fate of nations is beyond dispute."

Orville's first public flight was on September 3, 1908 at Fort Myer, in Virginia. He circled the field one and one-half times on the first test. "When the airplane first rose," Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., recorded "the crowd's gasp of astonishment was not alone at the wonder of it, but because it was so unexpected." Orville's final flight at Fort Myer in 1908 ended in tragedy. The airplane crashed, killing Lt. Thomas Selfridge, a passenger flying with Orville. Orville suffered broken ribs, a fractured leg, and hip injuries.

In 1909, Orville completed the Government test flights by flying 10 miles in 14 minutes, or just under 43 miles an hour. The United States Army formally accepted its first airplane from the Wrights on August 2, 1909. During the same year both brothers made further flying triumphs in Europe where they became famous flying in France and Italy. While Orville was making sensational flights in Germany (as required for the formation of a Wright company in that country), Wilbur, in America, made spectacular flights at New York City where more than a million New Yorkers got their first glimpse of an airplane in the air.

Commercial companies were formed in France and Germany to manufacture Wright planes before the Wright Company was organized in the United States with Wilbur as president and Orville vice president. In financial affairs the Wrights were remarkably shrewd-- a match for American and European businessmen. They grew wealthy as well as famous, but they were not happy as businessmen and looked forward to the time when they could retire to devote themselves again to scientific research. While the Wright brothers finally obtained a patent for their aircraft, they became involved in legal battles with Glenn Curtiss. The lawsuit dragged on.

Orville returned to Kill Devil Hills in October 1911 to experiment with an automatic control device and to make soaring flights with a glider. The new device was not tested because of the presence of newspapermen at the camp each day. Orville set a new world's soaring record of 9 minutes and 45 seconds on October 24. On May 30, 1912, Wilbur Wright, aged 45, died of typhoid fever. Orville survived him by 36 years, dying on January 30, 1948.

The Original Airplane Exhibited
Orville Wright was unwilling to entrust the 1903 airplane to the National Museum in Washington, D.C., because of a controversy between him and the Smithsonian in regard to the history of the invention of the airplane. In 1928, Orville lent the airplane to the Science Museum at South Kensington, near London, England, with the understanding that it would stay there permanently unless he made a written request for its return. Finally, in 1942, the dispute with the Smithsonian was settled to Orville's satisfaction, and the next year he wrote a request to the Science Museum for the return of the airplane to this country when it could be safely shipped after World War II ended.

After Orville Wright's death, on January 30, l948, his executors deposited the original 1903 airplane in the National Air Museum. It was formally placed on exhibition on December 17, 1948, in Washington, D.C., the 45th anniversary of the first flights. The priceless original 1903 Wright airplane now occupies the highest place of honor among other interesting aeronautical exhibits in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

The National Memorial
On March 2, 1927, the Congress authorized the establishment of Kill Devil Hills Monument National Memorial to commemorate the Wrights' achievement of the first successful flight of a man-carrying, power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. The area was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, on August 10, 1933, and on December 1, 1953, the name was changed to Wright Brothers National Memorial. The memorial contains about 425 acres. It embraces the actual site of the first four flights and the sites of most of the glider experiments. A 60-foot granite monument dedicated in 1932 is perched atop 90-foot high Kill Devil Hill commemorating the achievement of these two visionaries from Dayton, Ohio. A visit should include touring the museum exhibits, participating in a ranger conducted program, touring the reconstructed camp buildings and first flight trail area, and a climb up Kill Devil Hill to view the memorial pylon. The visitor center houses exhibits which are available year-round. Adjacent to the camp buildings are granite markers which designate the lengths of the four successful powered flights. Learn more about The Wright Brothers National Memorial at the park's website.

The preflight section of this essay was exerpted, in abridged form, from Judy Rumerman's essays on the the Wright Brothers found on the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission's website, with additional information taken from Tom D. Crouch's book The Bishop Boys: a Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: W.W. Norton Company, 1989) and his essay on Wilbur and Orville Wright in American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). The section of the first flight onwards, slightly abridged, was taken from U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service pamphlet Wright Brothers National Memorial by Omega G. East. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1961. (National Parks Service Historic Handbook Series No. 34) (129.58:34).

Aviation Pioneers

Throughout human history, many people have challenged themselves and each other to see who could be the "best." Aviators are no exception. From the dawn of flight up to the present day, pilots have been a particularly competitive group as they vied to see who could fly the fastest, the highest, and the farthest. Many of them have also battled to see who could achieve an aviation "first." To non-pilots, some aviators' actions in pursuit of these goals may have seemed foolhardy, careless, or even crazy and needlessly reckless. But in reality, these aviators were actually pushing themselves in a courageous and determined manner to move beyond their supposed mental and physical limitations to conquer their many challenges.

Whether pursuing a flight record, performing aerial tricks in front of crowds, or exploring new areas of the globe, they shared some of the same fearless qualities. In all, the aerial explorers, daredevils, and record setters of the 20th century have been a very intrepid and driven group of individuals, determined to bring out not only the best in themselves, but also in each other.

In July 1909, Louis Bleriot, a French aircraft designer and self-trained pilot, became one of the first record setters in aviation history. On July 25, Bleriot, piloting a monoplane, braved strong winds and rain to become the first person to fly across the English Channel. Bleriot's 37-minute journey between France and England was the first major flight over a large body of water. It also inspired several adventurous individuals to become aviators, as well as helping to spark the public's interest in flight. When the first organized international air meet took place in Bleriot's native land only a month after his trip, somewhere between 300,000 to 500,000 spectators flocked to the event.

The Reims Air Meet, which took place from August 22 to 29, 1909, in the Champagne region of France, was the world's first major aerial exhibition. Twenty-two aviators competed in a variety of contests and races. One of the contestants, Hubert Latham, who had unsuccessfully vied with Bleriot to become the first person to fly the English Channel, had better luck at Reims, when he won the altitude contest. The premier event of Reims was the 20-kilometer Gordon Bennett Cup Race, won by American airplane builder and pilot Glenn Curtiss, who beat Bleriot, the race favorite, and collected a $5000 purse as well as the title of "Champion Aviator of the World." As the first international air meet, Reims served as the model for all of the other organized contests that would soon follow, not only providing entertainment and the opportunity to set air records, but also offering a place to test the technological advances of aircraft.

In 1910, only a few months after Reims, three major air meets took place in the United States that drew many of the world's top aviators, among them Glenn Curtiss and Englishman Claude Grahame-White. Several aviation records were set at these meets, held in Los Angeles; Atlantic, Massachusetts near Boston; and at Belmont Park, New York. The meets also served to inspire future aviators, notably Lincoln Beachey and Harriet Quimby. Quimby was so thrilled by her experience that she instantly decided she wanted to learn to fly. Within a year, she became the first U.S. woman to earn a pilot's license. Quimby would go on to give several aerial demonstrations and help break down stereotypes that suggested that women could not make good pilots. Her ultimate achievement was when she became the first woman to cross the English Channel, on April 16, 1912, a feat also inspired by Bleriot's flight. Although Quimby had a major impact on women's roles in aviation, she did not live long. At the Third Annual Boston Aviation Meet in July 1912, the same meet that had enticed her to learn to fly two years earlier, Quimby died while demonstrating an aircraft.

Meanwhile, Curtiss, as well as history's first aviators--Orville and Wilbur Wright--were assembling their own teams of exhibition pilots. These teams traveled the country, entertaining crowds and helping to feed the public's interest and enthusiasm in flight by competing against each other to see who could fly the fastest, farthest, and highest. Curtiss team member Lincoln Beachey became the most accomplished and popular of all of the exhibition aviators. By the end of 1911, he was the single greatest moneymaker in aviation up to that time. During his career, he became the first to fly upside-down and the first American to "loop-the-loop." Unfortunately Beachey met the same fate as so many early exhibition pilots; he too, died while performing a stunt.

Cal Rodgers, one of the Wright brothers' students, had learned to fly in June 1911 after only 90 minutes of flight lessons. Despite being deaf as the result of a childhood bout with scarlet fever, he established one of the first American aviation records. Starting from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on September 17, 1911, Rogers flew his Wright biplane flyer, the Vin Fiz, to California, landing in Pasadena, on November 5, and becoming the first person to fly across the United States, while setting the first major American aviation endurance and distance record.

Rodgers had carried the first transcontinental mail pouch on his cross-country trip, consequently joining the intrepid group of pioneering pilots that transported mail during aviation's first decades. Airmail pilots risked their lives delivering correspondence and packages across the nation and around the world while braving bad weather and difficult navigational challenges. Their efforts helped connect the United States and the world more quickly. Some well-known airmail pilots included Claude Grahame-White and even Charles Lindbergh, who would go on to have a major impact on aviation in the late 1920s.

After World War I, aerial daredevilry became more widespread thanks to the advent of "barnstorming." Stunt pilots and aerialists--or "barnstormers" as they became known, many of whom were former World War I pilots--performed almost any trick or feat with an airplane that people could imagine, often piloting their JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes, which the government sold cheaply as surplus. During the 1920s, barnstorming became one of the era's most popular forms of entertainment. For many pilots and stunt people, barnstorming provided an exciting and challenging way to make a living, as well as an outlet for their creativity and showmanship. The entire phenomenon seemed to be founded on bravado, with "one-upmanship" a major incentive. The fact, too, that there were no federal regulations governing aviation at the time allowed barnstorming to flourish during the postwar era.

Several well-known aviators were barnstormers at one time or another. Charles Lindbergh, for example, learned to fly on the barnstorming circuit. He also did some wing walking and parachute stunting. Some other famous daredevils included Roscoe Turner (a future major speed racer), Bessie Coleman (the first licensed African American female pilot), Pancho Barnes, (born Florence Leontine Lowe who earned her nickname "Poncho" while working as a deck hand aboard a ship impounded by the Mexican authorities during the 1927 Cristero rebellion and would become a well-known speed queen of the "Golden Era of Airplane Racing"), Wiley Post, (a future holder of two trans-global speed records), Clyde "Upside Down" Pangborn" (who would set a major trans-Pacific flight record) and Ormer Locklear, (the first man to wing walk and Hollywood's first stunt flier).

After his days as a barnstormer and airmail pilot, Charles Lindbergh made history on May 20, 1927, when he became the first person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo nonstop. Lindbergh's record-setting flight from New York to Paris, in the Spirit of St. Louis, a journey of 3,610 miles in 33 hours, became a major source of inspiration and a catalyst for many pilots who would later set their own significant aviation endurance and distance records.

Soon after Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, other pilots looked to other oceans to traverse. The Pacific Ocean became the next logical and major challenge. Just a little more than a year after Lindbergh's flight, on June 10, 1928, Australian aviators Charles Kingsford-Smith ("Smithy") and Charles T. P. Ulm landed in Brisbane, Australia, having become the first pilots to fly across the Pacific. Their record-setting feat, like Lindbergh's, would inspire many aviators.

Jean Gardner Batten, a New Zealand woman, was one of the people particularly inspired by both Lindbergh and Smithy. Determined to become a record-setting aviator, she obtained her pilot's license in England, and soon after established a solo flight record, flying from England to Australia in 14 days, 22 hours, 30 minutes. The following year, on November 11, 1935, she set another record, the best flight time from England to South America. Braving extremely hazardous weather over the South Atlantic, Batten succeeded in flying the approximately 5,000 mile in just a little over 61 hours. Notably, Batten would go on to set several more aviation records during her career.

One of the pilots inspired to take action by Lindbergh's transatlantic flight was Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, an Irish-American flier who incidentally had assembled the wings for Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis. Corrigan decided that he, too, was going to make his own transatlantic flight, and chose Ireland as his destination. Although federal authorities never granted him permission for a transatlantic flight because they considered his airplane too unstable, Corrigan defiantly flew to Ireland in July 1938 when he was "supposed" to be flying back to California. Corrigan gained his nickname by claiming that he had honestly flown the "wrong way" due to heavy fog and a faulty compass.

One of the most remarkable aviation endurance and distance records of the era was set by former barnstormer Wiley Post, the one-eyed son of a poor farmer, and Harold Garry, a well-known Australian pilot. The pair took off on June 23, 1931, from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, in pursuit of the current around the world record of 21 days held by the German dirigible, the Graf Zeppelin. Post and Gatty made it around the world in 8 days, 15 hours, 51 minutes. Approximately two years later, Post made the same flight solo, bettering his and Gatty's record by 21 hours.

Soon other aviators tried to surpass Post's record. Among these were former barnstormer Clyde "Upside-down" Pangborn and his navigator Hugh Herndon Jr., who had unsuccessfully raced against Post and Gatty in June 1931 in their attempt to better the Graf Zeppelin record. Pangborn and Herndon were actually doing quite well until they got lost over Mongolia and caught in a driving rainstorm. The pair settled on being the first aviators to fly nonstop from Japan to the United States, on October 4-5, 1931.

Howard Hughes, Jr., one of America's most famous billionaires and among the world's most important aviators, was determined to let nothing stop him in his pursuit of Post's global flight record. By the early 1930s, flying racing planes he had designed himself, Hughes had set several speed and altitude records. In 1936, he established several transcontinental flight records. Then, in July 1938, Hughes and a four-man crew took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn and systematically set out to demolish Post's trans-global flight record. On July 14, he landed in front of some 25,000 cheering people in New York. Hughes and his crew had smashed Post's record, setting a record of 3 days, 9 hours, and 17 minutes, more than four days better than Post's mark.

Amelia Earhart was another pilot who attempted to set an around the world flight record. Earhart, inspired to take up flying after going to an early air show, earned her pilot's license in October 1922.

Soon after, she established the first of many altitude records. Over the next 15 years, Earhart would set several women's speed, altitude, and transcontinental records and also become the first woman to solo across the Pacific Ocean. Her ultimate goal was to be the first pilot of either gender to fly around the world at its widest point--close to the Equator. Earhart, one of the most accomplished pilots of either sex, set out on her journey on May 20, 1937. With roughly only 7,000 miles left to go, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared in bad weather near Howland Island in the Pacific. Search parties have never located Earhart, Noonan, or their plane.

While Earhart, Hughes, and others pushed themselves and their airplanes to their limits in pursuit of trans-global records, other intrepid aviators were testing their own limitations while exploring the harshest and most remote areas of the world, the polar regions. During the 1920s and 1930s, several aviators explored both the Arctic and Antarctic by air. Although some aerial explorers had used hot air balloons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to venture into these areas, aviators did not conquer the Arctic until U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Richard Byrd and his pilot Floyd Bennett reached the North Pole via the skies on May 9, 1926. A few years later, in April 1928, Australian adventurer George Wilkins joined forces with a former Alaskan airmail pilot named Carl Ben Eielson to became the first humans to fly across the North Polar Sea. Then, on June 18, 1937, Russian pilot Valery Chkalov and two crew members improved on Wilkins and Eielson's record by setting a nonstop, long distance flight record when they flew the approximate 5,500 miles from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington, via the North Pole, in 62 hours. In the following years, several Russians would set other aerial records in the Arctic.

In December 1928, Wilkins and Eielson also became the first team of pilots to fly over Antarctica. Less than a year later, on November 28, 1929, Byrd established another polar first when he, pilot Bernt Balchen, and two other crew members were the first to fly over the South Pole. The last major Antarctic aviation "first" came when American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and Canadian pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon became the first team to fly the width of the Antarctic continent from November through December 1935.

As aviators were exploring the most extreme reaches of the Earth during the 1920s and 1930s and setting records in the process, other pilots were establishing their own series of records at the major air racing trophy contests of the period. These contests produced arguably the most-exciting competitions in aviation history and contributed significantly to the advancement of aeronautics during what some historians have labeled "The Golden Age of Air Racing." Often, sponsored by wealthy benefactors, aviators competed at four major races during the era: the Pulitzer Trophy Race, a speed contest flown around a pylon-marked course; a seaplane race called the Schneider Cup; the Thompson Trophy, a closed circuit, pylon-marked contest, similar to the Pulitzer except that it was a mass start, free-for-all contest; and the Bendix Trophy Race, a transcontinental, point-to-point race. Many aeronautical innovations resulted because of these contests as engineers developed highly maneuverable aircraft that could race at breakneck speeds.

The major trophy races of the era produced several stars and record-setting performances. Jimmy Doolittle, a daredevil pilot and army man with a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering, was one of the standouts of the era. Doolittle won the Schneider Cup in 1925 and then went on to capture the Bendix Trophy in 1931 and the Thompson race in 1932. He also established an aircraft speed record in September 1932 flying a Gee Bee racing plane. The Gee Bee racers, which several pilots flew to record-setting performances, were among the fastest and most controversial airplanes of the era, sporting the dubious reputation among some as "killers." Roscoe Turner, another former barnstormer and a Hollywood stunt pilot, also did extremely well in the major trophy races. The flamboyant Turner, who at one time carried a lion cub with him on his flights, won the Bendix Trophy in 1933 and three Thompson Trophies, a feat never matched by any other pilot. Turner also set seven transcontinental speed records during his career.

Several women also excelled in the air races of the 1920s and 1930s. Pancho Barnes, also a former barnstormer and Hollywood stunt pilot, competed in some of the women's air races of the period, including the Women's Air Derby (also known as the "Powder Puff Derby"). Barnes set several women's air speed records during her flying days.

Louise Thaden was another woman who made significant showings in the trophy races. In 1936, Thaden and her copilot Blanche Noyes won the Bendix. Two years later, Jackie Cochran, arguably the greatest female aviator, won the same contest. Cochran, the president of the Ninety-Nines, an organization of female pilots who championed women's roles in aviation, set more speed and altitude records than any of her contemporaries, either male or female. During her career, she would receive more than 200 awards and trophies. Cochran not only became one of the world's great aviatrixes but also one of the best pilots of either gender. She would test and fly aircraft into the 1960s and become the first woman to break Mach 1, or the sound barrier.

The first person to fly faster than the speed of sound, however, was Cochran's good friend Chuck Yeager. On October 14, 1947, Yeager exceeded Mach 1 in the X-1, an experimental aircraft. Yeager is undoubtedly the world's most famous test pilot and one of the "toughest" fliers, both mentally and physically. During his career in the U.S. Air Force, he not only established multiple flight records but also displayed extraordinary courage and determination.

Joseph Kittinger was another U.S. Air Force officer who demonstrated outstanding bravery and established several records. On June 2, 1957, Kittinger became the first person to ascend to over 96,000 feet (29,261 meters) in a balloon. Two years later, on November 16, 1959, he became the first individual to parachute back to Earth from a high altitude when he jumped from a height of 76,000 feet (23,165 meters). Within a year, he would go on to establish several more high-altitude records and free-fall marks while challenging many people's ideas about the limits of human beings and helping prepare the country for the human spaceflight program.

In December 1986, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, two pilots who embody much of the same spirit, character, adventure, and heroism as Kittinger and Chuck Yeager (although Jeana is not related to the test pilot), broke one of aviation's last record barriers when they flew nonstop around the globe in their plane, the Voyager. Taking nine days, three minutes, and 44 seconds they traveled 24,986 miles and established a nonstop global record. They also endured the longest flight up to that point and almost doubled the then current flight distance record. Rutan and Yeager's flight explored the limits of human endurance and mental fatigue and represented the triumph of the human spirit.

From Louis Bleriot to Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, aviators have pushed themselves and their aircraft in their quest to be the "best." Many aerial explorers, daredevils, and record setters spurred each other on and motivated others to follow in their flight paths. With their competitive natures, aerial explorers, daredevils, and records setters all shared a little bit of the same traits. In many ways, each had to be part explorer, daredevil and records setter and willing to explore their own personal limits and the limits of their machines in a very brave and determined manner.

This essay is taken from Explores, Daredevils, and Record Setters-an Overview by David H. Onkst. The original essay can be found at the U.S. Centennial of Flight's website.

Modern Aviation

The U.S. Aircraft Industry - An Overview T. A. Heppenheimer

Inspired by the first successful flights in 1903 of Wilbur and Orville Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, men such as Glenn Curtiss of Hammondsport, New York started their own aircraft companies, competing with the Wright Brothers, who had swiftly capitalized upon their success by creating the Wright Company. A California planebuilder, Glenn L. Martin, established a firm called the Glenn L. Martin Company. These outfits all did plenty of business during World War I. Following that conflict; there was little demand for new aircraft, for there were plenty of war surplus planes and engines. Martin built some of the earliest bombers--one sank a captured German battleship in a 1921 exercise, impressing military planners.

Other airplane builders also went into business: Donald Douglas, William Boeing, and Alan Loughead, who pronounced his name "Lockheed," and took to spelling his company's name that way. All three found good prospects. Donald Douglas got started by working with a wealthy enthusiast who wanted a airplane that could cross the country nonstop. By building it, Douglas gained experience that allowed him to develop a long-range Army plane, the World Cruiser. Two World Cruisers flew around the world in 1924 in a succession of short hops.

Airmail held promise. It earned federal subsidies for mail carriers that made it easy to turn a profit. A few brave travelers also began buying airplane tickets. Boeing gained an important success in 1926 with a single-engine airplane that was well suited for carrying mail and passengers over the Rocky Mountains. The same year Lockheed, which then employed the engineer Jack Northrop, crafted the Vega, which set speed and altitude records and became popular as an airliner. Jack Nothrop later founded his own plane-building firm.

By the 1930s airliners were mainstays of the industry. Boeing brought out the 247, a fine twin-engine job that carried ten passengers where the Vega had room for only six. It eventually lost out in competition with the swifter Douglas DC-2, which carried 14. The DC-3, an enlarged version, entered service in 1936 with 21 seats and the range to fly nonstop from New York to Chicago. It soon swept most of its rivals from the skies. Small military orders for airplanes continued. Martin built a good twin-engine bomber, the B-10. Boeing found new business by crafting a much better bomber: the B-17. It had four engines, which gave it greater speed and allowed it to carry more gasoline for longer range. Army officials, who saw it in tests in 1935, placed orders. This gave Boeing a leg up on building bombers for use in World War II.

That war brought an enormous surge of business to the aircraft industry. Several companies built the important warplanes of the era:

Boeing: B-17, B-29 bombers

Convair: B-24 bomber

Lockheed: P-38 fighter

Curtiss: P-40 fighter, C-46 transport

Douglas: C-47, C-54 transports

North American: P-51 fighter

Republic: P-47 fighter

Most importantly, the War Department bought airplanes by the tens of thousands. Here are aircraft deliveries by year:

Type	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	Total
Very Heavy Bombers	0	0	4	91	1,147	2,657	3,899
Heavy Bombers	19	181	2,241	8,695	13,057	3,681	27,874
Medium Bombers	24	326	2,429	3,989	3,636	1,432	11,836
Light Bombers	16	373	1,153	2,247	2,276	1,720	7,785
Fighters	187	1,727	5,213	11,766	18,291	10,591	47,775
Reconnaissance	10	165	195	320	241	285	1,216
Transports	5	133	1,264	5,072	6,430	3,043	15,947
Trainers	948	5,585	11,004	11,246	4,861	825	34,469
Communication/ Liaison	0	233	2,945	2,463	1,608	2,020	9,269
Total by Year	1,209	8,723	26,448	45,889	51,547	26,254	160,070

Fleets of B-17s and B-24s escorted by P-47, and P-51 fighters, destroyed many of Nazi Germany's factories and railroads. B-29s carried firebombs that burned Japan's cities to the ground. The C-46 carried supplies to China. The C-47, a military version of the DC-3, carried troops as well as cargo. Over ten thousand of them entered service. General Dwight Eisenhower, the top U.S. commander, counted it as one of the items that did the most to win the war. The end of the war brought a swift collapse of the aviation industry, as the nation became awash in used aircraft.

For airlines, the DC-3 remained popular for short air routes, but coast-to-coast routes along with connections that crossed the Atlantic were gaining in popularity. For these routes only new four-engine aircraft would do. Two became popular: the Lockheed Constellation and the Douglas DC-6 (along with a later and faster version, the DC-7). The rivalry between Lockheed and Douglas defined progress in commercial aviation until the coming of the jets. The first jets were military-Lockheed, Republic, and North American built the first jet fighters: the P-80, F-84, and F-86. The F-86 was the best of them, ruling the skies during the Korean War of 1950-1953.

Missiles and jet bombers also drew attention. North American made a strong and early commitment to develop a missile of intercontinental range, the Navaho. This project needed rocket engines, guidance systems, and advanced designs that called for close understanding of supersonic flight. North American brought in good scientists and developed the necessary know-how to forge ahead in this new field. Boeing showed similar leadership with jet bombers. The company used scientific data from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, supplementing it with data from its own wind tunnel, a research facility that helped to determine the best shapes for aircraft flying close to the speed of sound. This allowed the company to develop the earliest important jet bomber, the B-47. It first flew in 1947. The Air Force purchased over 2000 of them from 1948 to 1956.

The Navy and Air Force had their own requirements. Convair built the B-36, which had six and later ten engines. Boeing countered with the B-52, which mounted eight jet engines. It became the main bomber of the Air Force's Strategic Air Command. Almost every company in the industry built fighter aircraft in the 1950s, including Douglas, Grumman, Lockheed, McDonnell, North American, Northrop, Republic, and Vought. Missiles and space flight brought new opportunities. In 1954, the Air Force launched a major push toward rockets of intercontinental range, able to reach Moscow. These included the Atlas from Convair and the Titan, built by Martin. Douglas created the Thor, based in England, which had less range but was available sooner. These missiles evolved into launch vehicles for the space program.

Within that program, the civilian National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) came to the forefront. During the 1960s it sponsored the Apollo program, which landed astronauts on the moon. Again there were a number of participants, including Douglas, Grumman, McDonnell, and Boeing. North American did the most, drawing on its experience with the Navaho. This company built rocket engines, a major rocket stage, as well as the spacecraft that carried Apollo's astronauts. It went on to build the Space Shuttle.

While airliner sales remained very strong, military demand fell off sharply with the end of the Cold War. Officials of the Defense Department responded by facilitating a series of mergers, to consolidate the industry within a small number of companies that would have enough business to remain strong. Boeing, holding great power due to its success in selling airliners, bought out McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell International. Lockheed merged with Convair and with Martin Marietta, forming the firm of Lockheed Martin. A similar merger created the firm of Northrop Grumman. Today, these three U.S. companies dominate the American market for commercial airliners, military aircraft, and launch vehicles for space flight.

Air Transport - Commercial Aviation - An Overview T. A. Heppenheimer

On January 1, 1914, a wealthy manufacturer named Thomas Benoist launched air service between Tampa, Florida, and nearby St. Petersburg. Those towns were separated by Tampa Bay; the only connections were by once-a-day boat or by railroad. His airline drew business all through the winter, but his prospects faded when the tourist season ended in spring. His airline shut down permanently. No one else tried to carry passengers by air for several years, and there was a reason: railroads. The United States had a quarter-million miles of track, with rail carriers offering fast, convenient service from downtown terminals.

Early airline builders therefore tried a different approach, by carrying airmail. The U.S. Post Office became involved during the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The planes of the day were little faster than mail trains, and aviators saw that their best hope lay in cross-country service. Flying at night, three pilots carried mail from San Francisco to New York on a trial flight in February 1921. In 1923, the assistant postmaster general, Paul Henderson, began installing powerful beacon lights to mark air routes for routine night flying in clear weather. Scheduled transcontinental air service began in mid-1924. This did not suit the railroads, which depended on income from carrying the mail. In Washington, railroad lobbyists won passage in Congress of the Kelly Act of 1925, which turned the new airlines into privately owned businesses. A follow-up law, in 1926, gave the government responsibility for aircraft safety. Collectively, these acts served to create an air transport industry that was regulated by the U.S. government and received direct subsidy through a complex set of contracts awarded to airlines to carry the mail.

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh touched off an enormous surge of interest in aviation by flying nonstop from New York to Paris. Only 5,800 passengers had flown in 1926; this leaped to 417,000 four years later. In 1930, Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown set out to encourage this trend. Brown disliked the Kelly Act. He thought it provided overly generous subsidies for airmail. Brown won passage of a new law, the McNary-Watres Act, which encouraged the airlines to carry more passengers. Airmail still remained their main business, and Brown took action in that area. By law, he had the power to award airmail contracts to competing airlines. The nation's existing air-route map was a hodgepodge of local lines, whereas Brown wanted a few strong carriers that could serve the entire nation. Drawing on his legal powers, he awarded airmail routes to airlines that he favored, forced others to merge to qualify for his awards, and left still others to die for lack of business. When he had finished, he had a major north-south carrier, Eastern Airlines, along with three coast-to-coast airlines: TWA, American, and United.

Brown's reforms worked. The airlines he selected continued to dominate the nation's air routes for the next fifty years. However, Brown was a Republican. When the Democrats returned to Washington with President Franklin Roosevelt, in 1933, they lost little time in declaring that Brown's actions amounted to a scandal. He had used his powers in high-handed ways, and Democrats declared that he and the airlines together had committed fraud. Roosevelt responded by turning the airmail over to the pilots of the U. S. Army. It didn't work-they were unprepared, and a number of them crashed. Roosevelt had to rely on the airlines, whose pilots knew their business. But the Air Mail Act of 1934 cut their mail pay particularly sharply, forcing them to rely even more on passenger traffic for their income.

This meant that they needed aircraft that could make money just by carrying people. The firm of Douglas Aircraft responded to this need with the DC-3 in 1936. It quickly drove competing airliners from the airways, and went on to dominate American aviation. As late as 1958, as jet airliners were about to enter service, the nation's airlines counted more DC-3s than any other type of airplane.

Brown left a further legacy, in the area of overseas travel. An ambitious young airline operator, Juan Trippe, convinced Brown to give him a monopoly on the right to carry airmail to foreign countries. Trippe's airline, Pan American World Airways, started with its 90-mile (145-kilometer) route in 1927 from Florida to Cuba and completed its conquest of Latin America in 1930, with 20,308 miles (32,683 kilometers) of airway in 20 Latin American countries. Profits from these Latin American routes subsidized Trippe's losses as he expanded his operations. In 1935, he introduced his four-engine Clipper flying boats on a route that crossed the Pacific, reaching from San Francisco to the Philippines. In 1939 he introduced commercial service across the Atlantic.

The air transport revolution swung into full power with the building of advanced new airplanes in the latter 1930s. Carriers expressed much interest in four-engine airliners that could carry more passengers at higher speeds, while carrying extra gasoline for longer range. Two aviation leaders competed for advantage in this field: Donald Douglas, whose firm of Douglas Aircraft was building the DC-3, and Howard Hughes.

Hughes' father had made a vast fortune in oil. Howard Hughes started his career in Hollywood, but turned to aviation, buying control of TWA. Working with Lockheed Aircraft, he crafted the Constellation airliner. Designed in 1940, it flew as fast as the fighter aircraft of the day, and could cross the nation nonstop. Donald Douglas had to match it, and did so with his own four-engine aircraft, the DC-6 and DC-7. The rivalry between these airliners and the Constellation then spearheaded the development of advanced commercial airliners until the coming of the jets.

The first jet engines entered service with high-speed fighters late in World War II. Boeing took the lead in crafting large jet bombers: the six-engine B-47 and the eight-engine B-52. However, early jet engines gulped fuel at excessive rates, and airline executives distrusted them. Juan Trippe had different ideas. He learned that better engines were coming along, and he had enough money to order new engines that were better still. He proceeded to play Boeing against Douglas Aircraft, promising each that he would place extensive orders if either could build the long-range jetliners that he wanted. Douglas responded with the DC-8; Boeing came out with the 707. Boeing proved particularly capable at tailoring versions of the 707 that met the needs of individual carriers, and this company surged to the lead in sales.

But during 1956, as orders for the 707 and DC-8 mounted, the nation's airways were far from ready for the new jets. They needed radar and electronic aids to navigation, which were in short supply due to federal budget cuts. Then in June 1956, a DC-7 and a Super Constellation collided over the Grand Canyon, killing 128 people. This drove home the point that the air routes were unsafe even for fast propeller-driven aircraft. Congress responded, and soon the needed equipment was in place.

The new jets entered service in large numbers during the 1960s. Demand soared, leaping from 62 million passengers in 1960 to 169 million, nearly three times as many, in 1970. Juan Trippe expected that this trend would continue, as did William Allen, president of Boeing. Together they crafted an entirely new and very large commercial jetliner that was to serve this new era-the Boeing 747. However, it nearly wrecked both companies, as debt and delays plagued Boeing, followed by a national recession, which dried up demand. Boeing survived by offering new versions of earlier jets and came up with enough sales to survive. Still, it had a very close call with bankruptcy. The 747 was too large for most routes, which opened up an opportunity for an airliner of slightly smaller size. Lockheed came in with its L-1011, while McDonnell Douglas offered its DC-10. McDonnell Douglas won the competition and Lockheed stopped building airliners and became purely a military airplane builder. McDonnell Douglas stayed in the commercial world, but lacked the funds to develop anything more than variations of its DC-9 and DC-10. This raised the prospect that Boeing would hold a monopoly over the airlines. Competition eventually came from Europe.

Pan Am had its own problems. By 1970 it was losing money. It nevertheless took on additional debt to purchase 747s-and found itself paying very high interest rates. The recession hurt that airline as well. It survived, at least for a while, with help from the International Air Transport Association. IATA was a cartel, which enforced a worldwide agreement that kept fares high.

For half a century, the nation's airlines had been a heavily regulated industry in which competition was more in the way of service than in fares. This regulation prevented new airlines from entering the market while stabilizing those already operating. These arrangements came to an end in 1978, as the nation entered an era of deregulation. Airline executives won new freedom to introduce cut-rate fares and to serve new routes, as well as to abandon less lucrative routes. For travelers, the consequences brought a bonanza, with passengers saving $100 billion in ticket fares during the first ten years. However, airline service was reduced, and flights to less attractive destinations were unavailable.

Some of the traditional carriers did not survive deregulation. For instance, already weak Pan Am needed new routes and new aircraft. Lacking money and credit, it declared bankruptcy and went out of business in 1991. A corporate raider, Frank Lorenzo, purchased control of Eastern Airlines. He worked vigorously to cut the pay of his employees-and soon found himself in a battle with his labor unions. When the smoke cleared, Eastern also was bankrupt.

Other airlines also fell short. Braniff Airways gambled that new aircraft would help it recover market share-only to fly into a time of high fuel prices, high interest rates, and a new recession which forced the airline to shut down. TWA was in and out of bankruptcy before finally folding in 2001, as it agreed to sell its assets to American Airlines. As the new century began, the nation counted only three strong surviving carriers: American, United, and Delta.

Among the airplane builders, Boeing faced an increasingly strong challenge from a European group, Airbus Industrie. Boeing and Airbus both offered airliners in a wide array of sizes and ranges to meet the needs of their customers. Boeing covered losses with profits from its 747; it has sold more than a thousand of them, at prices up to $177 million. Airbus, with close ties to the governments of Europe, has covered its own losses with subsidies. In addition, the Europeans now are building something new: the Airbus A-380, which will be the world's largest airplane, with two complete decks of seats.

In the United States, airline traffic topped 600 million passengers per year in 2001, for a fourfold increase in just 30 years. New airports could help relieve this congestion, but the nation recently has built only one large new one near Denver. Everywhere else, plans for new airports have faced stiff competition. It has also proven difficult to build new runways at existing airports although much effort is underway to expand on numerous airports around the nation.

The Government Role in Civil Aviation - An Overview--Edmund Preston, Agency Historian, Federal Aviation Administration

The American Government has played an important part in shaping the nation's air transportation. At the dawn of the 20th century, Langley's Smithsonian was a significant source of information for those interested in the possibility of heavier-than-air flight. The Institution distributed literature about aeronautical principals as part of its scientific mission, which was partly supported by federal taxes. Among those who studied this material were Wilbur and Orville Wright, whose own experiments led them to achieve controlled, powered flight in 1903.

Despite its early start, the United States soon lost aeronautical leadership. European enthusiasm for air power was sparked by an arms race and then by the outbreak of war in 1914. During the following year, Congress took a step toward revitalizing American aviation by establishing the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA); an organization dedicated to the science of flight. Upon entering World War I in 1917, the U.S. government mobilized the nation's economy, with results that included an expansion of the small aviation manufacturing industry. Before the end of the conflict, Congress voted funds for an innovative postal program that would serve as a model for commercial air operations.

With initial help from the Army, the Post Office in 1918 initiated an intercity airmail route. In 1925, new postal legislation authorized the Post Office to contract with private airlines to transport mail, which offered the hope of steady income to America's struggling air carriers. Many aviation leaders in the 1920s believed that federal regulation was necessary to give the public confidence in the safety of air transportation. Opponents of this view included those who distrusted government interference or wished to leave any such regulation to state authorities. To investigate the issue, President Calvin Coolidge appointed a board whose report favored federal safety regulation. Congress passed the Air Commerce Act of 1926, which assigned to the U.S. Department of Commerce the fundamental tasks needed for civil air safety. Among these functions were: testing and licensing pilots, issuing certificates to guarantee the airworthiness of aircraft, making and enforcing safety rules, and investigating air accidents. The Act also directed the department to take certain actions to assist the progress of aviation.

To fulfill its new aviation responsibilities, the Department of Commerce created an Aeronautics Branch. The first head of this organization was William P. MacCracken, Jr., whose approach to regulation included consultation and cooperation with industry. A major challenge facing MacCracken was to enlarge and improve the nation's air navigation system. The Aeronautics Branch took over the Post Office's task of building airway light beacons, and in 1928 introduced a new navigation aid known as the low frequency radio range. At the same time, NACA was producing benefits through a program of laboratory research begun in 1920. In 1928, for example, the organization's pioneering work with wind tunnels produced a new type of engine cowling that made aircraft more aerodynamic.

Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Aeronautics Branch cooperated with public works agencies on projects that represented an early form of federal aid to airports. In 1934 it received a new name, the Bureau of Air Commerce. In 1935 the Bureau of Air Commerce encouraged a group of airlines to establish the first three centers for providing air traffic control along the airways. In the following year, the Bureau itself took over the centers and began to expand the control system. In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Act transferred federal responsibilities for non-military aviation from the Bureau of Air Commerce to a new, independent agency, the Civil Aeronautics Authority. The legislation also gave the authority the power to regulate airline fares and to determine the routes that air carriers would serve.

In 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt split the authority into two agencies, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) and the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). The CAA was responsible for air traffic control, safety programs, and airway development. The CAB was entrusted with safety rulemaking, accident investigation, and economic regulation of the airlines. Although both organizations were part of the Department of Commerce, the CAB functioned independently. After World War II began in Europe, the CAA launched a Civilian Pilot Training Program to provide the nation with more aviators. On the eve of America's entry into the conflict, the agency began to take over operation of airport control towers, a role that eventually became permanent. During the war, the CAA also greatly enlarged its en route air traffic control system. In 1944, the United States hosted a conference in Chicago that led to the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization and set the framework for future aviation diplomacy. In the post-war era, the application of radar to air traffic control helped controllers to keep abreast of the postwar boom in air transportation. In 1946, Congress gave the CAA the task of administering a federal-aid airport program aimed exclusively at promoting development of the nation's civil airports.

The approaching era of jet travel, and a series of midair collisions, prompted passage of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958. This legislation gave the CAA's functions to a new independent body, the Federal Aviation Agency. The act transferred safety rulemaking from CAB to the new FAA, and also gave the FAA sole responsibility for a common civil-military system of air navigation and air traffic control. The same year witnessed the birth of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), created in the wake of the Soviet launching of the first artificial satellite. NASA assumed NACA's role of aeronautical research while achieving world leadership in space technology and exploration.

In 1967, a new Department of Transportation (DOT) combined major federal responsibilities for air and surface transport. FAA's name changed to the Federal Aviation Administration as it became one of several agencies within DOT. At the same time, a new National Transportation Safety Board took over the CAB's role of investigating aviation accidents. The FAA gradually assumed additional functions. The hijacking epidemic of the 1960s had already brought the agency into the field of civil aviation security. The FAA became more involved with the environmental aspects of aviation in 1968 when it received the power to set aircraft noise standards. Legislation in 1970 gave the agency management of a new airport aid program and certain added responsibilities for airport safety.

By the mid-1970s, the FAA had achieved a semi-automated air traffic control system using both radar and computer technology. This system required enhancement to keep pace with air traffic growth, however, especially after the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 phased out the CAB's economic regulation of the airlines. A nationwide strike by the air traffic controllers union in 1981 forced temporarily flight restrictions but failed to shut down the airspace system. During the following year, the agency unveiled a new plan for further automating its air traffic control facilities, but progress proved disappointing. In 1994, the FAA shifted to a more step-by-step approach that has provided controllers with advanced equipment.

In the 1990s, satellite technology received increased emphasis in the FAA's development programs as a means to improvements in communications, navigation, and airspace management. In 1995, the agency assumed responsibility for safety oversight of commercial space transportation, a function begun eleven years before by an office within DOT headquarters.

As the new century began, issues facing the FAA included the progress of reforms aimed at giving the agency greater flexibility. Airline accidents, although rare in statistical terms, showed the need for further safety advances. The huge volume of flights challenged the capacity of the airport system, yet demonstrated the popularity of air travel. In September 2001, however, the air transportation system was challenged by terrorist attacks in which hijacked airliners were used as missiles that killed thousands of U.S. citizens as well as many others from around the world. The government's response included legislation, enacted in November, that established a new DOT organization. This new Transportation Security Administration received broad powers to protect air travel and other transportation modes against criminal activity. Its creation was the latest step in the evolution of U.S. government's civil aviation role to meet changing needs and priorities.

General Aviation-an Overview Dr. Janet Bednarek

Perhaps the best way to define general aviation is to begin by listing what it is not. General aviation is not military aviation and it is not scheduled commercial aviation. To a great extent, all other uses of aviation in the United States fall into the category of general aviation. These uses include, but are not limited to, private and sport flying, aerial photography and surveying, cropdusting, business flying, medical evacuation, flight training, and the police and fire fighting uses of aircraft. The airplanes used in general aviation range from small, single-engine, fabric-covered aircraft to multi-million dollar business jets. They also include helicopters, restored warbirds, and homebuilt aircraft designed to use advanced composite technology.

The non-military and non-commercial airline uses of aviation date back to the very early history of powered flight. Shortly after Wilbur and Orville Wright's invention came to public attention, people in the United States began to dream what the new technology would bring. Many beliefs came to make up what historian Joseph Corn called the "winged gospel." One part of the winged gospel included a vision of a future in which the airplane would be as common a form of transportation as the automobile. Another part of the winged gospel included the hope that participation in aviation would allow women and African Americans to gain greater equality in American society. Aviation never completely fulfilled that promise- many areas of aviation activity, including military flying and commercial airlines, barred women and African Americans for much of the twentieth century. However, both women and African Americans found their first opportunities to participate in flight in general aviation.

What is now known as general aviation really did not emerge fully until after the mid-1920s. Nonetheless, even before then a number of individuals began to experiment with uses of flight technology that would later become important parts of general aviation. For example, the first uses of airplanes for crop treatment, aerial surveying, and corporate flying all dated before the mid-1920s. Also, the first production and purchases of aircraft for private uses also happened very early in the history of flight. Wealthy individuals and some early exhibition pilots purchased aircraft from such pioneer aircraft manufacturers as the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss. Just before World War I, Clyde Cessna, a self-taught exhibition pilot, briefly operated his first aircraft company, one he founded with the purpose of building and selling small, relatively inexpensive aircraft for personnel use.

Cessna and those who followed him in the 1920s and early 1930s faced a number of difficulties as they tried repeatedly to build the type of aircraft that would allow for the realization of the dreams of the winged gospel. One of the biggest obstacles to affordable aircraft was the engine. The relatively affordable engines available, such as the OX-5, were so large and heavy that they demanded the design of large aircraft. Smaller, lighter engines were both very expensive and hard to get as most of the best were produced in Europe. The dream of affordable, personal aircraft would have to wait.

As aviation grew as an activity in the late 1920s, government regulations at both the state and federal levels worked to make access to flight a little more difficult. While the new programs did help give birth to the commercial airline industry, they also began to demand that pilots earn licenses and that aircraft receive certification. During the 1930s the Federal government initiated a number of programs supporters hoped would help spur general aviation. Eugene Vidal, who headed the Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce, pushed for the creation of a government program to encourage the design and manufacture of a safe, affordable aircraft. Some new aircraft designs emerged from the program. Later in the 1930s, the newly established Civil Aeronautics Authority sponsored a pilot training program. This program increased the number of pilots in the United States-both men and women, and both whites and African Americans.

The late 1920s and the 1930s also witnessed the expansion of general aviation enterprises. Crop dusting, proved valuable in the South in fighting the boll weevil, soon spread throughout the United States and included the treatment of forested areas as well as the aerial seeding of rice fields. Business travel also greatly expanded, ensuring that the high-end of the general aviation aircraft manufacturing market became and remained healthy. During this time period the first affordable small aircraft-the Aeronca C-2, introduced in 1929-made its appearance. Soon thereafter American engine manufacturers, beginning with Continental, began to finally produce small affordable aircraft engines.

The coming of World War II proved both a challenge and an opportunity for general aviation. During World War II most of the general aviation fleet was grounded. However, both general aviation pilots and manufacturers found ways to participate in the war effort. Pilots organized the Civil Air Patrol, an organization that eventually became an auxiliary of the Army Air Forces (and later the United State Air Force). Civil Air Patrol pilots performed a number of duties during the war, flying coastal patrol missions looking for enemy submarines, acting as fire spotters over the nation's forests, and performing humanitarian missions such as emergency medical flights and dropping supplies to areas hit hard by natural disasters.

General aviation aircraft manufacturers provided a number of products for the war effort. First, they acted as sub-contractors, using their skilled work forces to produce aircraft components for the manufacturers of military aircraft. They also sold a number of aircraft to the Army that were used in the Aerial-Observation-Post program in which Army pilots flew small aircraft in order to spot targets for Army artillery. Some general aviation manufacturers modified their small aircraft so that they could serve as training gliders for the Army Air Forces combat glider program. Given the large number of individuals trained as pilots during the war, general aviation manufacturers hoped that the time when private aircraft would come into widespread use was finally at hand. However, as events unfolded, World War II marked not the beginning but the end of any golden age for general aviation.

In the decades after World War II certain segments of general aviation continued to grow and develop. Business aviation continued and important technological changes occurred, including the introduction of turbine engines, both jets and turbo props. These high-end business aircraft remained in demand. The late 1940s also saw the introduction of helicopters, which become very important in such activities as medical evacuation and law enforcement. The biggest advancements, though, came in avionics - the radio and navigation equipment available to general aviation pilots.

In terms of personal flying, the post-war period witnessed a number of difficult times. First, the post-war boom in private aircraft purchases never materialized. Many companies, including some that had been very successful in the 1920s and 1930s, were forced out of the aircraft business. The survivors, such as Piper, Cessna and Beech, had to work hard to rebuild the personal aircraft market in the 1950s through the 1970s. They did see some successes as each company made the transition from fabric-covered to all-metal aircraft.

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, the general aviation industry, particularly in terms of personal aircraft, struggled as lawsuits against aircraft manufacturers escalated. The costs involved with these lawsuits, especially those associated with purchasing liability insurance, pushed up the price of personal aircraft. Despite Congressional efforts to help with the liability problem, the general aviation manufacturing industry still awaits recovery. Further, the number of licensed pilots in the United States peaked in 1980, and has declined since. Federal and state regulations in the late 1930s had all but made it impossible for individuals to build and fly (either from scratch or from kits) their own aircraft. In the early 1950s a group known as the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) formed to revive homebuilding. They were quite successful and though the factory production of aircraft has slowed considerably in the last twenty years, homebuilding has grown and thrived.

The four topics presented in this section give a broad overview of various aspects of America's aviation history, covering the U.S. Aircraft Industry, Air Transport-Commercial Aviation, the Government Role in Civil Aviation, and General Aviation-an Overview. These essays, slightly abridged here, can be found in full-length form at the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission's History of Flight website in the overview of flight essay section.

Air Power

Major General William "Billy" Mitchell defined air power as " the ability to do something in the air. It [consisted] of transporting all sorts of things by aircraft from one place to another." Air power may also be characterized as the ability to fly where you want, when you want, and to prevent the enemy from doing the same. Air power planning and use requires that it operate as part of a national grand strategy using strategic planning and tactical operations according to the principles of war or commerce.

Air power has grown to consist of air forces, airlines, general aviation, the aircraft and ancillary industries, as well as fuel, manpower, and other supplies. Air power also requires management through command, control, communications and intelligence. When World War I broke out in 1914, air power was in its infancy, but it grew to be an auxiliary force to be reckoned with by 1918, adding offensive capability to the primary ground-based power (the Army). Most air operations took place over the Western Front in France and consisted of reconnaissance activities--obtaining information, photographic, and making maps for the armies, and fighting to prevent others from doing the same. Very late in the war, ground-attack began to be a significant air tactic. In the meantime, grand-strategic bombing of Britain by German Zeppelin airships and Gotha bombers had targeted cities and forced British forces to divert their antiaircraft guns and fighters to defense functions. In this 1914-1918 struggle, the supply of aircraft of superior designs, of aircrew, mechanics, and fuel, was critical, as was salvage and repair.

In the inter-war years (1918-1939 for Europe and 1918-1941 for the United States) air forces and the infrastructure upon which they depended lay almost dormant except for French, British, Italian, and American colonial policing. Both the French and the British feared the air menace and talked of deterrence. Airlines began to develop, and these, though still very small by 1939, had made great technical strides in safety, speed, reliability, and comfort. Starting in 1934, modernization began with the technical revolution in machines--all-metal construction, high-octane fuels, airfields both fixed and mobile, electronics, jet propulsion, computers, and atomic bombs (nuclear weapons). These changes led to air power becoming a significant third service in the World War II battles. Not only air forces, but also air transport and the whole infrastructure were used in the war effort.

During World War II, air power was an instrument of policy in the grand strategic bombing of Britain, Germany, and Japan. It was the powerful handmaiden of the armies in the German blitzkrieg; of the lightning campaigns in the massive Soviet air armies along with all their arms; of the Allied armies; at sea in the Pacific, where both land-based air forces and carrier task forces operated; where aircraft patrolled the sea lanes in the North Atlantic; and also in the combination of armies and air transport in airborne paratroop and glider forces. Air power also used photo-reconnaissance, and wireless interception of messages proved to be a powerful intelligence tool. By mid-war, new advanced airfields could be built in three days using steel planks, and fuel could be supplied in places by pipeline. Further, a massive air logistics effort took place over "the Hump" between India and China. Equally important was salvage, repair, and maintenance in which the supply of spare parts was critical, as was POL (petrol, oil, lubricants) and tools.

World War II saw great debates over the proper use of air power. The Germans and Soviets used it essentially as part of the ground forces in blitzkrieg; the British and the Americans started out emphasizing grand-strategic bombing, whose tactics were a form of guerrilla warfare. A third aspect was defense and here the British used air power successfully in the 1940 Battle of Britain, while defense was forced upon the Germans after 1943 and the Japanese in 1945. The Soviets on the Eastern Front used massive air armies to lead and support their tank and infantry forces. Air power was used at sea against U-boats attacking convoys in the Atlantic, and in the Pacific: both as a judo blitzkrieg carrier force, striking quick, deadly blows, and to support and protect amphibious operations. These forces ultimately seized the island bases from which the grand-strategic bombing of Japan was launched in conjunction with carrier attacks and submarine assaults on shipping.

The dropping of atomic bombs on top of the fire raids on Japan showed that at last airmen had developed the deterrent power that had failed to prevent war in 1939. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, which ended World War II, air power developed along a number of peaceful and warlike lines, each requiring its own technology and machines linked through technology, manufacturers, and transfers of personnel. The helicopter, which was probably invented by Louis Breguet in France in 1909 (credit for early development of the helicopter also goes to Igor Sikorsky and Juan de la Cierva), saw use in World War II by the U.S. Armed Forces, but really came into its own in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, where it was used from everything from scouting, troop transport and delivering the wounded to medical facilities. World War II also saw the first use of jet-propulsion aircraft-the first jet engines entered service with high-speed fighters late in World War II. The Germans flew the Heinkel He-178, the world's first turbojet airplane, at Rostock, Germany, just before World War II. Already by October 1, 1942, Robert M. Stanley flew the first U.S. jet plane, the Bell XP-5 Airacomet, at Muroc, California. The first jets in America were produced for the military. Lockheed, Republic and North American built the first jet fighters: the P-80, F-84, and F-86. The F-86 in particular stood up well against the Soviet built MiG-15s. During the Vietnam conflict the F-105 Thunderchief and F-4 Phantoms saw conflict (Over 20,000 combat missions were flown by the republic built Thunderchiefs in Vietnam) The jet has continued to be used by the U.S. Armed forces up to the present day.

The airlines had benefited enormously from the mass production of airliners during World War II, and the setting up of airways and airfields (airports) around the world. The London-Los Angeles nonstop reach of the big piston-engine airliners was overtaken after 1958 by the arrival of the big jets, followed in 1969 by the Boeing 747 jumbo jet. By 1970, ocean liners had been eclipsed by airliners, and in 1976 the supersonic Concorde entered service. On domestic routes, smaller variants of British, American, French, and Soviet airlines allowed air transport outside of Europe and Japan, where there were high-speed networks, to overtake the railways.

At the same time, civil and defense manufacturing had been, like the airlines, consolidated or merged into fewer and fewer companies such as Boeing and Lockheed-Martin in the United States, and Airbus in Europe. After the break up of the Soviet Union in 1990, the Russians ceased to be players, but the Chinese had by then become important. As far as air forces have been concerned, during the Cold War of 1947-1990, the U.S. Air Force and the Royal Air Force (RAF) in NATO faced off with deterrents against the Soviet and Eastern bloc (Warsaw Pact) forces. This standoff, which included both land- and sea-based air and missile forces, also saw the development of tactical doctrines and equipment that was exercised, mainly in the West, in a number of wars, more consistently and flexibly by the Israeli Air Force in a series of clashes with the Arabs that demonstrated astute use of the principles of war.

While early on, air power theorists such as the Italian Guilio Douhet and Amadeo Mecozzi, the British F.W. Lanchester, and Sir Hugh Trenchard, and the American Billy Mitchell shared the limelight, increasingly this work has become that of staffs, especially in the Gulf War of 1991. The road to space was traveled at roughly the same pace as that seen in the introduction of the steam warship and the airplane. Rockets were being tried out in the 1930s and led in World War II to the German V-2 weapon used against Britain. After 1945, this weapon and its scientists were moved to the United States as the basis of missile programs. Other German scientists were taken to the USSR to create the weapons that created the "missile gap" crisis of 1960. Already in 1957, the Russians had orbited the Sputnik satellite which spurred the United States' efforts to create intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and in 1969, after men had been orbited in the early 1960s, the landing on the moon. This was followed by the Mir Soviet space station, and after the end of the Cold War in 1990, by cooperation in an international space station. In the meantime, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) treaties from 1970 had gradually been eliminating ballistic nuclear weapons. Since 1945, air forces' budgets have risen dramatically, but the number of machines in an air force has declined. This has been made up in the increasing lethality of weapons and in the number of people and amount of cargo that an aircraft can carry over a much longer distance, at speeds up to Mach 2.2 (1,400 miles per hour).

In contrast, airlines have merged and grown, so that a number are much larger than their neighboring air force. Airlines compete daily to make a profit from passengers and cargo. Increasingly in the latter 20th century and into the 21st, military and naval air power has been used for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, while the airlines have demonstrated the enormous ability to make the world smaller, more peaceful, and commercial. In the years since 1903, air power has changed dramatically from a warlike infant to a pacific giant, from a mouse to an elephant.

Taken from Air Power-An Overview by Robin Higham. The original version of this essay can be found at the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission's website.

Space

Interest in rockets goes back to ancient times when the Chinese used rockets that burned solid fuel for entertainment and for warfare. The British and other Europeans used rockets in the 19th century for military purposes. They were also used for peaceful purposes such as for launching life-saving equipment from shore into the water to rescue sailors. A major problem was that these early rockets used solid propellants, which lacked much power, and they were unguided, meaning that they rarely hit their target.

In the 20th century engineers began developing liquid-fueled rockets and guidance systems. In World War II the Germans succeeded in inventing rockets that could be guided to more distant targets with rough accuracy (the ability to hit city-sized targets 100 or more miles away). When the war ended, hundreds of German rocket experts came to the United States and were instrumental in developing the American space program. The Soviet Union also used German rocket experts, but did not incorporate these people into their own space program. After obtaining their knowledge, the Soviets confined them to Germany and allowed them to conduct only non-rocket research.

Three people are generally considered the fathers of modern spaceflight-Austrian Hermann Oberth, Russian Igor Tsiolkovsky, and American Robert Goddard. All three worked in relative isolation from each other during the early part of the 20th century. Oberth and Tsiolkovsky were largely theorists, writing about orbits and the possibility of space travel. Tsiolkovsky wrote about space stations. Both men's writings influenced many people, particularly in their own countries, to believe that spaceflight was possible. Unlike Oberth and Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard was more of a hands-on engineer than a theoretician. He was the first person to research liquid-fueled rockets and developed several gasoline-fueled experimental rockets that he fired at a test range near Roswell, New Mexico. But because he was reclusive he did not pass many of his accomplishments on to others and did not train younger engineers how to build rockets; this may have slowed the progress of rocketry in the United States.

Spacecraft and spaceflight missions fall into three main categories: human spaceflight, Earth-focused spaceflight, and astronomical and planetary spaceflight. The first vehicle launched into space was Sputnik, which the Soviet Union shot into orbit in October 1957. Sputnik was the opening round in what became known as the "Space Race," where the United States and the Soviet Union competed to achieve various firsts in space in order to demonstrate the superiority of their political and economic systems and their way of life. The Space Race continued for the next three decades, but lost considerable momentum by the 1970s and 1980s. Spaceflight is flight that occurs beyond the Earth's atmosphere using vehicles called spacecraft. Spacecraft can orbit around another body-these are called satellites-and can also travel between and beyond planets into the distances of outer space. In common usage, satellites refer to spacecraft that do not have a crew on board. These are often called unmanned or robotic spacecraft, and robotic spacecraft that travel to other planets are often called space probes.

In 1961 the Soviets sent the first human into space-Yuri Gagarin. Human spaceflight quickly became the main aspect of competition in the Space Race, and the most expensive. Although the Soviets undoubtedly won the opening rounds of the Space Race, the United States caught up quickly and by the mid-1960s had passed them in terms of total hours of humans in space and other accomplishments. The ultimate achievement was the landing of Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin on the moon in 1969. It was this Cold War competition, rather than a strong interest in science or the mysteries of space, that served as the incentive for both countries to invest the large amounts of resources that they have in their respective space programs, and especially in their human spaceflight programs. Once the Cold War ended by 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, money for spaceflight decreased and in many ways, the continuing space programs of the United States and Russia are a result of political and bureaucratic inertia, with tens of thousands of jobs depending upon continuing spaceflight.

The most ambitious human spaceflight program, from both a technological and a financial standpoint, is the International Space Station, or ISS, now being developed by a consortium consisting of Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan, and others. The ISS involves extensive cooperation between the United States and Russia and is intended to symbolize the end of Cold War animosity. But it has proven to be an astoundingly expensive project and these costs have dramatically reduced its scientific potential. Because a significant amount of human activity in space involves fixing things that break, the ISS cannot produce any useful scientific data until it has a crew size greater than three, which can only be achieved at considerable new expense. As a result, even today, after the end of the Space Race, most human spaceflight remains more symbolic than beneficial or practical. Robotic, Earth-focused spaceflight offers the most direct benefits to those on Earth. Communications satellites, meteorological satellites and remote-sensing satellites fall into these categories.

Communications satellites enable audio, video and data signals to be transmitted around the globe quickly and efficiently, shrinking the size of the Earth as people around the world can communicate with each other almost instantaneously. Meteorological satellites enable scientists to "see" the Earth's atmosphere. Instruments on board meteorological and other atmospheric research satellites measure and sample the atmosphere from great distance, identifying areas that may lead to severe storms. These satellites allow meteorologists and researchers to forecast major weather events like hurricanes and track their development and movement, and warn people to get out of the way. They have saved countless lives. Atmospheric observation satellites are also used to monitor ocean currents and temperature and to analyze trends such as global warming, ozone destruction, and pollutants in the atmosphere. They have played a major role in the debate over human impact on the environment.

Remote-sensing satellites view the Earth's surface. They are used for agricultural and land-use monitoring. But their primary use is military. Reconnaissance satellites, operating in polar orbits, are used to monitor troop movements, construction, and other military activities. Surveillance satellites in geosynchronous orbit watch for missile launches. Signals intelligence satellites in similar orbits listen for the faint whispers of electronic signals such as radio transmissions and radar.

Some spacecraft study the sun as well as its interaction with the atmosphere. This information can be of general scientific use and can also be important for understanding weather and global climate change. Astronomical spacecraft operate in Earth orbit and observe distant objects like stars and galaxies. Away from the distortions produced by the atmosphere, large observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope can see farther than any Earth-based telescope could ever see. They are investigating how the universe began, how it has evolved, its age and other mysteries.

Planetary exploration spacecraft leave Earth orbit to explore the inner and outer planets as well as other objects in the solar system. Spacecraft have been sent to every planet in the Solar System excluding Pluto, and more recently to several comets and asteroids. The Moon remains the only object besides Earth to have been visited by humans. Mars is the most heavily explored planet due primarily to its similarity to Earth and its relative proximity to Earth. Mars, which had abundant water millions of years ago, may have once supported life and evidence of past life on Mars would be a major scientific discovery. During the 1990s, scientists became increasingly interested in Jupiter's moon Europa, which has a vast ocean under its ice and is therefore a prime site in the search for life.

The Space Shuttle is a unique and highly versatile launch vehicle. It can be used to carry a payload in its cargo bay that is released and launched into space. The Space Shuttle presently is the only reusable launch vehicle, and in fact the only reusable spacecraft. Because expendable launch vehicles are so expensive, the Space Shuttle was intended to lower the costs of launching a pound of payload into space. It has dramatically failed to do this. The United States has spent considerable money trying to develop cheaper reusable launch vehicles, or RLVs, to lower the cost of launching payloads, but has not been successful so far. More extensive exploitation and exploration of space, including things like space tourism, is not possible until the cost of reaching space comes down dramatically.

Launch vehicles are virtually the same as rockets and missiles. The term "missile" is usually used when the vehicle does not actually enter orbit and when the payload-what the launch vehicle is carrying and propelling into space-is some sort of weapon. Most modern launch vehicles consist of more than one stage. This means that two or three rockets are joined together, each with its own rocket motor, to form a single launch vehicle. During launch, these stages fall off as the rocket motors are fired and as the payload is gradually maneuvered into its proper position. When a launch vehicle or rocket releases its payload, it is said to deploy its payload. Modern rockets are extremely expensive to operate, frequently costing thousands of dollars per pound of payload placed in orbit.

Although the United States and Russia (formerly the U.S.S.R.) have led in spaceflight, other countries have developed their own space programs and are also participating more and more in cooperative space missions. Astronauts from numerous countries have flown into space aboard Russian and American spacecraft and work on the International Space Station. By the late 1990s, China had started development of its Shenzou spacecraft to transport several humans into space, and was reported to be working on its own space station. Spaceflight has a unique ability to capture the imaginations of all kinds of people who will probably never go into space themselves.

A longer and unedited version of this essay, originally titled Spaceflight-An Overview, by Dwayne Day, can be found at the U.S. Centennial of Flight's website

List of Sites

Sites are listed chronologically within themes, corresponding to the essays above.
You can also explore these places using our List by State.

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park commemorates the work of Orville and Wilbur Wright in the Dayton, Ohio, area where the brothers lived and worked. Historic sites at the park include the building which housed the Wright Cycle Company and Wright and Wright Printing; Huffman Prairie Flying Field; and the 1905 biplane, Wright Flyer III. Although the test flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, represented a major breakthrough in humanity's conquest of the air, the Wright's attempts to conquer the air began when they were children in Dayton with the parental encouragement they were given to experiment and investigate whatever aroused their curiosity.

By the fall of 1896, the Wright brothers began tackling the problems of mechanical human flight. By July 1899, they had discovered the fundamental aeronautical principle of lateral control, among the Wright brothers' greatest achievements. The Wrights realized from the beginning that a key problem of human flight was how to control the machine in the air. Previous aviation experiments had determined how to control a craft in pitch (vertical control) and yaw (horizontal control), but no one before the Wrights had yet discovered or developed a principle of roll (lateral control). However, after more than two years of watching buzzards gliding over a hill in Dayton, the Wrights realized that by twisting the wings so that on one side a greater angle was made to the wind, and on the other side there was simultaneously less of an angle, an airplane could be rolled to one side or the other.

The Wrights set out to test this theory and in August 1899 they built their first aircraft, a bi-plane kite, and test flew it in a vacant lot in west Dayton. The wing-warping worked; the kite was controllable, and the Wrights went on in 1900 to build their first man-carrying glider. They made a dozen successful flights in Kitty Hawk and conducted an intensive aerodynamic program in their bicycle shop in the fall of 1901 which perfected a newer glider, and later, in the same shop, with the help of their mechanic, Charlie Taylor, they designed and built an engine for an airplane, which met with success on December 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk.

Wright Cycle Company and Wright and Wright Printing: In this brick building, a National Historic Landmark, Wilbur and Orville Wright manufactured bicycles on the first floor and operated a printing press on the second floor from 1895 to 1897. The two years they spent working with sprockets, spokes, chain drives, tires, metals and machines were of inestimable value in preparing the brothers for their subsequent success with gliders and flying machines. In addition, the profits they made from their businesses helped finance their later aviation experiments. It was while the Wrights occupied the building at 22 South Williams Street that they became seriously and actively interested in solving the problems of heavier-than-air powered flight. The printing business on the second floor required access to national news wires, which carried word of Otto Lilienthal's death to the shop in 1896. Lilienthal, the famous German aviation pioneer known as the father of gliding and credited as the first man in the world to launch himself into the air and fly, died from injuries received in a glider accident and his death catalyzed the brothers' interest in developing a safe and practical flying machine. The shop, integral to the development of the airplane, has been restored and opened to the public.

Huffman Prairie Flying Field: Huffman Prairie Flying Field was designated a National Historic Landmark, for its role in the development and testing of the world's first practical airplane, the Wright Flyer III. Huffman Field, touted by some as the cradle of aviation and the world's first aerodrome, is the flying field where Wilbur and Orville Wright obtained the necessary practice and experience to master the principles of flight. Huffman Field was a farm meadow used for livestock in 1904 when the Wright brothers began their flying experiments here and constructed a hangar for that purpose. The low, wooden gable-roofed shed was converted into a livestock shelter in the winter of 1904 and torn down thereafter. A larger hangar was constructed in 1905 and replaced in 1910 when the Wrights built a new one near the intersection of the Yellow Springs and Springfield Pike for the Wright Company. The Wrights developed a derrick and weight launching system and positioned it on Huffman Field in 1904; this system rolled planes down a short launching rail. In 1910 the Wright brothers replaced this system with the use of airplane skids. Although previously operating a winter flying school in Montgomery, Alabama, Orville Wright, the principal instructor of the school, moved the permanent operations to Huffman Field in 1910. Among the most notable students trained at Huffman were Lt. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Commander of the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II; Griffith Brewer, the first Englishmen to fly an airplane; Cal P. Rodgers, the first person to fly across the United States; A. Roy Brown, the pilot who shot down the Red Baron during World War I; and three daring women: Rose Dugan, Mrs. Richard Hornsby and Marjorie Stinson. While the terrain has changed little since the Wright brothers used Huffman prairie, no buildings dating from the Wright brothers' experiments remain on the site.

Wright Flyer III: This muslin-over-wood biplane, constructed in 1905, is one of three experimental flyers designed and built by the Wright brothers in their quest to develop a practical airplane, and is today a National Historic Landmark. Weighing 710 pounds and standing nine feet, five and one eighth inches tall and 28 feet long, the Flyer III carries a wing area of 503 square feet and a horizontal front rudder area of 83 square feet. Powered by a 20-horsepower modified automobile-type engine attached to twin pusher-type propellers, Wright Flyer III was the first airplane capable of sustained and controlled flight and suitable for practical application. The Wright brothers themselves, recognizing the significance of their 1905 machine, stated, "From the beginning the prime objective was to devise a machine of practical utility, rather than a useless and extravagant toy." With Flyer III, the Wright brothers perfected the technique of flying and designed a powered airplane completely controllable by the pilot; able to bank, turn, circle, and make figure eights; withstand repeated take-offs and landings; and remain airborne trouble free for more than half an hour. Flyer III was also the first airplane capable of scouting in warfare, carrying mail to isolated places, exploring and sport-uses the Wrights envisioned for their practical invention.

The Wright Brothers sites in Ohio are located within Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park in Montgomery County, Ohio, and within the boundaries of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Greene County, Ohio. The Wright Cycle Company is located at 22 South Williams St., in Dayton and the Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center is located on Pylon and Marl Rd. at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; both are open 8:30am to 5:00pm daily, closed major holidays. Wright Flyer III is on display at the John W. Berry, Sr. Wright Brothers Aviation Center. It is open April-October, Tuesday-Saturday from 9:30am to 5:00pm; open Sunday and holidays from 12:00pm to 5:00pm. All sites require an admission fee. Please call 937-225-7705 for further information or visit the park's website.

Wright Brothers National Memorial

The Wright Brothers National Memorial commemorates the site of the first successful powered air flight and the many achievements of Wilbur and Orville Wright in the Kill Devil Hills area of North Carolina. The Wrights, who had been experimenting with glider designs, required a wide, open area with steady winds in order to conduct their research. The closest, most practical site to the brothers' Dayton, Ohio, home was Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1900 Wilbur and Orville Wright set up a tent camp at Kitty Hawk to test their first large glider, performing their first manned glides here. The following year, the Wrights returned to the area, building a more permanent camp including a combined workshop and storage building. The experimental flights of early August 1901 largely succeeded, resulting in glides of up to 389 feet; however, difficulties still existed and frustrated both brothers. Toward the end of August, the Wrights returned to Dayton for further work. In August 1902, the Wrights returned once again to Kitty Hawk to test improvements made on their glider where they gained increased control over their craft and logged a considerable number of hours of actual flight time, contributing to their later success as pilots.

By the end of the 1902 season, the Wrights had made great progress on the way to successful flight. These accomplishments did not go unnoticed. The scientific community began to hear of the Wright brothers' work and the military of several countries took an interest in the gliders. Wilbur and Orville, understanding the significance of their discoveries, applied for a patent in 1903. At the same time, the brothers began developing an engine for their flying machine in order to attain their goal of powered flight. On Monday, December 14, 1903, the brothers decided to test their machine-powered aircraft called the Flyer. The brothers tossed a coin to decide who would take the first turn. Wilbur, winner of the coin toss, experienced difficulties and stayed in the air for three and a half seconds. Although considered an unsuccessful attempt, the Wrights were optimistic about the Flyer's ability. At 10:00 am on December 17, despite high winds, the brothers set out to test the aircraft again. Orville flew approximately 100 feet in 12 seconds and at noon Wilbur made the fourth and longest flight of the day, covering 852 feet.

In 1932 a 60-foot granite monument perched atop 90-foot tall Kill Devil Hill was dedicated to commemorating the achievement of these two visionaries. One of the most significant changes to the site came in 1960 when the park added a new Visitor Center, one of several Mission 66 projects sponsored by the National Park Service to upgrade park buildings in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the Service. Designed by the Philadelphia firm of Mitchell/Giurgola, later designers of the Liberty Bell Pavilion near Independence Hall, the new concrete visitor center suggested the form of an airport terminal and conveyed a sense of transportation, forming a connection between the achievements of the Wright brothers and the world of modern aviation.

The Wright Brothers National Memorial, administered by the National Park Service, is located on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in the town of Kill Devil Hills. About 15 miles northeast of Manteo, NC on US-158, the Visitor Center, which is itself a National Historic Landmark, is open daily during the summer from 9:00am to 6:00pm, and the rest of the year from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Please call 252-441-7430, or visit the park's website for further information. You can also download (in pdf) the Wright Brothers National Memorial Visitor Center National Historic Landmark nomination.

Wright Brothers National Memorial is the subject of an online-lesson plan produced by Teaching with Historic Places, a National Register program that offers classroom-ready lesson plans on properties listed in the National Register. To learn more, visit the Teaching with Historic Places home page.

Fort Myer Historic District

The first military airplane in the world, built by the Wright brothers for the Army Signal Corps, made its first flight at Fort Myer, Virginia, in September 1908. The Army established military aviation in the Signal Corps in August 1907 because observation and reconnaissance were the only functions for the airplane known to the military at that time. In December 1907, the Chief Signal Officer requested bids for a flying machine with requirements generally thought to be impossible. Many in the aeronautical community predicted that the Army would not receive any bids, but the Wright brothers signed a contract on February 10, 1908, and delivered the airplane to Fort Myer in August 1908. The specification required the "Heavier-than-air Flying Machine" to carry two people, fly 40 miles per hour, make a one-hour endurance flight and be portable by Army wagons. Flying instruction for two officers was also required.

Orville Wright was the pilot for the flights required to demonstrate performance. Less than a thousand people witnessed the first flight at Fort Myer on September 3, 1908, because the general public was still doubtful that powered flight had been achieved. Orville's subsequent flights during the next two weeks were watched by thousands, and finally convinced the American public that "man could fly." The flights at Fort Myer established a number of new world records for endurance, but the last flight on September 17 ended in disaster. A crack in the right propeller caused the plane to crash, seriously injuring Orville and killing Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge. Delivery of the new flying machine was postponed until the following summer, when Orville made additional demonstration flights at Fort Myer in a Wright A plane, an improvement of the 1908 design. The Army formally accepted Signal Corps Airplane No. 1, the world's first military airplane, on August 2, 1909. The Wright brothers fulfilled their contract in October and early November when Wilbur Wright provided flying instruction for three Army officers at College Park, Maryland.

Fort Myer had been established as Fort Whipple during the Civil War in 1863. It was renamed for Brigadier General Albert J. Myer, who established the Signal School of Instruction for Army and Navy Officers here in 1869. By the turn of the 20th century, the military had determined that Fort Myer should become a permanent army post, and an extensive building program was initiated. The buildings of the historic district date to this period of construction and include commodious senior officers' quarters known as "Generals' Row" that became home to the Army Chiefs of Staff including Generals Leonard Wood, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower and William Westmoreland. Fort Myer is also the home of the Air Force Chief of Staff and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Fort Myer Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, is roughly bounded by Arlington Blvd (U.S. 50), Clarendon Blvd. and Arlington National Cemetery. Due to heightened security, this active base in not open to the public. For more information visit the base's website.

Hawthorn Hill

Completed in 1914, Hawthorn Hill in Dayton, Ohio, was designed by Wilbur and Orville Wright with the aid of the Dayton architectural firm of Schenck and Williams. As the Wrights' fame grew so did their need for a larger home that could better accommodate their many guests. Therefore, with the consent of their sister Katharine, the Wright's purchased a 17-acre wooded tract named Hawthorn Hill for the many hawthorn trees covering the hillside. In 1912, shortly after approving the final plans for the house, Wilbur died. Orville dedicated himself to overseeing the construction of the residence, spending as many hours as possible at the construction site. The house was also equipped with many labor saving devices and gadgets of Orville Wright's design including a special system of chains and rods that allowed him to control the furnace from upstairs rooms and an early version of a water softener that purified water for use in a large shower. He fashioned special tools to aid in cleaning the residence, a toaster capable of slicing and browning bread, a buzzer system between the dining room and kitchen and an easy chair with a reading stand and matching adjustable footstool.

Hawthorn Hill, often called Orville's "machine for living," was host to many notable guests such as Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Carl Sandburg, Admiral Richard Byrd, King Constantine of Greece and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. One of the most famous guests of Hawthorn Hill arrived on June 22, 1927. Charles Lindbergh, returning to St. Louis just weeks after his nonstop flight over the Atlantic Ocean, stopped in Dayton to visit Orville Wright. At the request of his financial backers Lindbergh was unable to make a public appearance. Disappointed Daytonians gathered outside Hawthorn Hill demanding a glimpse of their hero. Forced to appease the crowd, Lindbergh and Orville Wright made a brief appearance on the balcony and the satisfied crowd dispersed. Following Orville's death January 30, 1948, his family placed the home for sale. Edward Deeds of the National Cash Register Corporation (NCR) purchased the estate, which is still used as a guesthouse for overseas visitors and dignitaries.

Hawthorn Hill, a National Historic Landmark, is located at 901 Harman Ave. in Oakwood, Ohio. Tours of the house are offered. To arrange for a tour call 937-293-2841.

Glenn Curtiss House

The Glenn Curtiss House was constructed in 1925 for this aviation pioneer who had established his own airplane company before becoming the developer of Miami Springs, Florida. Located in his Miami Spring development, Curtiss lived in this large, two-story residence designed in the Pueblo Revival style until his death in 1930. Glenn Hammond Curtiss, born in 1878 in Hammondsport, New York, was a rival of the Wright Brothers. Like the Wright Brothers, Curtiss was interested in bicycles as a young man, opening a bicycle repair shop in 1900 after his marriage to Lena Pearl Neff. Interested in speed, he soon turned to motorcycles and designed a machine with a lightweight, high-power engine. He created the G.H. Curtiss Manufacturing Company in New York in 1902, and began producing the Hercules motorcycle. Although setting records for motorcycle racing, his company also drew the attention of aeronautical experimenters--in July 1904 Thomas Scott Baldwin used a Curtiss two-cylinder engine to power the first successful dirigible to fly in the United States, the California Arrow.

Alexander Graham Bell, the famed inventor, was also impressed by the Curtiss engines, and invited Curtiss to join the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA). Curtiss turned to airplanes after Bell's man-carrying motorized kite was deemed a failure. The AEA designed and built several airplanes, including the Red Wing which first flew on March 12, 1908. This was followed two months later by the White Wing, which employed Bell-contrived ailerons for lateral control, a system that was superior to the wing warping used by the Wright Brothers. Curtiss became an enthusiastic flyer, and after the AEA disbanded in 1909, established his own airplane company in Hammondsport, New York. The second airplane company that Curtiss established, the Curtiss Aeroplane Company, became the world's largest aircraft manufacturer during the war. He developed an airplane that could land on water for the Navy, but he soon found himself in a legal battle with the Wright Brothers, who held a patent on their wing-warping system. While the Wrights won in court, Curtiss paid no penalty, and a Wall Street syndicate formed the Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Company, with Curtiss as president. The most widely produced model during World War I was Curtiss's JN-4 "Jenny." When the company underwent major financial reorganization in 1920, Curtiss moved to southern Florida, where he became a real estate developer during the 1920s. As William M. Leary wrote in American National Biography, "Curtiss stands in the forefront of American aeronautical pioneers, second only to the Wright brothers in historical significance."

The Glenn Curtiss House is one of the largest and most architecturally distinguished of the Pueblo Revival residences associated with Curtiss's Miami Springs development. Its architect, Martin Luther Hampton, was one of Miami's most prominent architects during the 1920s--his designs include the former Miami Beach City Hall and the Congress Building in downtown Miami. The house is roughly V-shaped in plan and constructed of hollow clay tile with a rough textured stucco exterior. The roof is flat with very irregular parapet walls embellished by projecting waterspouts and irregular shaped openings. The main entrance to the residence is set within a deeply recessed T-shaped opening and marked by a flat-roofed porte cochere. The southeast central courtyard of the building features a later oolithic (rock consisting of small round grains) limestone facing on its first story pierced by modern windows and glass doors.

After Glenn Curtiss's death in the early 1930s, Lena Curtiss married an old friend and business associate of her husband, H. Sayre Wheeler. Wheeler served as mayor of Miami Springs from 1942 to 1944 and was also part owner of the Michaels and Wheeler Insurance Company. The couple lived in the house until the late 1940s. It was subsequently converted into the Miami Springs Villas House in 1953.

The Glenn Curtiss House, at 500 Deer Run in Miami Springs, Florida, is one block off of NW 36th St. It is currently not open to the public while it is being restored to serve as a museum honoring the life of Glenn Curtiss. The museum plans to open in 2005 or 2006.

Pearson Field, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site

Pearson Field, located in Vancouver, Washington, within Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, is one of the oldest active airfields in the West and a historically significant center of aviation in the Pacific Northwest. In 1905, the first aeronautical event took place here when Lincoln Beachey, one of the most talented early aviators, landed a dirigible on the parade grounds of the U.S. Army's Vancouver Barracks. The first airplane flight in the Vancouver-Portland, Oregon, region took place in 1910, and generated much public interest. By 1911 two local aviators, Charles Walsh and Silas Christofferson, began flying the first airplanes on the polo grounds with their Curtiss Pusher biplanes. Use of the field by local aviators increased in the years leading to World War I. During the war, a spruce mill was constructed at the Vancouver Barracks by the U.S. Army Signal Corps for the production of wood components needed to manufacture military aircraft. Completed in 90 days, the mill's production sustained the manufacturing of U.S. and Allied aircraft and played a crucial role in the expansion and modernization of American aircraft production.

In 1923, the Army established an airfield at the Vancouver Barracks and assigned the 321st Observation Squadron to the field, led by Lt. Oakley Kelly, to expand air reserve training. The squadron used four Curtiss JN-4 Jennies and one Dehavilland DH-4 aircraft to teach the Army Reserve Officers how to fly. Lt. Kelly was a major figure in the U.S. Army Air Service, and attracted national attention when he and Lt. John A. Macready completed the first transcontinental flight in April 1924. In 1925, Kelly pushed to rename the airfield in honor of Lt. Alexander Pearson, a Vancouver native and exemplary Army aviator who was killed in an aviation accident in 1924. Pearson had been commissioned by the Department of the Interior to make the first aerial survey of Grand Canyon National Park. Pearson Field was the last stopover in the Army's epochal Round-the-World flight in 1924, which demonstrated the range of military aircraft and allowed advocates of air power to promote Army aviation.

During Kelly's assignment to the airfield (1924-1928), he actively promoted the expansion of civilian involvement in aviation in Vancouver and was instrumental in the establishment of the adjacent commercial field. The Vancouver Chamber of Commerce worked with Kelly to establish this field in 1925. This expansion allowed a home for general aviation and for early commercial airlines, and enabled Pearson to bid for an airmail route. The original West Coast airmail service stopped at Pearson. Both Pacific Air Transport and Varney Airlines used the field, and later joined with two other airlines to become United Airlines.

In 1937, Pearson Field was the landing site of the courageous crossing of the North Pole by three Soviet aviators in the ANT-25, a single-engine aircraft designed by the Soviet Union for long-range flight. This important milestone in aviation--the first transpolar flight--prompted intense public interest and attracted national attention. A monument was erected to commemorate the flight. In 1941, the 321st Squadron was called to active duty, and Pearson ceased to be an active Army Air Corps base. The original grass field, surviving military structures and the backdrop of the Officers Row reflect the interwar period during which Pearson was an active aviation center. In the late 1940s, the City of Vancouver assumed responsibility for Pearson after it was declared surplus by the military, and since that time, the field has been an area for general aviation. The Army airfield and adjacent commercial airfield were joined and became known as Pearson Airpark which continues to serve the greater Vancouver-Portland area as an important general aviation center.

Pearson Field is located within the boundaries of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, in Vancouver, Washington. The adjacent Pearson Air Museum, located at 1115 E 5th., depicts the pioneering days of aviation in the Northwest. It is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00am to 5:00pm. There is a fee for admission. Call 360-694-7026 or visit the museum's website for further information.

Stinson Field, Mission Parkway

Stinson Field, dating from the latter part of 1915, was San Antonio's first municipal airport. It has remained in operation since that time, being the only airport in San Antonio, Texas, for many years. It was established by the Stinson family of aviation pioneers. Hoping to finance her musical education with money earned from exhibition flying, Alabama native Katherine Stinson (1891-1977) convinced famed flight instructor Max Lillie of Chicago to take her on as a student in 1912. Katherine became the fourth licensed female pilot in the U.S., began touring as a stunt pilot and became one of the country's most famous female aviatiors. Her family--mother Emma, sister Marjorie and brothers Eddie and Jack--established the Stinson Aviation Company in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Marjorie and Eddie trained at the Wright Flying School in Ohio and also became pilots (Marjorie becoming the ninth licensed female pilot in the world). In 1913, Max Lillie encouraged the Stinsons to move to San Antonio where the army had granted him permission to use the parade ground at Fort Sam Houston. According to the San Antonio Express (December 1 and 5, 1915), Marjorie (age 19) and Edward Stinson ran the flying school, utilizing the drill field at Fort Sam Houston, from 1914 to 1915.

Marjorie Stinson petitioned the City Council to lease land for use as an airport. Once approved, the family leased 500 acres of farmland from the city in 1916 and established Stinson Field. Marjorie founded the Stinson School of Aviation, thus being the first woman to own and operate a flying school in the United States. During its first years in operation, the Stinson family flying school trained many World War I pilots. After the ban of civilian flights during World War I, Stinson Field became the city's civil airport in 1918. Charles Lindbergh kept an airplane and flew out of Stinson while he was stationed at Brooks Field.

Stinson Field's name was changed for nine years to "Windburn Field" following the October 15, 1927, airplane crash of reporter, Bill Windburn. It was into Windburn Field that the first scheduled airmail flight in San Antonio arrived on February 6, 1928. In the 1930s, commercial airlines began using the airport and construction of a new terminal building with Works Progress Administration funds enhanced the facility. On July 15, 1936, the airfield was renamed Stinson Field in commemoration of its original founders. During World War II it once again became an Army Air Corps training facility. Returned to civilian use after the war, Stinson Field became the primary general aviation airport for the city of San Antonio. Part of Stinson Field was utilized by the National Guard for a couple of years, accounting for the barracks still present on the southwestern portion of the field. Although the San Antonio International Airport is the primary airport in the San Antonio area today, Stinson Field has remained an important commercial and recreational air center.

Stinson Airport, part of the Mission Parkway, is located at 8535 Mission Rd. in San Antonio, Texas. It is still operated as a general aviation airport, open during normal business hours. Also located at the air field is the Stinson Branch of the Texas Air Museum, presenting the history of flight from the early days of aviation to the present. It is open Monday-Saturday 11:00am to 5:00pm, closed major holidays; there is a fee for admission. For further information call 210-977- 9885 or visit the museum's website.

William E. Boeing House

William E. Boeing (1881-1956) was founder of the Boeing Airplane Company, the largest and most successful commercial aircraft manufacturer in the world. Starting from a base in the lumber industry, Boeing became a pioneer in the design and manufacture of airplanes just before America's entry into World War I. Expanding first into the production of military aircraft during the war and then into contracts for scheduled mail delivery and regular commercial passenger service, the Boeing empire eventually included all aspects of aviation, from technological development and aircraft production to international airline transportation systems. In 1934, forced by the Federal government to dissolve the interlocking partnerships between the manufacturing and transportation divisions, Boeing resigned from the industry he had pioneered and turned to other interests.

Boeing grew up in Michigan, attended Yale's Scientific School, and then spent five years learning the logging business in Grays Harbor, Washington, before arriving in Seattle in 1908 where he continued to manage his timber lands, establishing the Greenwood Timber Company. Around the same time, Boeing became interested in flying, took lessons, and purchased a Martin hydroplane. He founded his aeronautical products company shortly thereafter, established a production plant at the Red Barn and built his first airplane in 1916.

At the same time, Boeing was having a home built for him in The Highlands, a newly established exclusive residential community just outside Seattle. Charles Bebb designed his 19,000 square foot residence, which Boeing named Aldarra. Boeing moved in as a bachelor in 1914 but married Bertha Potter Paschall in 1921. Bertha had two young sons from a previous marriage, and the couple completed their family with their own son, William Boeing, Jr. Situated at the edge of a bluff overlooking Puget Sound, the impressive Mediterranean Revival residence has restrained detailing, a white stucco façade and red tile roof. The home was Boeing's principal residence until 1954, just two years before his death. Boeing had donated his home to a local hospital, which benefited from the sale of the estate to private owners.

The William E. Boeing House is located on Huckleberry Lane in The Highlands, Washington. It is a private residence and not open to the public.

Smith Field

Smith Field, a rare surviving example of an early 20th-century airport, is historically significant for its association with air-related transportation and commerce in Fort Wayne and Allen County, Indiana. In 1919, the city of Fort Wayne inspected the site that eventually became Smith Field for its suitability as a municipal airport. The site was first used for pilot instruction beginning in 1923, and on June 25, 1925, was established as Baer Municipal Airport. Named for a native of Fort Wayne, Paul Baer was the first American Ace of World War I. In February of 1928, a $100,000 bond issue allowed for the formal planning of runways and taxiways, a system that is still in use. Between 1930 and 1937, these were paved and widened by the Civil Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration. The airport became one of the first in the U.S. to have a nighttime lighting system, also funded by the bond, and the 82-foot tall Beacon Tower was constructed. Soon after the addition of several buildings and a commercial airmail carrier in 1930, Smith Field established passenger service. In 1932, the airport served 3,000 passengers, and the introduction of the Douglas DC-3 in 1936 created more flights, thus serving more people.

During World War II, the Army Air Corps received a large tract of land south of Fort Wayne for use as an airfield. In a compromise, the military field adopted Paul Baer's name, and the municipal airport changed its name to Smith Field, in honor of a Fort Wayne U.S. airmail pioneer, Art Smith. In 1944, Smith Field's Hangar 2, a rare example of hangars from the 1920s period, became a production center for Interstate Aircraft TDR-1 Assault Drones, an unmanned twin engine aircraft that was an early version of the "cruise missile."

In addition to its historic system of runways, Smith Field is home to several significant buildings. Hangar 2 features three large Truscon Steel Company Doors, a highlight unique to Smith Field in the U.S. at the time they were built. The Carousel Hangar, although outside the period of significance defined for Smith Field, is the only example of Clark W. Smith's patented design ever built. The hangar is characterized by an innovative rotating carousel door. Smith Field's tie-down area recalls the era before World War II when hangars were used for maintenance rather than storage, and the aircraft had to be tied down to spiral-shaped stakes in the ground. Smith Field also features ruins of a railroad freight platform, a remnant of the airport's easy accessibility to a transport for the TDR-1 missiles.

Smith Field is located at 426 W. Ludwig Ave., four miles north of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Entrance to the airport is between Lima and Coldwater rds. Still a functional terminal, the building is open during normal airport hours. Free flights for children and young adults (under 18 years of age) are offered monthly as part of the EAA "Young Eagles" program. Fly-Ins, Biplane Rides and Special Events are held throughout the flying season. For further information call 260-489-5518 or visit the airport's website .

Gen. William "Billy" Mitchell House

From 1926 until his death in 1936, General William "Billy" Mitchell, a dominant figure in American military aviation between the two world wars, resided at Boxwood, an approximately 120-acre country estate in Middleburg, Virginia. In 1898, when war broke out with Spain, 18-year-old Billy Mitchell left college to enlist as a private in a Wisconsin volunteer regiment and within three weeks he became a 2nd Lieutenant in a Florida-based U.S. Army Signal Corps. In 1901 he was appointed 1st Lieutenant in the Signal Corps and at age 24 he became the youngest captain in the Army. In 1913 he became the youngest officer ever appointed to the Army general staff. While serving as commander of the Signal Company at Fort Leavenworth, Mitchell developed an interest in aviation. During World War I Billy Mitchell played a leading role in launching the World War I American aircraft program. By 1917 Mitchell was promoted to full colonel and subsequently to commander of the Air Service. The first U.S.-trained air squadrons arrived at the front in the spring 1918. Mitchell distinguished himself as the first American Army aviator to cross enemy lines and the first to be decorated. Upon his return to the United States in 1919, Billy Mitchell was named Assistant Chief of the Air Service. Amidst great opposition Mitchell set out to overhaul the national defense structure while equipping the Air Service with new bombers and dirigibles and initiating development of the first airways system in the United States.

Mitchell realized by 1921 that he needed to employ different techniques to convince America of the necessity of developing air power. He began giving speeches, contributing to newspaper and magazine articles, testifying in congressional and executive hearings, publicizing his and his airmen's flying stunt's and emphasizing the contributions air power could make to the defense of the United States. In 1921, Mitchell gained worldwide attention when he was granted the opportunity to demonstrate that air power would be a major arm of warfare. His bombers sank the captured ex-German battleship Ostfriesland within 21 minutes, then repeated the act on the obsolete American battleship Alabama. Seventeen years before the Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Mitchell concluded that war with Japan was inevitable and the Pacific Islands would be crucial Japanese objectives because of their strategic value as air bases. He pushed for large-scale reinforcement of the Air Service in the Hawaiian Islands, but met much resistance. Mitchell continued to campaign for air power, writing his book Winged Defense and publishing articles, which he had been ordered to submit for War Department clearance before publication. The loss of a naval seaplane on a nonstop flight from San Francisco to Hawaii on September 1, 1925, and the destruction of the dirigible USS Shenandoah two days later, prompted Mitchell to published an article September 5, 1925, in which he blamed these aviation tragedies and others on the Navy and War Departments. Two weeks later he was court-martialed and sentenced to a five-year suspension from duty without pay. Mitchell resigned from the Army on February 1, 1926, but he continued to wage his battle for air power. He died on February 17, 1936, shortly before his ideas on air power were vindicated. He was posthumously restored to the service in 1942 with the rank of major general.

The Gen. William "Billy" Mitchell House, also known as Boxwood Farm, a National Historic Landmark, is located on Va. Rte. 626 south of Middleburg, Virginia. It is a private residence and is not open to the public.

Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker House

From 1895 to 1922, this was the Columbus, Ohio, home of famed World War I aviator Edward "Eddie" Vernon Rickenbacker. Eddie, a leading race car driver prior to World War I, joined the American Expeditionary Force as a sergeant and staff driver in 1917. He sailed to France the next month with John J. Pershing and his staff. Although overage and not a high school graduate, Rickenbacker, with the assistance of William "Billy" Mitchell, received an assignment to flight school. After 17 days at the French aviation school at Tours, Eddie received his wings and a commission as first lieutenant; however, he was assigned to the Advanced Flight School at Issoudun as an engineering officer, not a pilot. Eventually he was transferred to the 94th Aero Pursuit Squadron, where on April 14, 1918, he took part in the "first combat mission ever ordered by an American commander of an American squadron of American pilots." Rickenbacker became commander of the squadron on September 24. The next day he single-handedly took on seven German planes over the German lines and shot down two of them--an act for which he was belatedly awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1930. In six months he shot down 26 German aircraft--22 airplanes and four balloons.

Eddie Rickenbacker returned home after the end of the war as the idol of the American public, the "American Ace of Aces." He refused offers to make movies or endorse products, but he did publish his war memoir entitled Fighting the Flying Circus. He married Adelaide F. Durrant in 1922 and founded the Rickenbacker Motor Company, which went bankrupt in 1927. Eddie then joined General Motors where he worked in both their automobile and aircraft divisions. In 1938 he purchased Eastern Airlines from General Motors, making it the "first airline to operate without a subsidy from the Federal government." During World War II Rickenbacker toured American bases at home and abroad as a special civilian consultant for Secretary of War Henry Stimson. On one of these tours to the South Pacific, Eddie's airplane became lost, ran out of fuel and had to land in the ocean. His book Seven Came Through describes the 24 days he and the crew spent adrift on life rafts before being found. After the war, Rickenbacker returned to Eastern Airlines as Chairman of the Board, a position he held until his retirement in 1963 at age 73. In October 1972 Eddie Rickenbacker suffered a stroke, and he died in Zurich on July 24, 1973.

The Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker House, a National Historic Landmark, is located at 1334 Livingston Ave., in Columbus, Ohio, and was recently placed on the Ohio Preservation Alliance's Most Endangered Places List. The house is currently closed to the public, but is being renovated as part of the Rickenbacker-Woods Technology Center.

General William C. Lee House

The General William C. Lee House in Dunn, North Carolina, is named for the internationally-known aviator who lived there for 13 years. The home was constructed, however, about 1915 by Jefferson Davis Barnes, a prominent Dunn businessman and one of the early residents of the Harnett County town. William C. Lee (1895-1948) was born in Dunn and was the fifth of Eldridge and Emma Jane Lee's seven children. William attended both Wake Forest and North Carolina State colleges and graduated from the latter in 1917. With training in the R.O.T.C. program at N.C. State, Lee decided upon a career in military service. Commissioned as a second lieutenant, Lee began his active military career at age 22. Following his attendance at Infantry School, Lee entered World War I with the American Expeditionary Army in France where he served as platoon leader and company commander. After the war he continued his military training in the tank warfare schools at Fort Meade, Maryland, and Versailles, France. In the 1930s, Lee attended Command and general Staff School and was promoted to major. On one of two extended European tours, he observed the German parachute and glider operations which he believed would be an invaluable asset to the U.S. Army's military development. Returning home he was ordered to the Office of the Chief of Infantry in Washington, D.C., which gave him the opportunity to promote his ideas.

Major Lee encountered stiff opposition from the military high command until President Franklin D. Roosevelt took special interest in the concept of an airborne unit and ordered the creation of such a division. A parachute school was established at Fort Benning, Georgia, with Lee as commander. Under his guidance, improvements were made to the German system and when World War II broke out, the airborne unit stood ready to play a vital role in the ultimate victory. By the time the United States entered the war, Lee had been promoted to general and placed in command of the 101st Division. From his division headquarters in Reading, England, General Lee directed America's airborne troops. As a military strategist and advisor to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lee wrote the airborne doctrine and devised the tactical plans employed in the D-Day invasion of the European Continent. Unfortunately, Lee suffered a heart ailment that forced him to return to the United States before the invasion began. He watched the successful implementation of his plans from his home in Dunn.

General Lee was in active military service when his wife, Dava Johnson Lee, whom he married in 1918, bought this house on West Divine Street in 1935. Upon returning here Lee, although officially retired, continued in the role of advisor and consultant. Numerous prominent figures visited his Dunn home, including General F.A.M. Browning, chief of Great Britain's airborne forces and later treasurer to Prince Phillip with offices in Buckingham Palace, who spent several weekends with Lee during his American tour. General Lee died on June 25, 1948. Two days later, the grandest funeral ever held in Dunn honored "the father of America's airborne troops." Surrounded by state and U.S. Army dignitaries and thousands paying homage, Lee was laid to rest in Greenwood Cemetery.

The Lee House is an imposing example of early 20th-century Neo-Classical Revival residential architecture. Built in 1915, the 4,5000-square foot home has a rough textured, variegated brick veneer and consists of a two-story, double pile main section with one-story rear wings. Monumental Tuscan columns support the deep but simple entablature of the full-façade hipped roof porch.

The Gen. William C. Lee House is located at 209 West Divine St. in Dunn, North Carolina. Now a museum, it is open Monday-Friday 10:00am to 4:00pm, and on Saturday from 11:00am to 4:00pm. There is a small charge for admission. Call 910-892-1947 for further information.

Larson Brothers Airport

The Larson Brothers Airport was the first airport in Winnebago County and one of the earliest Wisconsin airports outside Milwaukee. It housed the first Wisconsin agency selling government approved planes, and for 20 years served as a center for state aviators. This well-maintained airport represents one of the earliest forms of airport design in Wisconsin. The first airport in Wisconsin was established at Milwaukee in 1919, followed soon after by similar facilities at Green Bay, Janesville, LaCrosse and Racine. Among these early airports was the Larson Brothers Airport, which opened in the town of Clayton in 1922. It was the first of three in Winnebago County, followed by Oshkosh Airport in 1927 and Whiting Airport in the town of Menasha in 1928. Of those three airports the Larson Brothers Airport is the only one to mantain its original hangar and sod landing field. The Whiting Airport closed in 1930, the hangar now converted to retail use and the field subdivided. The Oshkosh Airport remains in use as Wittman Airport with greatly expanded facilities and paved runways.

Four young farmers developed the Larson Brothers Airport: Roy, Clarence, Newell and Leonard Larson. They began by clearing an 80-rod long runway behind the barn of their family farm. In 1924 they built a six-plane hangar modeled after designs in an aviation magazine. At first they only gave lessons and ran a flying circus, touring county fairs and "barnstorming" throughout the Midwest; with the construction of the hangar they were able to accommodate transient as well as local aviators. They also built and serviced planes, forming the Roy Larson Aircraft Company in 1926. In 1927 the Larson brothers incorporated all their activities under the name Wisconsin Airways. While modest in size and appearance, the facilities were comparable to those in more metropolitan areas. The Larson Brothers Airport also enjoyed a statewide reputation in spite of its rural location. Students Clyde Lee and Merle Zuehlke went on to instruct and manage at airports in Milwaukee. Lee attempted a trans-atlantic flight to Oslo in 1932. Major James Wood of Wausau and Howard Morey of Madison began airlines with airplanes purchased here. Elwyn West, another pioneer aviator, stored his airplane here. In 1924 Roy Larson flew from this airport barnstorming the state for the LaFollette-Wheeler presidential campaign, and in 1928 flew passengers and supplies to president Coolidge's camp on the Brule River. By 1932 the Larson Brothers Airport had achieved sufficient notice among state aviators to be lionized in the Milwaukee Journal as the "finest airport in the state."

Ultimately its rural location contributed to the airport's decline. After 1930 sod landing fields gave way to cinder runways, which in turn were paved and lengthened as airplanes increased in size and power. The high cost of these improvements caused many small airports to close, the fields returning to farms or lost to city expansion. The rapidly changing technology also transformed metropolitan airports, removing all traces of their modest origins. In the face of these changes the Larson Brothers Airport continued operation until closed by federal mandate at the outbreak of World War II. Leonrad Larson maintained the airport for his family's use. The hangar is a one-story rectangular building of frame construction with a gambrel roof, verticle lap siding, and fieldstone foundations.

The Larson Brothers Airport is located in the town of Clayton, Wisconsin, between the farming communities of Winchester and Larsen. Surrounded by fields of corn and clover, it is set behind a cluster of frame farm buildings, 350 feet from Hwy. 150. The site includes a six-airplane hangar and a sod landing field. The airport is open by appointment only. Please call 920-836-2886 to arrange this with Abe and Theda Eckstein, daughter of Leonard Larson, who are happy to meet visitors at the main road, take them to the airport and talk about the history of the airport and Wisconsin aviation.

Hangar No. 1 Lakehurst Naval Air Station

Lakehurst Naval Air Station (Naval Air Technical Training Center) presently occupies 7,400 acres of flat lowlands just north of Lakehurst, New Jersey. Commissioned in 1921, Lakehurst Naval Air Station, became the hub of naval lighter-than-air activity. Interest in airships in the United States began early in the 20th century. The first practical craft was the California Arrow, built by Thomas S. Baldwin in 1904. The U.S. Army purchased the first Federal airship from Baldwin five years later. Germany was the pioneer in the manufacture of rigid airships--airships that had the gas containers enclosed within compartments of a fixed fabric-covered framework--and during World War I maintained a fleet of Zeppelins, which it used primarily for patrolling and secondarily for bombing missions. The success of these airships prompted interest in the United States to develop them for coastal patrol to detect enemy submarines and mines and as a scouting arm for naval fleets. In 1921 the Navy established Lakehurst Naval Air Station to serve as its headquarters for lighter-than-air flight. The new base became the center for experimentation and development of rigid airships for strategic and commercial purposes as well as the control station for all Naval lighter-than-air flights.

The first major facility at Lakehurst was Hangar No. 1, a gigantic structure built in 1921 to house the huge helium-filled dirigibles. Hangar No. 1 measures 961 feet long, 350 feet wide and 200 feet high. At each end are two pairs of massive steel doors, mounted on railroad tracks. These double doors are structurally separate from the hangar itself. Each door weighs 1350 tons and is powered by two 20 horsepower motors, although provisions were made to open the doors manually, which required the assembled manpower of nine men. Inside it, Naval engineers assembled the first American-built rigid airship, the Shenandoah. On September 4, 1923, the ship made its maiden flight from Lakehurst. The Navy obtained its second rigid airship in 1924. Built in Germany and delivered to the United States as a war reparation payment, the Los Angeles shared Hangar No. 1 with the Shenandoah. The Navy used the dirigible extensively for experimental work on flight and mooring problems--it was the first American-owned airship developed to catch and release airplanes in flight. Lakehurst was also the home port for the Akron and the Macon. In addition to Hangar No. 1 there were five other hangars in two clusters, which have all since been converted for training and testing activities at the Naval Air Station. Hangar Nos. 2 and 3 housed blimps, Hangar No. 4 housed balloons and Hangars Nos. 5 and 6 housed either rigid air ships or blimps. The area between the two clusters of hangars was formerly used for mooring the airships and maneuvering them into the hangars.

During the late 1920s, Lakehurst became internationally known as a port for commercial lighter-than-air flight. It was the only stopping place in the United States for German airships, and in 1929 it played host to the Graf Zeppelin, then in the process of making the first round-the-world trip. However, of the five rigid airships eventually owned by the United States after World War I, all but one--the German-built Los Angeles--crashed, and many federal officials were skeptical of the desirability of continuing the program. Nevertheless, the Navy and the general public still supported the venture, largely because of the success of the German Zeppelins. A change in public opinion occurred in 1937, when the German Zeppelin Hindenburg, the largest airship ever built, burst into flames at Lakehurst. Thirty-six passengers died and the crash of the Hindenburg marked the end of commercial airship travel and the end of experimentation with hydrogen as a lifting device.

With the onset of World War II, lighter-then-air activity increased at Lakehurst, as the Navy increased its number of non-rigid airships (from six to 125). Lakehurst became the headquarters of the Chief of Naval Airship Training and Experimentation and also of the Commander Fleet Airships, Atlantic. During World War II, the Navy used blimps for observational purposes and they played an important role in escorting coastal convoys and in protecting American ships from submarine attack. With the end of the war, naval airship activity decreased, only to be expanded upon at the outbreak of the Korean War and then reduced again. In 1961 the Navy halted all lighter-than-air activity and ordered the blimps deflated and stowed.

Hangar No. 1 Lakehurst Naval Air Station, a National Historic Landmark, is located off of Rte. 547, north of Lakehurst, New Jersey. The hangar can be seen from the road, but access to the air station itself is restricted. Group tours can be requested in writing at least two months in advance--please visit the base's public affairs office website for further information.

Shenandoah Crash Sites

The USS Shenandoah, the first rigid airship built in the United States and the first in the world to be inflated with helium, was a pioneer in the history of American airship aviation. Commanded and staffed by personnel from the U.S. Navy, it was intended for use as a scouting vessel, based on German Zeppelins used during World War I. In 1917 the Navy purchased its first airship, a non-rigid or blimp (one that consists of a single gas container similar to modern blimps). The Navy soon began to plan construction of several of its own rigid airships. These rigid airships possessed a rigid framework or hull that contained several multiple gasbags. The plans called for the use of helium in the gas bags, instead of highly flammable hydrogen, as the U.S. had the world's only known large deposits of helium in the petroleum fields at Fort Worth, Texas. Construction of the ZR-1 airship, which became the Shenandoah, was authorized in August 1919, but delays involved in the construction of Hangar No. 1 at the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey, needed to house it, kept it from being completed until the summer of 1923. The design was based on a German Zeppelin downed on a bombing raid over France in 1917, although modifications were made on the volume, the bow and controls. A new alloy called duralumin, consisting of aluminum, copper and several other metals, was developed for use in the Shenandoah frame. This alloy had the strength of steel but the lightness of aluminum. The Shenandoah was 680 feet long, its maximum diameter was 78.7 feet and maximum height 93 feet. Its five 300-horse power, six-cylinder Packard engines reached a top speed of 60 mph and could carry a useful load of 33 tons.

On September 4, 1923, the Shenandoah successfully completed its maiden voyage. The airship took part in a series of mooring exercises at Lakehurst and to a short mast on the fleet tender the USS Patoka, the only airship tender in naval history. Lieutenant Commander Zachary Lansdowne assumed command of the Shenandoah on February 16, 1924. The Shenandoah's most impressive flight occurred in October 1924 when it made a transcontinental flight from Lakehurst to the West Coast and back. The publicity from this trip, heralded as a forerunner of commercial airship service, caused the Navy to plan a Midwestern tour in the summer of 1925 for 40 city "fly-overs" and state fair visits. As a native of Ohio, Lansdowne realized that at that time of the year the Great Lakes region was subject to violent and dangerous storms.

On the afternoon of September 2, 1925, the Shenandoah departed from its Lakehurst hangar with a crew of 41 and two passengers. Traveling west across the Alleghenies into Ohio, the airship confronted a severe storm by the early morning near Ava in northern Noble County. Initially, the ship changed course slightly to fly around the storm; however, aware of the Navy's tight schedule and fearful of losing too much time, Lansdowne decided against flying south to clearer skies. At about 6:00 am on the morning of September 3, the Shenandoah was suddenly caught in a violent updraft of warm air, rising at the rate of a meter a second. At about 6,200 feet the ascent was checked, but the ship began to fall at a faster rate. When halfway to the ground it was hit by another warm air current and began to rise rapidly once more, but then descended again. On the third ascent the ship was hit by a turbulent side wind, twisting the hull and breaking it. The control car with Lansdowne and six other crewmen broke loose from its position below the bow and dropped to earth near the Andrew Gamary tenant farmhouse, killing all occupants. Seconds later six more crewmen, who were either in the hull at the point of break-up or in the gondolas toward the stern, plunged to their deaths in the fields below. The stern section, over 400 feet long, glided to earth with 18 men aboard and hit the ground near the Gamary farm with the tail in the air, where it dragged along the ground near a treeline until it was momentarily snagged and four men were dumped out. The air then picked it up and lodged the stern against an opposite hillside.

The 200-foot bow section, with seven crewmen, quickly rose to 10,000 feet, but was brought under control by venting helium from the intact gas bags and releasing gasoline from the fuel tanks. Fifty-three minutes later it floated down about six miles to the south of the initial break-up. As it approached the ground it brushed the Ernest Nichols farmhouse west of the crossroads of Sharon, tore out a post and a pole and scraped over the garage roof. Nichols grabbed a line thrown from the bow and secured it to a pair of trees. Finally grounded, the crew jumped out, borrowed a shotgun from Nichols and burst the gasbags before the bow was blown any further. The Lieutenant Commander who had guided the bow to earth, Captain Rosendahl, used the Nichols's telephone to call the telegraph office at Caldwell and inform naval officers of the disaster. Twenty-nine members of the crew survived the break-up, although some received serious injuries.

Although the FBI attempted to guard the crash-site along with 40 Ohio National Guardsmen, wholesale looting of the site had already been accomplished. A court of inquiry was convened at the Gamary farm under Army Major C.W. Cook stationed at Fort Hayes in Columbus, and later naval officers in Washington, D.C., convened a formal court. The wreck of the Shenandoah had important consequences for the future of the American military and its airship program. Study of the disaster led to the conclusion that much stronger construction of future airship hulls was necessary. An improved "fineness ratio" or diameter to length ratio, was required, and control cars in the future were built into the keel instead of being suspended from struts as in the Shenandoah. Engine power was upgraded to allow airships to outmaneuver storms and an improved weather forecasting service was developed for the armed services.

The Shenandoah Crash Sites are located in the hillsides of Noble County, Ohio. Site No.1, in Buffalo Township, surrounding the Gamary farmhouse (beneath the initial break-up). An early fieldstone and a second, recent granite marker identify where Zachary Lansdowne's body was found. Site No. 2 (where the stern came to rest) is a half-mile southeast of Site No. 1 across 1-77 in Noble Township. The rough outline of the stern is marked with a series of concrete blocks and a sign marking the site is visible from the freeway. Site No. 3 is approximately six miles southwest in Sharon Township at the northern edge of SR 78, and the part of the old Nichols farm where the nose of the Shenandoah bow was secured to trees. Although the trees have been cut down, a semi-circular gravel drive surrounds their stumps and a small granite marker commemorates the crash. The Nichols house was later destroyed by fire. Visit www.noblecountyohio.com/shenandoah.html for further information and photographs or contact one of two local experts to arrange a tour: Bryan Rayner at 740-732-2624 or John Powell at 740-732-2341.

Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. House

Charles Lindbergh, Jr. is renowned as the aviator who accomplished the first nonstop solo trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927. He became an overnight success after completing this milestone in aviation history. The Lindbergh House in Little Falls, Minnesota, is the sole extant property associated with both Charles Lindbergh, Jr. and Sr. Charles Lindbergh, Sr., who served in the U.S. Congress from 1907 through 1917. A reformer and independent, he was prominent in protest politics and opposed the nation's entry into World War I. The family occupied the house between 1907 and 1920, at which time Lindbergh, Jr. pursued a college education at the University of Wisconsin. However, after three semesters he dropped out of school to pursue his aspirations of flying. He started out barnstorming and not too long after joined the Army Air Service. By 1926 he was flying a mail route between St. Louis and Chicago and in 1927 made the decision to attempt the first trans-Atlantic flight. Raymond Orteig was offering a $25,000 prize to the person who completed this feat. Lindbergh successfully completed the first trans-Atlantic flight, flying from New York and landing in Paris on May 21, 1927, and became an internationally renowned figure as a result.

Lindbergh, Sr. purchased approximately 110 acres of land southwest of Little Falls in 1898. The elder Lindbergh constructed a two-and-a-half-story house on the property and moved into the house with his second wife in 1901. Linbergh, Jr., born in Detroit in 1902, was just three years old when the house was destroyed by fire in 1905. With only the original foundation remaining, the Lindberghs rebuilt the house between 1906 and 1907 a plain one-and-a-half-story frame farmhouse. Located on the western bank of the Mississippi River surrounded by wooded landscape, the residence was used primarily as a summer retreat until the advent of the World War I at which time they made the decision to reside in the house year round in order to raise food animals. The Lindbergh residence is covered with weatherboard and contains a gabled hip roof, measures approximately 40 by 50 feet and is authentically painted light grey with white trim. Plain Palladian-type windows are displayed in the west gable end of the front façade. A gable-roofed porch supported by two paneled white-painted wooden columns graces the front portion of the house.

The Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. House, a National Historic Landmark, is located at 1620 Lindbergh Dr. S., in Little Falls, Minnesota. It is now the Charles A. Lindbergh Historic Site museum, open Monday-Saturday 10:00am to 5:00pm and Sunday 12:00pm to 5:00pm from May 1 through Labor day; from Labor Day through October, 10:00am to 4:00pm on Saturdays and 12:00pm to 4:00pm on Sundays. There is a fee for admission. Please call 320-632-3154 or visit the museum's website for further information. You can also download (in pdf) the Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. House National Historic Landmark nomination.

Torrey Pines Gliderport

Torrey Pines Gliderport played an interesting role in the aviation industry of Southern California. Beginning in 1930, this site was used for motorless flight. Gliders were car-towed off the beach parallel to a 350-cliff so they could fly in the lift created by the prevailing westerly wind at Torrey Pines. The nearly flat land of the mesa east of the cliff was used for launching and landing, providing a natural emergency runway. Many aviation pioneers flew at Torrey Pines. On February 24, 1930, Charles A. Lindbergh flew in the lift at Torrey Pines in a flight along the coast from Mt. Soledad to Del Mar, thereby establishing a claimed distance record. In 1936, Woodly Brown, who previously flew off the beach, was the first to launch and land on top of the cliff at Torrey Pines. In the late 1930s, Hawley Bowlus, construction supervisor of the Spirit of St. Louis and owner of his own sailplane manufacturing company in San Diego, began flying at Torrey Pines. Bud Perl and Bill Beuby flew at Torrey Pines; the former's Class A license was signed by Orville Wright. The first three-day glider meet at Torrey Pines was held on December 31, 1939.

Torrey Pines was also the location for the development of several new technologies. The Dead-man pulley take-off system (1938) launched sailplanes from cars, instead of the earlier method of several men pulling them off the slope. The Robinson variometer (1939) was a very sensitive instrument used to determine rate of climb or sink in a sailplane. John Robinson designed both of these systems, as well as several highly maneuverable sailplanes named Robin #1 through Robin #4 (1936-1939). Oversized control surfaces with more overall movement were used to give the pilots an advantage while circling in tight thermals, doing aerobatics or having more control on landings. John Robinson's Zanonia sailplane, built and designed by Harland Ross, was the first airplane in the nation to use spoilers (air brakes) on the wings (1939). The spoilers helped reduce lift and slow the aircraft down for landings. An aircraft parachute recovery system invented by Bob Fronius was flight tested here in 1947 to save a "disabled" sailplane. The gliderport is unique in that it was the only legal site where unlicensed aircraft could fly in a civil airway, a license granted exclusively for the Torrey Pines Gliderport in 1938.

Flight operations at Torrey Pines were interrupted in 1941 when the gliderport property became the Army's Camp Callan. Military operations were conducted here until the end of World War II. The first annual Pacific Coast Mid-Winter Soaring Championship was held at Torrey Pines in 1947. John Robinson became the first three-time National Soaring Champion as well as the first American to fly over 300 miles cross-country, the first in the world to fly over 30,000 feet in a sailplane and the first in the world to earn a Diamond "C" badge (the most respected award in soaring). Richard Johnson, who held the title of National Champion in soaring seven times, participated in the Pacific Coast Mid-Winter Championships in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the late 1960s, radio-controlled model airplanes began operations at this location, and in the 1970s, hang gliders joined the flight operations. The Torrey Pines Soaring Council was established by the Parks Recreation Department, City of San Diego, in 1978 to provide advice and council regarding flight safety and other matters. Torrey Pines Gliderport remains in its natural condition, except for the addition of a runway, the foundation of a small army barrack, and areas graded for current sailplane operations.

The Torrey Pines Gliderport is located west of Torrey Pines Rd., bordering Torrey Pines Scenic Dr. and south and west of the Torrey Pines Golf Course, in La Jolla, California. Still an active site for motorless flight, year round paragliding and hang gliding are available, as is instruction. Find more information visit www.flytorrey.com or call 858-452-9858. The Torrey Pines Gliderport Historical Society also has further information

Goodyear Airdock

The Goodyear Airdock in Akron, Ohio, was constructed in 1929 by the Goodyear Zepplin Corporation from plans created by the Wilbur Watson Engineering Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Work began on April 20, 1929, and by November 25 the Airdock was completed at a cost of $2.2 million. With the construction of the Airdock, Akron became one of the centers for development and construction of lighter-than-air ships. Two dirigibles, the Akron (ZRS-4) and its sister, the Macon (ZRS-5), were built in the Airdock and launched in 1931 and 1934 respectively. The building later housed the photographic division of the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation. The semi-paraboloid shaped building has been described as "half a silkworm's cocoon, cut in half the long way." The maximum length of the Goodyear Airdock is 1,175 feet with a maximum width of 325 feet and a maximum height of 211 feet. At the ends of the building are identical semi-spherical doors, each weighing 600 tons. These doors are fastened at the top by hollow forged pins 17 inches in diameter and six feet long. The doors rest on 40 wheels set on curved railroad tracks.

On either side of the building, approximately 100 feet above ground level, is a row of 12 windows. Atop the building at the northeast end is a control tower and radio aerial. The airdock might be said to "breathe," as it is mounted on rollers to compensate for expansion and contraction due to temperature changes. At the time it was built, it was the largest building in the world without interior supports. Before starting the design of the Akron Goodyear Airdock, Dr. Karl Arnstein, director of engineering of the Goodyear Zepplin Corporation had extensive tests conducted on a model of the building in the wind tunnel of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautics of New York University. According to Wilbur J. Watson in his article Building the World's Largest Airship Factory and Dock for the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation, tests conducted on a model 1/240th of the size of the building, "demonstrated the superiority of this shaped building in offering minimum resistance to wind currents, and also furnished valuable information in regard to the magnitude and distribution of the suction forces caused by the action of the wind on the surface of the building." When World War II broke out enclosed production areas were rapidly needed, and the Airdock was used for this purpose. The Airdock has more recently served as the site of the 1986 kickoff rally for the United Way of Summit County and some 200,000 members of the public visited. President Clinton spoke here as a candidate in the 1992 election, bringing some 30,000 visitors to the site. Loral Corporation purchased Goodyear Aerospace Corporation and the Goodyear Airdock, in 1987 and it was later acquired by the Lockheed Martin Corporation in 1996.

The Goodyear Airdock is located at 1210 Massillion Rd., Akron, Ohio, and can be easily seen from U.S. Rt. 224 just east of downtown Akron. The airdock is not open to the public.

U.S. Naval Air Station Sunnyvale, California, Historic District

Admiral William A. Moffett is credited with the creation of the two Naval Air Stations commissioned in the early 1930s to port the two U.S. Naval Airships (dirigibles). The Naval Air Station Sunnyvale, California, was the Pacific coast location selected with help from northern Californian politicians and the leadership of the Chambers of Commerce from Mountain View to San Jose. More commonly known as Moffett Field, the U.S. Naval Air Station Sunnyvale, California, Historic District consists of a large number of buildings that were constructed from the 1930s on. By far the most famous and visible of these are Hangars #1, #2 and #3, which dwarf the surrounding buildings, standing as testament to the engineering skills of their builders.

Towering majestically in the northeast corner of Santa Clara Valley is Hangar #1 constructed in 1933 to house the Navy dirigible USS Macon. Named as a Naval Historical Monument in the early 1950s, the hangar is constructed on an amazing network of steel girders sheathed with galvanized steel. It rests firmly upon a reinforced pad anchored to concrete pilings. The floor covers eight acres and can accommodate 10 football fields. "Number One," as it is popularly referred to, is 1,133 feet long and 308 feet wide. Its walls curve upward and inward, to form an elongated dome 198 feet high. Unique and spectacular are the "orange peel" doors, weighing 500 tons each. The doors are operated by an electrical control panel. Each door is powered by a 150-horsepower motor. One of the most recognizable landmarks in the San Francisco Bay Area, Hangar #1 and the original base are significant in the history of Naval Aviation, defense and in the development of the Santa Clara Valley. Making use of the facility location and landing field, NASA Ames Research Center is located to the north adjacent to the original plaza boundary and at the north boundary of the historic district. It was here that some of the original moon rocks taken from the Apollo lunar landings were studied by NASA geologists.

The hangar's interior is so large that fog sometimes forms near the ceiling. A person unaccustomed to its vastness is susceptible to optical disorientation. Looking across its deck, airplanes and tractors look like toys. Along its length, maintenance shops, inspection laboratories and offices help keep the hangar busy. Looking up, you can see a network of catwalks for access to all parts of the structure. Two elevators meet near the top, allowing maintenance personnel to get to the top quickly and easily. Narrow gauge tracks run the length of the hangar. During the lighter- than-air period of dirigibles and non-rigid aircraft, the rails extended across the apron and into the fields at each end of the hangar. This tramway facilitated the transportation of an airship on the mooring mast to the hangar interior or to the flight position. During the brief period that the USS Macon was based at Moffett from October 1933 until it was lost at sea in February 1935, Number One not only accommodated the giant airship but several smaller non-rigid LTA craft simultaneously. Hangar One is one of the most important hangars in the world. Hangars #2 and #3 are significant more for their size than their unique styling or design. Along with Hangar #1, these two buildings help define the South San Francisco Bay Area from all distant directions. The style of the other buildings on the base is largely Spanish Colonial Revival, mostly built in the 1930s, with some International style buildings constructed in the 1940s and beyond. The Moffett Field Historical Society was founded in May of 1993. Until recently, their museum was located in historic "Hangar One."

Naval Air Station Sunnyvale is located near Mountain View and Sunnyvale, California, 35 miles south of San Francisco. From Highway 101 use the Moffett Field exit. The Moffett Museum has been located in Hangar One for several years, but relocated to an adjacent building after the hangar was closed due to potential toxic chemicals. If you plan to visit, inform the guard at the main gate that you are going to the museum and follow his instructions. Call 650-603-9827 or visit the Moffett Field Museum's website for further information.

Amelia Earhart Birthplace

The accomplishments of Amelia Earhart in the field of aviation were many. She is best remembered as the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic, May 20-21, 1932. For this achievement Vice President Charles Curtis awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross on July 29, 1932. Some of her other achievements included: setting the women's altitude record, the women's speed record, the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California, and she was the first woman to make a solo round trip of the United States. On July 2, 1937, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, while on a round-the-world flight, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

The house where Amelia Earhart was born and raised was built in 1861 by her grandfather, Judge Alfred G. Otis, in Atchison, Kansas. Amelia was born in the southwest bedroom on the second floor. Although there is some disagreement as to the date of her birth, records of the Trinity Episcopal Church of Atchison indicate the date was July 24, 1897. Her father, Edwin Stanton Earhart, was a lawyer whose position as claims agent for a railroad required him to travel a great deal. Consequently Amelia and her sister Muriel stayed with their grandparents much of the time. In one of her books Amelia mentioned that she had attended grammar school in Atchison until the eighth grade and had skipped two grades in the process. Even though she lived in many different cities, Amelia considered Atchison her hometown. It is probable that she spent more time in the house she was born in, called the Otis House, than anywhere else. The Amelia Earhart Birthplace represents one of the few remaining tangible associations with this famous aviation pilot.

The house faces east and overlooks the Missouri River from the crest of a bluff. The front portion of the house is two stories high and constructed of wood and horizontal lap siding; the rear portion is one story and is constructed of brick masonry. A one-story, flat-roofed frame porch runs the length of the east front and is supported by six hexagonal columns, of which the four center ones are paired. The roof is a double pitch gable with an intersecting gable on the east side. Most window openings have a semicircular arched head.

The Amelia Earhart Birthplace is located on 223 North Terrace St., in Atchison, Kansas. The museum is open Monday-Friday 9:00am to 4:00pm, Saturday 10:00am to 4:00pm and Sunday 1:00pm to 4:00pm; on holidays by appointment. There is a fee for admission. Please call 913-367-4217 or visit the museum's website for information. Another valuable online source of information on Amelia Earhart are the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers at Purdue University.

Pangborn-Herndon Memorial Site

The Pangborn-Herndon Memorial Site northeast of East Wenatchee, Washington, commemorates the first successful nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to the United States by aviators Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon II. Designed by artist Walter Graham, the monument is a column of native basalt found in Moses Coulee about 20 miles from the memorial site near East Wenatchee, Washington. The column is approximately 14 feet high with a three-foot concrete base, is roughly 36 inches in diameter and weighs 14 tons. It is roughly hexagonal in shape, and slants at the top, with 36-inch molten aluminum wings placed at the highest point on the column.

Taking off from Sabishiro Beach, Japan, aviators Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon II flew 4,558 miles in 41 hours and 34 minutes, landing at Fancher Field on October 5, 1931. The flight was made in a small, single-engine plane--a Bellanca "Skyrocket" they named Miss Veedol. Since retractable landing gear had yet to be invented, the landing gear was jettisoned over the ocean after take-off in order to lighten the load and decrease wind resistance. Their landing without gear was so smoothly accomplished that the only damage to the airplane was a bent propeller, which is now in the North Central Washington Museum, in Wenatchee, along with other momentos of the event. The two men were seeking a $25,000 prize offered by a Japanese newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, to the pilots who could make the first nonstop flight from Japan to the United States.

Eight other aviators had attempted the trans-Pacific flight, but all had failed to complete the trip. The Japanese erected a monument at the site of the take-off at Sabishiro Beach, and sent a delegation to the dedication ceremony of the Pangborn-Herndon Memorial at Wenatchee on May 5, 1969. The delegation included Governor Shunkichi Takeuchi, of Aomori Prefecture, who had been a reporter for a Japanese newspaper in 1931 and covered the story of the flight for his paper at that time. The seven acres of property owned by Douglas County used for the memorial included the actual spot on which Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon landed their airplane upon completion of their nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Japan, and according to estimates the monument stands within 50 feet of the actual landing spot.

The Pangborn-Herndon Memorial Site stands on the brow of a hill overlooking the Wenatchee Valley, the Columbia and Wenatchee rivers, and the snow-covered Cascade Mountains three miles northeast of East Wenatchee, Washington. From East Wenatchee, take Hwy. 2 to Grant Rd. east; take Eastmont Rd. north for 3 miles to the memorial. For further information about this call the Wenatchee Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau at 509-663-8551. The nearby Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center, located online at www.wenatcheevalleymuseum.com, provides further information on this historical event.

Rogers-Post Site

Two monuments at the Rogers-Post Site in Barrow, Alaska, memorialize the fatal August 16, 1935 aviation crash that claimed the lives of prominent Americans Will Rogers and Wiley Post. Will Rogers--actor, author, pundit and homespun philosopher, once called by the New York Times "the most widely-known citizen of the U.S. . . . and the best beloved" was also preeminent in the advancement of air transportation. Wiley Post, holder of two around-the-world aviation flight records, had contributed prominently to the advance of international aviation, including the study of the sub-stratosphere. Both Houses of Congress suspended deliberations upon learning of Rogers and Post's deaths, and a period of national mourning followed with messages of condolence issued by leaders and governments throughout the world.

Neither Rogers nor Post was a stranger to Alaska. This particular flight was described by the Associated Press as a "happy-go-lucky aerial tour of Alaska," which would be a prelude to a planned important pioneering trans-Siberian flight to Moscow. The two men had visited several Alaskan cities. On August 16, Rogers and Post were flying from Fairbanks to Barrow when they encountered fog and low-visibility. The two friends located a hole in the fog at Walakpa Bay, landed, spent some time with a small party of Alaska Natives and received directions for the short distance remaining to fog-shrouded Barrow. The final flight was barely airborne--perhaps 50 feet--when the motor failed. The aircraft plummeted into the lagoon and overturned. The Post-Rogers crash was the first fatal air accident Barrow had known.

Born in Texas in 1899, Wiley Post's internationally recognized career followed his unexpected win as an unknown of the 1930 National Air Race from Los Angeles to California. In the years preceding the crash, Post had stopped in Alaska for refueling during his two round-the-world flights. In 1931 he landed his plane, Winnie May, at both Fairbanks and Solomon Beach, near Nome with his navigator Harold Gatty. Then in a solo flight that bettered his time by almost a day he landed Winnie May at Fairbanks again, and at Flat, in the summer of 1933. The airplane that Post and Rogers were flying in 1935 was an advanced version of the Winnie May, but designed by Post. It was a low-wing cantilever monoplane of wood and fabric construction using a 55-horse power, Pratt and Whitney Wasp Engine. The fuselage was Lockheed Orion and the wing Sirius, similar to the airplane flown across the Pacific to Japan earlier by Charles and Ann Lindbergh. For Alaskan and Siberian conditions, in addition to landing wheels, it carried interchangeable skis and pontoons, and was described by the Army Signal Corps radio out of Barrow to Seattle as a "red, Arctic Sky Crusier."

The first monument at this site was dedicated just three years after the tragic crash, organized through public subscription from thousands of Americans. The Will Rogers-Wiley Post monument was designed in Oklahoma and built on the site with poured concrete using local aggregate. The design was essentially two cubes--the smaller atop the larger--with a pink granite memorial marker quarried near the Rogers' family homestead at Claremore, Oklahoma. The elaborate dedication ceremonies involved a four-way Columbia Broadcasting radio program from the Nation's capitol, the statehouses of Oklahoma and Texas and from Barrow and Walakpa, Alaska. The second monument was built 15 years later by Jesse Stubbs. More slender and almost 10 feet taller than the first, it was constructed as an obelisk entirely of poured concrete in four rectangular, diminishing blocks. Little is known of Stubbs, who arrived in Anchorage with the intention of walking from there to Barrow in the summer of 1953. Claiming to be a childhood friend of Rogers, although no records attest to this, the 72-year-old man personally erected the obelisk. It memorializes not only Rogers and Post, but also the Alaskan veterans of World War II. Both monuments overlook the lagoon crash site.

The Rogers-Post Site is located on the north side of Walakpa Bay near the mouth of the Walakpa River about 13 miles southwest of Barrow, Alaska, in the northwest portion of the state. Barrow is accessible by airplane only.

Old Terminal Building, Hangar and Powerhouse at Key Field

The Old Terminal Building, Hangar and Powerhouse at Key Field form the earliest surviving airport complex in the state of Mississippi. Key Field (originally the Meridian Regional Airport) opened in November of 1930 with the completion of the Terminal, Hangar, Powerhouse and a graded and packed dirt runway. It was run by brothers Algene and Frederick Key, pioneers of aviation who established and still retain the flight endurance world record. Algene and Frederick also operated the Key Brothers' Flying School at Bonita Field several miles outside Meridian. With the onset of the Great Depression, the City of Meridian considered abandoning the airport because of the cost of maintenance. However, the Key brothers devised a scheme to keep the airport operating. They hoped that by breaking the standing flight endurance record of 23 days they would focus worldwide attention on Meridian and its airport.

To accomplish this feat they modified a small single-engine Curtis Robin airplane, which they named the Ole Miss, by adding an extra 150-gallon fuel tank and a catwalk for mid-flight repairs and refueling. The plane's seats were removed to provide room for the tank, and a new pilot's seat was built into the forward end of the tank. When off duty, one of the brothers could crawl over the tank to the rear luggage compartment, which housed a thin mattress. In the 1930s, air-to-air refueling was still a dramatic and dangerous innovation. It had been done on other endurance flights, but if gasoline from the hose spattered the exhaust area during refueling, the gas would ignite. To avoid that possibility, a Meridian mechanic, A.D. Hunter, designed an automatic cutoff valve for the hose nozzle. James Keeton, one of Al Key's students, piloted the refueling airplane and Bill Ward was in charge of lowering the fuel hose and supplies to the endurance airplane. To solve the problem of communications, the Keys had Ben Woodruff, a local radio repairman and part-time inventor, build and install a two-way radio in the airplane that needed batteries and a wind-driven generator. This was the first use of a very high frequency (VHF) air-to-ground and ground-to-air radio outfit, which is now the most popular band for aviation communication and navigation.

After two unsuccessful attempts to break the record, the brothers launched their third attempt on June 4, 1935. They flew a figure eight pattern over Meridian, and as their time aloft mounted, the flight attracted worldwide attention. On July 1, the Key brothers landed at the Meridian airport to a cheering crowd of about 35,000 people after completing 27 days in flight. They had flown nonstop for more than 52,000 miles (a distance roughly equal to twice around the world) in 653 hours, 34 minutes. To date, no airplane has beaten that record. Not until NASA's Skylab II mission in 1973 did man stay above earth longer than the Keys, but the brothers' intra-atmospheric flight record has not been broken for the class of aircraft they flew. Upon breaking the endurance record, the airport was renamed Key Field in the brothers' honor.

The Key brothers later served as bomber pilots in the Pacific theater during World War II. Fred was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and Al earned a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Distinguished Service Cross, an Air medal, a British Distinguished Service Cross and seven bronze stars for participating in combat. They both had distinguished careers--Al remained in the Air Force until his retirement in 1960 at the rank of full Colonel and Fred ran the Key Brothers Flying Service at Key Field until his death in 1971. The cutoff valve developed for the Keys by A.D. Hunter was an important innovation for national defense, being the precursor of those used by modern tanker airplanes that keep bombers and fighters in the air. Today, with only slight modifications, U.S. Air Force and Strategic Air Command airplanes use the valve that Hunter invented.

Facing east toward the highway, the Old Terminal is a two-story, brick building with single-story, one-by-one bay, front entrance pavilion and side wings. To the north of the Terminal is the Hangar, a large, rectangular, brick building resting on a concrete foundation and crowned by an asbestos-clad gable roof with parapeted end walls. The Hangar was built to accommodate 10 airplanes, which gain access through either the south or north end through eight large sliding metal doors. On the east side of the Hangar is the diminutive brick Powerhouse. The one-story, one-by-one bay building has a gable roof with parapeted end walls with concrete copings.

The Old Terminal Building, Hangar and Powerhouse at Key Field are located at 2525 U.S. Hwy. 11 South, roughly one half mile south of I-20 and I-59, in Meridian, Mississippi. Still an airport, it is open during normal business hours. For more information visit www.meridianairport.com

Building No. 105, Boeing Airplane Company

Building No.105, better known as the "Red Barn," south of Seattle, Washington, documents the humble origins of what is today the world's largest airplane manufacturer. In 1910, 28-year-old William Boeing purchased this balloon frame building, built one year earlier, to house construction of the yacht he was having built for himself. Boeing's interests shifted from the sea to the air in 1916, and his fledgling Pacific Aero Products Company converted the Red Barn into its engineering offices and manufacturing plant. The construction of its first airplane, the 1916 Boeing and Westervelt (B&W) aircraft, reflected the building's first use: it was assembled by a team of carpenters, cabinetmakers, seamstresses and shipwrights. Soon after the B&W, the company produced the B-1, which became the first airplane to carry international mail. The firm also changed its name to the Boeing Airplane Company in 1917 after completing a large military contract to construct 50 Navy training aircraft. However, the company struggled financially throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1935, new federal laws prohibited airmail contractors from associating with aircraft manufacturing firms, but instead of choosing which business to pursue, Boeing sold all of his stock and left the airplane business altogether. The company later secured its future when engineers working in the Red Barn designed the famous B-17 and B-29 bombers that helped the Allies win World War II. The Boeing Company quickly outgrew the open bay on the ground floor of the Red Barn and expanded to form a vital industry in the Pacific Northwest. Boeing sold Building No. 105 to the Port of Seattle in 1970. The simple two-story, gable roofed barn was restored and reopened as the Museum of Flight in 1983.

The Boeing Airplane Company Building No. 105 was moved from its original location in the 1970s, and is now located south of Seattle in the city of Tukwila, Washington, in the 9400 block of E. Marginal Way South, on the grounds of the Museum of Flight. The Museum of Flight is open daily from 10:00am to 5:00pm, and 10:00am to 9:00pm on the first Thursday of every month; closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is a charge for admission. Call 206-764-5700 or visit the musem's website for further information.

Smith Field

In 1919, the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, inspected the site that eventually became Smith Field for its suitability as a municipal airport. The site was first used for pilot instruction beginning in 1923, and on June 25, 1925, was established as Baer Municipal Airport. Named for a native of Fort Wayne, Paul Baer was the first American Ace of World War I. In February of 1928, a $100,000 bond issue allowed for the formal planning of runways and taxiways, a system that is still in use. Between 1930 and 1937, these were paved and widened by the Civil Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration. The airport became one of the first in the U.S. to have a nighttime lighting system also funded by the bond, and the 82-foot Beacon Tower was constructed. Soon after the addition of several buildings and a commercial airmail carrier in 1930, Smith Field established passenger service. In 1932, the airport served 3,000 passengers, and the introduction of the Douglas DC-3 in 1936 created more flights, thus serving more people.

During World War II, the Army Air Corps received a large tract of land south of Fort Wayne for use as an airfield. That field, originally named Smith Field after Fort Wayne U.S. airmail pioneer Art Smith, then became Paul Baer Army Airfield, and the airport became Smith Field, as it is known today. In 1944, Smith Field's Hangar 2, a rare example of hangars from the 1920s period, became a production center for Interstate Aircraft TDR-1 Assault Drones, also known as "cruise" missiles.

In addition to its historic system of runways, Smith Field is home to several other unique buildings. Hangar 2 features three large Truscon Steel Company Doors, a highlight unique to Smith Field in the U.S. at the time they were built. The Carousel Hangar, although outside the period of significance defined for Smith Field, is the only example of Clark W. Smith's patented design ever built, characterized by a rotating carousel door. Smith Field's tie-down area recalls the era before World War II when hangars were used for maintenance rather than storage, and the aircraft had to be tied down to spiral-shaped stakes in the ground. Smith Field also features ruins of a railroad freight platform, a remnant o f the airport's easy accessibility to a transport for the TDR-1 missiles.

Smith Field is located at 426 W. Ludwig Ave., four miles north of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Entrance to the airport is between Lima and Coldwater rds. Still a functional terminal, the building is open during normal airport hours. Free flights for children and young adults (under 18 years of age) are offered montly as part of the EAA "Young Eagles" program. Fly-Ins, Biplane Rides and Special Events are held throughout the flying season. For further information call 260-489-5518 or visit the airport's website .

Felts Field Historic District

Felts Field, established in Spokane, Washington, in 1926, was the Inland Northwest's first airport and one of the oldest Federally designated airports in the nation. It served as the region's principal commercial and military airport through the 1940s and was the location of the region's first National Guard Air Unit. In the wake of World War I, former army pilots and surplus airplanes led to a national surge in aviation activities. Felts Field was designated a municipal air field (under the name Earl Hoisington Field) by the city and in February 1919, the Northwest Aircraft Company leased 1,000 acres at the field from the city. Before the end of the year, the firm was flying passengers to Lewiston, Tacoma and Seattle. Other air firms followed, such as the Spokane Aviation Company and the United States Aircraft Company, setting up operations at the field in the early 1920s. In 1924, the region's first National Guard formed and located here and in 1927, construction began on a new headquarters building that still stands. The real growth of the airport began with the arrival of airmail service in 1929. On August 15th,1929, Lt. Nick Mamer and Art Walker took off from Felts Field in their Spokane Sun-God and stayed in the air for 120 hours travelling from Spokane to New York and returning to Felts Field on August 20th. This 7,200-mile trip set several records, including the first transcontinental refueling, the first refueling above 8,000 feet and the world's record nonstop mileage.

The buildings and airfield of the Felts Field Historic District illustrate the formative years of commercial and military aviation from the late 1920s through 1941. The airfield, surrounded by expansive open space, remains almost unchanged since the runways were first paved around 1940. The historic buildings of the district--three aircraft hangars, a passenger terminal, the National Guard headquarters, a small storage building, clock tower and a free-standing metal and neon sign--are located along Rutter Avenue parallel to the landing strip. At one end of this row of buildings is the Northwest Airlines Company hangar, a large wood frame building from the mid-1930s with Art Deco details. The 1932 Terminal Building also reflects the streamlined motifs of the Art Deco period, and a bas-relief molding of Pegasus ornaments the central entry. The terminal reflects the growth in commercial aviation during this period and originally housed United Airlines offices (which began operating here in 1931), ticket and waiting areas, as well as the weather bureau. The dramatic moderne clock tower was constructed in 1939 as a memorial to pilot Lt. Mamer and nine others killed in a commercial airplane crash the previous year.

As the airport became busier with military and general aviation traffic in the years leading to World War II, it became apparent that Felts Field was not large enough to accommodate the increased activity. Another airport was constructed in 1940 and by 1949, military and commercial traffic had moved permanently to what was later named Spokane International Airport. Felts Field continued to serve as a general aviation facility.

Felts Field Historic District is located along Ruttler Ave. bounded by Fancher and Dollar rds. in Spokane, Washington. It is an active general aviation facility. The Skyway Café is located in the historic Terminal Building and is open Monday-Friday 6:00am to 3:00pm, Saturday 6:30am to 3:00pm, and Sunday 7:30am to 3:00pm.

Floyd Bennett Field Historic District

Floyd Bennett Field, on Barren Island, Jamaica Bay, was the first municipal airport in New York City. Constructed between 1928 and 1931 by the City Department of Docks, the airport was designed to divert the increasing volume of air traffic to New York City away from Newark Airport where the vast majority of New York bound flights terminated. By 1933, Floyd Bennett Field was the second busiest airport in the country, with 51,828 landings and takeoffs, but only a minor percentage of this actively consisted of the mail, freight and commercial passengers which generated revenue. The field was named in honor of naval aviator Floyd Bennett, pilot of the first flight over the North Pole in 1926. Bennett later died in 1928 from pneumonia that developed following extensive injuries from an earlier crash. Following the opening of Idlewild Airport in 1939, Floyd Bennett Field was closed to commercial use and conveyed to the U.S. Navy in 1941. Although the Navy enlarged the field, the original complex of steel frame and brick hangars and support buildings has not been substantially altered, and thus Floyd Bennett Field retains the architectural design and historic integrity of an early municipal airport.

Floyd Bennett Field is also important for its association with significant early aviators. Because of its unusually long runways and fair weather conditions, Floyd Bennett Field became noted as a prime airport for the experimental fliers who sought to establish speed and distance records. In 1933 Wiley Post broke his previous record for an around-the-world flight landing at Floyd Bennett Field seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes after he took off from there on July 15. In 1938, Howard Hughes with a crew of four made an around-the-world flight starting and finishing at Floyd Bennett Field. This flight, which covered 14,791 miles in three days, 19 hours, eight minutes and 10 seconds, was made to collect navigational data. Shortly after Hughes's flight, Douglas Corrigan embarked from Floyd Bennett Field supposedly on a flight to California. Corrigan flew instead to Ireland, thus fulfilling his wish to make a Trans-Atlantic flight. For this apparent lack of orientation, Corrigan lost his experimental license and earned the nickname "Wrong-Way." Interest in these records reflected public enthusiasm about aviation and contributed to improving technical aspects and piloting skills.

The first and most important buildings to be erected at the field were the complex of four pairs of hangars built between 1929 and 1931. The basically identical hangars are of steel frame construction with steel trussed arched roofs and wooden decks. Each hangar has a concrete slab floor and is supported by 45-foot-long precast concrete piles, which have been sunk into the ground. The inside dimensions of each hangar are 120 feet by 140 feet. Attached to the exterior side of each hangar is a two-story service wing, constructed of buff colored brick, which measures 20 feet by 120 feet. Between 1936 and 1938, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed central service wings between the paired hangars, creating one continuous line of hangars. These two-story wings were made of the same brick and along the same lines as the side wings and housed machine shops and other maintenance facilities. The administration building, constructed in 1931, is a red and black brick building, two stories high and constructed in a neo-Georgian style. The eastern façade, which faces the runway, is dominated by a semi-octagonal projecting bay, three stories tall and topped with the steel framed and glass enclosed control booth. There is a small deck, enclosed with aluminum railing, surrounding the control booth. On either side of the projecting bay, at the first-story level, there is an observation deck, enclosed by balustrades and reached by a granite stairway.

From 1929 through 1931, following the creation of the 387-acre area, two reinforced runways were laid. Both runways were 100 feet wide; one was 4200 feet long and oriented on a northeast-southwest axis and the other was 3,110 feet long and oriented on a north-northwest-south-southwest axis. The runways, located to the east of the building complex, formed a T, with the intersection slightly south of the administration building site. A concrete taxiway was also constructed at this time--it was parallel to the shorter of the runways and located to the west of it and east of the hangars. Two more runways were constructed by the WPA from 1937 to 1938. The shorter of these runways was laid on an approximately north-south axis, extending 4000 feet north from its intersection with the southern end of the earlier, 3100 feet runway. The longer of the new runways extended southeast for 5,500 feet from the northern terminus of the 3,100-foot runway. The rest of the airfield was planted with grass, to prevent drifting.

Floyd Bennett Field Historic District is part of the Jamaica Bay Unit of the National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area in New York, across the Marine Parkway Bridge from Jacob Riis Park and the U.S. Coast Guard Station and U.S. Military Reservation Fort Tilden. The Floyd Bennett Field administration building is now the Ryan Visitor Center, open daily 8:30am to 5:00pm. The public is welcome to observe the Historic Aircraft Restoration Project--the restoration of 12 aircraft in Hangar B--on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Call 718-338-3799 or visit the park's website for further information. More information and photos of Floyd Bennett Field can also be found at this website.

Floyd Bennett Field is the subject of an online-lesson plan produced by Teaching with Historic Places, a National Register program that offers classroom-ready lesson plans on properties listed in the National Register. To learn more, visit the Teaching with Historic Places home page. Santa Fe Depot and Reading Room

The Santa Fe Depot and Reading Room in Waynoka, Oklahoma, played an important role in the inauguration of the nation's first transcontinental air passenger service. Transcontinental Air Transport, a new and struggling commercial air carrier, hired Charles A. Lindbergh in 1929 to establish this new service that more than halved the 100-hour all-rail travel time between New York and Los Angeles by combining a rail route with air transportation. On August 7, 1929, Lindbergh, sat in the office of California Governor C.C. Young and sent a telegraph across the nation to start the Pennsylvania Railroad's "Airway Limited" journey out of New York station. A band played "California, Here I Come" and 20 pioneer ticket holders began, at 6:05pm, a unique transcontinental trek. The next morning, the travelers arrived in Columbus, Ohio, and were transported to a plush Ford Tri-Motor airplane for a flight to Oklahoma. After a breakfast of strawberry shortcake and tea on the flight, they arrived in Waynoka, Oklahoma, at 6:24pm. The passengers were then taken to one of Fred Harvey's famed "Houses" and served a good meal by the equally famed "Harvey Girls"--Fred Harvey's name was synonymous for genteel travel, and his waitresses earned a reputation for serving good food. After the meal, they boarded the Santa Fe Railway's "Missionary," at Waynoka's Santa Fe Depot for an overnight passenger train run to Clovis, New Mexico. Here they were again tri-motored to Los Angeles, California, arriving at 5:52 p.m. The trip across the continent had required a total of 48 hours. On December 20, 1929, the service was extended to San Francisco. A new record was set January 31, 1930, when 79 people flew between Waynoka and Columbus, calling for use of an extra aircraft. Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart came to Waynoka April 11, 1930, in connection with the introduction of a Curtiss Condor to the run. Waynoka played only a short role in transcontinetal air service, as the service to this route was suspended October 17, 1930 after Transcontinental Air Transport and Western Air Express joined to form TWA, or Trans World Airlines.

The Santa Fe Depot and Reading Room (originally the Harvey House) sit side by side parallel to the Santa Fe main line tracks on the west edge of the Waynoka business district. Both substantial brick buildings were constructed in 1910; the depot itself is a long, narrow, one-story building, 84 feet long and 22 feet wide. The Reading Room adjacent to the depot is a roughly H-shaped two-story building, measuring 95 feet north/south parallel to the tracks and approximately 100 feet east/west. A 15-foot porch facing the tracks runs the length of the building. The Harvey House closed in 1937, and was remodeled in 1949 to serve as a dormitory and reading room for crewmen staying over at the Santa Fe Depot.

The Santa Fe Depot and Reading Room is located along the Santa Fe Tracks, in Waynoka, Oklahoma, along the western edge of the business district. The depot was recently restored and now houses a museum, gift shop and cafe. Visit the Waynoka Historical Society's website for further information.

Pan American Seaplane Base and Terminal Building

The Pan American Seaplane Base in Coconut Grove, Florida, is important in the history of the aviation industry. Dinner Key was a small island in Biscayne Bay, and was joined to the mainland during World War I to provide a training field for the U.S. Navy. After the war, the base was used by non-scheduled commercial fliers, until the Navy facility was destroyed by the 1926 hurricane. In 1930, a newly formed airline company, known as Pan American Airways (Pan Am), symbolized by eagles and globes, acquired the New York-Rio-Buenos Aires Airline which flew twin-engine Commodore flying boats between Miami and Buenos Aires. The former naval air base at Dinner Key was selected by Pan Am as the base for its inter-American operations with the inaugural flight from Dinner Key to Panama taking place on December 1, 1930. Charles Lindbergh, who was a technical advisor to Pan Am, surveyed some of the early air routes. Because of inadequate landing facilities along the South American route, flying clipper ships were utilized by Pan Am, forming a vital link between North and South America.

Pan American opened the first hangar in 1931. The first passenger "terminal" at the Dinner Key seaplane base was a houseboat obtained in Havana, Cuba, towed by tugs to Miami and anchored to pilings with barges at each end. That same year expansion of the facilities at Dinner Key was undertaken. Additional land was filled in, and a deeper channel, one mile long and 700 feet wide was dredged. The dredging of the channel was a significant event, marking the first time an appropriation was approved by the Congressional Rivers and Harbors Committee "expressly for dredging to create a navigable channel for marine aircraft." The present terminal building and several additional hangars were also constructed during this period of expansion. By 1938, all major structures called for in the plans were completed and operative. During World War II, the Key again served as a base for the U.S. Navy, as well as continuing to serve the needs of international air travelers. With the appearance of landing fields in Latin America came a decrease in the need for seaplanes. Pan Am's final flight to Dinner Key took place August 9, 1945.

The two-story terminal building is rectangular in shape with one-story extensions on each side, white stucco exterior walls and a flat roof. Extending around the building just below the cornice is a frieze of winged globes and rising suns, connected at the corners by sculptured eagles. A restaurant and cocktail lounge originally existed in the building, and takesoffs and landings were observed from an outer promenade on the second floor. At the first-floor level were waiting rooms, an international mail office, customs, public health offices, immigration and ticket counters. A giant, three-and-one-half ton revolving world globe in the lobby once attracted thousands of visitors to the building. In 1946, the City of Miami purchased 39 acres of the Dinner Key site. In 1954, the terminal building was adapted for use as the Miami City Hall. Recent renovations to the building include restoring the original decorative features of the terminal including the beams, wall murals and ceiling, which consisted of panels depicting the signs of the zodiac painted in a modern style. The murals near the ceiling depict the history of flight from Leonardo Da Vinci's designs to the Clipper planes flown by Pan American.

The Pan American Seaplane Base and Terminal Building is located at 3500 Pan American Dr., Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida. Now Miami City Hall, the building is open during normal business hours.

Rhode Island Airport Terminal

The original State Airport Terminal at Hillsgrove, now Theodore Francis Green State Airport, was the first state-owned airport in the United States. The airport was constructed in 1932 and opened for business in 1933. The state-owned terminal provided an example of early modern architecture associated with the developments in transportation, commerce and public works in early 20th-century Rhode Island. Providence area businessmen believed that a publicly owned and operated airfield was necessary to attract National airlines to Providence and to ensure that the capital city would be part of the aviation age. Warwick officials were also convinced that a state-owned airport would promote local commercial and industrial development. The state responded by establishing the first state-owned airport.

The site for the new airport was chosen in 1929 and dedicated on September 26, 1931. The number of spectators, 150,000, who attended the first two inaugural air shows at the facility indicates the importance of the airport. This was the largest crowd known to attend any public event in Rhode Island up to that time. Designed by the Providence architectural firm Jackson, Robertson and Adams, the terminal is one of the earliest buildings erected in the state that reflects the influence of International style architecture of the 1920s and the decorative principles of the Art Deco and Art Moderne styles. It adopted the futuristic image of early aviation and reflects the optimistic attitude toward progress and technical achievement, which characterized the 1920s and 1930s.

The terminal is a stucco-covered masonry building composed of several flat-roofed, rectilinear blocks arranged symmetrically. A two-story central block with truncated front corners rises above a one-story central mass flanked by shorter one-story wings. A control tower connects to the rear (south) of the two-story block and rises above it. Ornamented with tubular steel railings around the roofs and stringcourse-like bands painted blue-green to contrast with the cream-colored stucco walls, the terminal's exterior appears sparse and unadorned. The entrance is articulated with a stepped parapet mirroring the polygonal corners. All windows and entrances are untrimmed.

Over time other buildings were added near the terminal including a second terminal built in 1938 and altered in 1953 and the present (third) terminal off of Post Road that opened in 1961. The original terminal at 572 Occupasstuxet Road has been used for offices, including the official U.S. Weather Service office for Providence. The first State Airport Terminal embodies the aspirations and sentiments of its era. It is a symbol of the state's commitment to provide up-to-date public facilities that would promote modern commercial and industrial development in Rhode Island.

Rhode Island State Airport Terminal is located at 572 Occupasstuxet Rd. in Warwick, Rhode Island. It is part of the T.F. Green International Airport complex, as headquarters for the Operations Unit of the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC). It is not open to the public. For further information, contact RIAC's Public Affairs office at 401-737-4000 ext. 283.

Idaho Falls Airport Historic District

The Idaho Falls Airport Historic District is associated with the beginning of commercial aviation in Idaho Falls and the surrounding communities. Built between 1930-1937, Idaho Falls Municipal Airport was a fully operational air transport facility capable of servicing planes, peoples and airmail. This facility functioned both as a final destination and as a link in the ever-increasingly connected communities of the West from 1930 on. The historic district consists of a hangar, administrator's cabin, a beacon tower and the surrounding landscaped area, representing the original site of operations of the Idaho Falls Airport. State Aeronautics Director Arthur C. Blomgren, along with U.S. Department of Commerce officials, visited Idaho Falls in 1929, inspecting sites for a proposed local airport. Work on new airport facilities began later that same year under the leadership of Idaho Falls Mayor Brazilla Clark when the City acquired the present airport property. The first landing strip and beacon tower were completed in 1930. Passenger service to Yellowstone National Park started from Idaho Falls in 1935, but it wasn't until 1937 that the City offered more than just a gravel landing strip and water.

The Idaho Falls Airport Historic District was constructed by the Works Project Administration (WPA). The WPA in Idaho, and across the country, placed a high priority on airport and airway projects, both to support the new and booming air transport business and to better prepare local facilities for anticipated national defense needs. In 1935, the City of Idaho Falls partnered with the WPA to produce the plans and funding needed to build a true airport in Idaho Falls. The hangar and administrator's cabin were built in 1936 of hand-hewn, peeled, native white pine. The hangar provided for maintenance, repair and shelter for aircraft, as well as support for the pilots. Its interior space was divided between the airplane storage and maintenance area and the small administrative area. The gable-roof building contained two, 40-foot doors segmented into eight, five-foot panels with one window in each panel. The cabin is a single-story, hipped-roof, rectangular building with a single-bay garage and small workshop built into the basement. The beacon tower is a simple, four-sided building rising 67 feet above the surrounding landscape, with four legs spread nine and one-half feet square and stands on a two-foot-high mound of soil. The airport facilities were completed by 1937, including extended and improved runways and new underground fueling tanks and pumps. On June 8, 1938, the Idaho Falls Municipal Airport was given its first operation permit. By 1941, the WPA helped build two new Idaho airports and had improved three others as part of a national program that pumped over $200 million into airport facilities across the country.

After a new administration building at Idaho Falls was completed in the early 1960s, the old log administration building was removed. However, both the hangar and cabin still perform their original functions for a private flying service. They remain, intact and well maintained, as testaments to the early development of aviation in Idaho and the important role the WPA played in that development. The desert climate of eastern Idaho, tight airport budgets, and the quality of their original craftsmanship, have combined to preserve both buildings. No other WPA aviation structures known in the State retain this level of integrity.

The Idaho Falls Airport Historic district is part of the Idaho Falls Regional Airport, just off I-15. Call 208-529-1221 or visit the airport's website for further information.

Administration Building

Construction of the Administrative Building at McConnell Air Force Base, originally Wichita's Municipal Airport terminal, began on June 28, 1930. On that date city officials and local aviation leaders participated in groundbreaking ceremonies designed to make Wichita, Kansas, a center of the aviation industry and a stopping place for passenger and airmail service. Wichita already had connections with aviation history; the Swallow Company began the first commercial aircraft manufacturing in Wichita from 1919 to 1920. By 1929 Wichita had 11 firms engaged in aircraft manufacturing plus a wide variety of support industries. By that time some 25 percent of the aircraft in use in the country were made in Wichita. To further their position in the aviation industry, it was necessary for Wichita to have an airport with refueling capabilities, maintenance hangars and administrative buildings to handle passengers, and 640 acres were purchased for this purpose by the city park board in 1928. By the spring of 1929 Wichita's Municipal Airport was well on its way to becoming a top grade airfield.

Because of financial difficulties during the Great Depression, the terminal building for the airport was not completed until 1935. Dedication ceremonies were held March 31, with an estimated crowd size of 10,000 to 15,000. Rain did not damper an abbreviated air show, and speeches were held to dedicate the building. Wichita's municipal airport was cited over and over again as an exemplary complex. Charles Lindbergh stated in 1929 during one of his visits to Wichita that there was no reason "why Wichita should not continue to be one of the most widely known of air centers." In 1936 Captain James B. Gordon, procurement planning representative of the material division of the U.S. Army Air Corps, called Wichita's airport the best in the country. During World War II the War Production Board used part of the facility. In December of 1944 Wichita's airplane factories were reported to have constructed 22,334 airplanes and 750 gliders. The terminal building consists of a central three-story portion built from 1930 to 1935 with flanking two-story wings built in 1942 and 1943. Typical of the Art Deco style are broad, flat wall surfaces broken by step-backs that emphasize doors, windows and the progression from one section of the building to another. Art Deco elements also include the stepped corners of windows, the inset stepped and faceted stones at the corners of the end bays and in the panels of stylized airplanes surrounded by chevron patterns. Some outstanding decorative features of the building surround the entrance; three large cast stone window spandrels in the three central bays that depict an eagle with spread wings superimposed over a stylized pattern of airplanes, and a large cast stone mural that runs the entire length of the three recessed bays. The three stone panels reflect both the nationalism of the 1930s and the stylization of Art Deco. The large panel was designed by L. W. Clapp, a prominent public figure in Wichita who was instrumental in bringing the aviation industry to the city. The color in the mural was obtained by crushing colored bottles in the cast stone mixture. The control tower is situated at the western end of the original building. Originally four stories tall, it had a glass-enclosed fifth story added in 1940.

The terminal building was managed by the city park department from the time of its construction until the municipal airport was sold to the Federal government in 1951. The base was known as Wichita Air Force Base until the name was changed to McConnell Air Force Base in honor of two Wichita brothers who were B-24 pilots in World War II. From 1951 to 1958 the facility was used primarily for testing SAC B-47 crews. The Boeing Aircraft Company had a lease on part of the building from 1956 to 1963 and used it for engineering, management and production of the B-52 aircraft. From 1963 to 1971 it was used by the Tactical Air Command for training F-105 crews. After that it served as the administrative center for personnel and transportation at McConnell. The control tower was used for training tower personnel. Today the Administrative Building houses the Kansas Aviation Museum, which documents the history of flight in Kansas from the earliest days to contemporary times and beyond.

The Administration Building is located at the corner of 31st St. South and George Washington Blvd. near the West Gate of the base in Wichita, Kansas. It is now the Kansas Aviation Museum, open Tuesday-Friday, 9:00am to 4:00pm, Saturday, 1:00pm to 5:00pm, closed Sunday and Monday. There is a fee for admission. For further information please call 316-683-9242 or visit the museum's website.

Newark Metropolitan Airport Buildings

Newark Metropolitan Airport in New Jersey was the first great commercial airport in the United States. Development began in 1928, and during the early years of the airport's existence, one-third of the world's air traffic passed down its runways. Reflecting the early development of the airport, the trio of Art Deco airport buildings that remain today include the Administration Building, Brewster Hangar and the Medical Building. On July 11, 1927, Major Thomas L. Raymond of Newark gave his support to the construction of a municipal airport. A special commission appointed by then Secretary of Commerce, Herbert C. Hoover, announced that the proposed site of Newark Airport, adjacent to Newark Bay and U.S. Route 1, provided an excellent location in the metropolitan area for a central air terminal since many railway connections were available and weather conditions were favorable. In February 1928, construction of an aviation field of 420 acres of meadowland was begun. In less then seven months, the first unit, which consisted of about one-half of the total acreage, was opened. In August 1928, a small, four-passenger Ryan monoplane from Washington, D.C., made the first landing on a completed section of 1,600-foot-long runway, the first hard-surfaced strip of any commercial airport in the nation. In 1929, Newark was designated as the metropolitan airmail terminus and by 1930 Newark was the busiest airport in the world.

During the 1930s, the New Jersey State Military Air Unit, a division of the National Guard, maintained a squadron at Newark. In addition to military personnel, Newark Airport has been associated with many famous aviators including Wiley Post , Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes who housed experimental airplanes in one of the hangars. As new safety aids for flying were developed, Newark provided a testing ground. Night lifting, paved runways, air traffic control, radio transmittal from land to air and instrument flying were all pioneered at Newark.

To replace a temporary Administration Building built in 1929, an engineer named Wall State received permission from the Army to build the permanent Administration Building in 1934. Work on the building was continued by the Federal Civil Works Administration and it opened in 1935, dedicated by Amelia Earhart. It is a long, relatively narrow building of concrete construction faced with horizontal bands of poured concrete alternating with bands of windows articulated with brick inserts. The main entrance façade consists of a two-story, three-bay central entrance block with two wings angled back from the airfield elevation, suggestive of the movement of an airplane. The Adminstration Building was recently restored.

Construction of the Brewster Hanger began in 1937 and continued through 1938. Its design was promoted as the most advanced of the time. The Brewster Hangar is of steel-frame construction with hollow tile walls finished on the exterior with stucco. There are four three-story pylons on the field side, designed as office space for the individual airlines. At the rear of the hangar, which happens to be the street façade, are three separate one-story shop sections, the center one housing a central heating plant. The hangar is divided into three entirely separate airplane-storage areas by two sets of 12-inch-thick firewalls spaced five feet apart. A dozen DC3s could be stored inside any one of the Hangar's six bays. The small Art Deco style Medical Building was built between 1934 to 1938. The two-story building is constructed of load-bearing brick, three bays wide with the end bays subdivided into two and four bays deep with each bay also divided into two sub-bays. Two-story brick pilasters, square in section, mark the major division of the bays.

Until 1939, Newark remained the world's busiest airport, but in that year Mayor LaGuardia of New York City completed construction of an airport at North Beach. Because of ongoing disorganization in the management of Newark Airport, three major airlines immediately moved their operations to LaGuardia's North Beach airport. Mayor Ellenstein closed his Newark Airport for reorganization. In the spring of 1942, the War Department took over Newark Metropolitan Airport for military use. When World War II was over, the airport was returned to the city. In 1948 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey assumed administration of the Newark Airport and began its major expansion programs, which included much land acquisition.

Newark Metropolitan Airport (now Newark International Airport) is located in Essex and Union Counties between the New Jersey Trnpk. (accessible from Exits 13A and 14), U.S. Rtes. 1 and 9 and I-78. The airport is about 16 miles from midtown Manhattan. The Administrative Building, Brewster Hanagr and Medical Building are located in the northern administrative section of the airport. Visit Newark International Airport's website for further information.

Bowman Field Historic District

The Bowman Field Historic District in Louisville, Kentucky, includes three adjacent buildings related by history, function and physical proximity. They are the airport Administration Building, the Curtiss Flying Service Hangar and the Army Air Corps Hangar. Although these buildings, along with their surrounding greenspace and service areas, comprise only a small portion of the present total acreage of Bowman Field, they constitute the airfield's historic core. These buildings were designed in the Art Deco/Art Moderne style and were constructed of brick, stone and concrete. They possess a high degree of integrity. The dominant landmark of Bowman Field is its terminal, more commonly known as the Administration Building, appropriately styled in aerodynamic Moderne. As constructed in 1929, it was a fairly modest two-story building with one-story wings, housing administrative and communications offices, a weather station and restaurant. From 1936 to 1937 it nearly tripled in size, and the east wing was demolished to make way for a larger building attached to two-story central section and west wing. The Administration Building is now a symmetrical five-part composition, with a three-story central block flanked by slightly recessed two-and one-story wings, resulting in a stepped-ziggurat-like design. The interior of the Administrative Building retains much of its original 1930s flavor.

Both of the airplane hangars included in the Bowman Field Historic District are typical of aviation-related structures of the 1920s and 1930s in their use of metal construction, masonry veneer, and restrained Moderne-inspired detailing. The earlier of the two, the Curtiss Flying Service Hangar, was built concurrently with the Administrative Building in 1929. The hangar is constructed of steel faced with light-yellow smooth-surface brick in common bond and features pilasters that culminate in concrete capitals featuring stylized geometric designs. The Army Air Corps hangar, built from 1931 to 1932, is located opposite the Curtiss Flying Service Hangar on the west side of the airfield. It is a massive double-gabled structure divided by a partition wall and adjoined on the north and south by lower one-story wings. Like the Curtiss Flying Service Hangar, it is built of steel and faced with yellow brick, which has since been painted ivory.

The land on which Bowman Field was built was previously owned by a German national, Baron Klaus von Zedtwitz, and seized during World War I by the U.S. government under the Alien Property Act. Once peace returned, part of the land was leased from the government by aviation enthusiast Abram H. Bowman, who hoped to establish an airport on the property. Bowman, proprietor of a local trucking company, became interested in aviation after World War I. Although he never learned to fly, he purchased a Canadian JN-4 airplane formally owned by pilot Robert Gast. After securing the Von Zedwitz property, he offered the public rides in the JN-4, which was piloted by a colleague. Local tradition has established 1919 as the year the first airplane landed at what would eventually become Bowman Field. During its early years, Bowman Field appears to have been a rather modest operation. A chronology of Louisville included in the popular Louisville Panorama lists 1921 as the year "the airport opened at Bowman Field." During that year, the airport's first substantial structure, a wooden hangar, was constructed with salvage lumber. When the wooden hangar was destroyed in a windstorm, a discouraged Bowman talked of abandoning a private airport scheme all together, but friends persuaded him to revive it in a new form, as the home of a military air unit. During the early 1920s, the Army was attempting to stimulate national interest in aviation by establishing "Army Airways." In 1922 a Louisville delegation including Mayor Huston Quinn, Abram Bowman and others approached the Army about establishing a base at Bowman Field. Their efforts were successful, and later in the year Bowman's lease on the property was taken over by the Army. The airfield then became the home of the 465th Army Pursuit Squadron, and its new identity as a combination military/civilian facility was established. Bowman Field was officially dedicated on August 25, 1923, and the Squadron remained the airfield's principal tenant for the next five years.

During the 1920s benches were installed at Bowman Field to accommodate crowds of tourists who flocked there to watch the airplanes. One of the high points in the airport's history took place in 1927 when 10,000 spectators flocked to see famed aviator Charles Lindbergh and his Spirit of St. Louis. By 1928, the city of Louisville had acquired clear title to the von Zedtwitz property with the intention of developing it as an airport, since the city's only other aviation facility had long since closed. During the late 1920s the Air Board initiated an ambitious improvement program in conjunction with the Army, which saw the construction of the Administrative Building and the hangars. By 1940 the government increased the size of Bowman Field, and during World War II the training of air evacuation flight nurses and combat glider pilots occurred here. During the postwar era, Bowman Field shared in the unprecedented growth of commercial aviation. In 1957 Bowman Field was recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration as the nation's busiest general aviation airport.

Still an active airport, the Bowman Field Historic District is located in the southwest corner of the airport, visible from Taylorsville Rd. in eastern Louisville, Kentucky, ¼ mile west of the Watterson Expressway (I-264).

Marine Air Terminal

The Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport in New York City remains the only active airport terminal dating from the first generation of passenger travel in the United States--the "Golden Age of the Flying Boat." The Marine Air Terminal, an Art Deco building designed in 1939 by William Delano of the firm Delano & Aldrich, is comprised of a central circular core of two stories with an attic from which a rectangular entrance pavilion and two symmetrically opposed one-story wings project. Inside the terminal hangs "Flight," a mural measuring 12 feet in height and 237 feet in length. Completed by James Brooks in 1940, "Flight" depicts the history of man's involvement with flight.

By the early 1930s, commercial airlines and airports were developing due to the Federal government's use of private contractors for postal transport and Charles Lindbergh's famous transatlantic flight. New York was in dire need of a new airport by 1934 when Fiorello H. La Guardia was elected mayor. Plans for the airport, which was to be federally sponsored and funded through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), were approved by President Roosevelt on September 3, 1937. Only six days later, the Mayor presided over groundbreaking ceremonies and construction proceeded rapidly. At 558 acres with nearly four miles of runways, the $40,000,000 airport was the largest and most expensive in the world. New York City Airport--La Guardia Field opened on October 15, 1939 and the Marine Air Terminal was dedicated in March 1940. The first flight from the Marine Air Terminal by a Clipper departed on March 31, 1940, carrying a crew of 10, nine passengers and over 5,000 pounds of mail and landed in Lisbon 18 hours and 30 minutes later. These Clippers--with a wing span of 152 feet, a cruising speed of 200mph and a capacity to carry 72 passengers--were luxurious. The two-deck interior featured dining rooms, private compartments and sleeping sections. However, this glamorous era of the Clippers was brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of World War II. By the end of the war, technological advances in airplane design had made the Clippers obsolete and the Marine Air Terminal was converted for the newer airplanes. Today the Marine Air Terminal is used by commuter airlines, air taxis, private aircraft, Signature Flight Support (a fixed-base operator) and a weather service.

The Marine Air Terminal is located at La Guardia Airport in New York City. It is still an active terminal, open during normal hours of operation. Please visit the airport's website for further information.

Washington National Airport Terminal and South Hangar Line

The Washington National Airport Terminal and South Hangar Line, products of New Deal initiatives, were milestones in American aviation technology. Washington, D.C.'s first airport, Washington-Hoover, was deemed inadequate in 1927. In July of that year, a joint airport committee voted to approve Gravelly Point as the site for a new airport. After 11 years of debate, President Roosevelt authorized federal sponsorship of a government-owned airport at Gravelly Point. The Terminal was opened for operation on June 16, 1941, blending three distinct styles--Art Deco/Steamlined Moderne, Colonial Revival and Stripped Classical. Its architecture is also a striking example of architectural resolution; its form--a combination of streamlined horizontal massing overlayed with a dominant vertical portico--mirrors the architectural polemic of the pre-World War II era, the debate on American architecture's future as Modernist or Neoclassical. The stepped massing, banded fenestration, sidewalk canopies and stylized ornament speak of the Art Deco/Moderne movement. The building's portico-and-wing composition draws upon the regional Colonial architecture of 18th-century Virginia. However, the execution of the portico as a "stripped" expression of Classicism promotes the ideals of World War II-era government buildings.

Within six months of its opening, airport operations were dominated by military uses. With the onset of World War II, civilian aircraft were appropriated by the military and civilian flights fell by 50 percent. By 1946, newspaper accounts described Washington National Airport as the third busiest postwar airport. The airport also served as the home airport for the airplanes of Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. The footprint, massing, floor plan and diamond-shaped control tower design of the Terminal building, as well as the runway configuration, runway lengths and advanced lighting and instrument landing systems were innovations that influenced airport design throughout the country. Its functional clarity and provisions for spectatorship were particularly influential in later terminal designs.

The South Hangar Line, constructed between 1941 and 1948, consisted of seven hangars designed to accommodate advances in airplane technology. The South Hangar Line employed innovations such as a new door design, unit heaters with blowers used to maintain the hangar's standard 60-degree temperature and a sprinkler system. For many years the Washington National Airport Terminal and South Hangar Line, the nation's first federally constructed commercial airport, served as the Civil Aeronautics Authority's model airport. Historic Terminal A is undergoing renovation to restore the terminal to its original appearance.

The Washington National Airport Terminal and South Hangar Line are located in Arlington, Virginia. The terminal building is still in use for commercial airlines and is open during normal operating hours. The history of the airport is presented in the Exhibit Hall. Please visit the airport's website for further information.

College Park Airport

Many events in the history of aviation, including countless record-breaking flights and important developments in aerial technology, took place at the College Park Airport in Maryland. The facility began as the training site for the first military pilots in the U. S. Army. On August 1, 1907, the Army's Chief Signal Officer established an Aeronautical Division in his office. He also contracted with the Wright brothers to build a flying machine, which was delivered to Fort Myer, Virginia, in August 1908. The contract required flights to demonstrate performance and flying training for two Army officers. Orville Wright circled Fort Myer's parade ground in Signal Corps Airplane No. 1, the first military airplane in the world, but he was seriously injured when the plane crashed. Delivery of the airplane and training of the Army pilots had to be postponed until 1909. By that time, the Signal Corps has leased a field in College Park, selected by Lt. Frank Lahm based on observations during a balloon flight, and built a small hangar for the airplane. On October 8, 1909, Wilbur Wright began flying training for Lt. Lahm and 2nd Lt. Frederic E. Humphreys. Lt. Benjamin Foulois reported for training later in October. Wilbur made 55 flights at College Park, including his last record-setting flight, 46 miles per hour over a 500 meter course. His last flight on November 2 was the last time he ever flew in public and also one of his last flights as a pilot.

Continuing successful flights at College Park proved to be newsworthy and captured the attention of the Nation. Notable flights during the facility's formative years include the first woman in America to fly as a passenger in an aircraft, Mrs. Ralph H. Van Deman, on October 27, 1909. A nine-minute flight on November 3, 1909, enabled the Navy to enter aviation history when Lt. George C. Sweet, USN, became the first Naval officer to fly. Flying at College Park was suspended on November 5, 1909, when the Army's only aircraft was damaged during landing. Congress made its first appropriation for Army aeronautics in March 1911, $125,000 for the 1912 fiscal year. Some of these funds were used immediately to buy five more airplanes and to establish the Army's first real flying school at the former training field in College Park. The new planes arrived at College Park during the summer of 1911, and this site became the Signal Corps Aviation School and the center of Army aviation until the end of the year. In addition to flying training, Army pilots also conducted experiments in radiotelegraphy, photography, automatic weapons firing, signaling systems, and bombing devices. In late November, the Army airmen and airplanes relocated to Augusta, Georgia, for the winter. Although they returned to College Park in April 1912, they relocated again in November for the winter to North Island, San Diego, California, and never returned. The Signal Corps' lease on the property expired in June 1913.

From 1912 to 1917 the Washington Aeroplane Company maintained facilities at College Park and there built its Columbia Biplane. On August 12, 1918, the College Park field became the Washington terminus for the first U.S. Post Office commercial airmail service. Emile and Henry Berliner, credited with inventing the first helicopter possessing maneuvering capabilities, arrived at College Park in 1920 and began testing their helicopter. The site at College Park has witnessed such tests as the first bomb sight and dropping mechanism and the first aerial machine gun. On this site Americans took their first aerial photographs, experimented with wireless radio communications, made the first nighttime landing with the aid of runway lights and experimented with radio navigation aids. Of less dramatic impact but of great importance to aviation history are the inventions and improved designs for such items as sparkplugs and mufflers that were given trials at College Park. As the world's oldest continually operating airport, the College Park Airport has cemented its place in aviation history.

Both an operating airport and museum, College Park Airport is located at the north side of Calvert Rd. between U.S. Rte. 1 and Kenilworth Ave. on Cpl. Frank S. Scott Dr. in College Park, MD. The College Park Aviation Museum is open daily from 10:00am to 5:00pm (except major holidays) for self-guided tours. Guided tours can be scheduled for groups of 10 or more. For further information call 301-864-6029 or visit the museum's website.

Naval Air Station, San Diego, Historic District

The Naval Air Station, San Diego, Historic District, located on North Island in California, is associated with broad national and regional themes in the history of military aviation, representing the principle administrative and residential core of one of the earliest naval air stations in the United States, and the first on the West Coast. Climatic conditions, and the characteristics of flat terrain, good beaches and protected stretches of water, attracted the aviation pioneer and Wright Brothers' competitor, Glenn H. Curtiss, to North Island in 1910. Through the intervention of a local flying club, the landowner, the Coronado Beach Company, was persuaded to permit Curtiss to use North Island for his Aviation School. In January 1911, the Navy assigned its first pilot, Lt. T.G. Ellyson, to be trained by Curtiss at his school on North Island. Later that year, the Navy established its first naval aviation unit at Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1911. However, because winters in the Northeast precluded flight operations, North Island was chosen for the aviation unit's winter quarters. In 1912 "Camp Trouble," as it was called, was established on the northeast corner of North Island, a site now encompassed by the Naval Air Station, San Diego, Historic District. Consisting of three airplanes, three pilots, three tents and some mechanics, this group stayed until April, then returned east. The Navy would not return to North Island until 1917.

The Army's Signal Corps Aviation School relocated from its original location at College Park, Maryland, to North Island, San Diego, from November to December 1912. The Army flyers established a tent camp at the north end of North Island, and for about a year, the Signal Corps Aviation School rented airplanes and hangars constructed for the Curtiss school. This was the first Army school to provide flying training for military pilots, and North Island was the school's first permanent location. None of the buildings from this early period, constructed on the north end of the island, are still extant. In July 1917, Congress authorized the President to proceed with the taking of North Island for Army and Navy aviation schools. There was a desperate needed for trained military pilots as the United States had entered World War I earlier in the year. President Woodrow Wilson signed an Executive Order in August 1917 for condemnation of the land, which was still privately owned. The Army turned over the north end of the island to the Navy and relocated to the south end of North Island, the location of the Rockwell Field Historic District. The Navy's first occupancy of North Island occurred on September 8, 1917, but Congress did not authorize the purchase of North Island, for $6,098,333, until July 1919. Construction began on the permanent San Diego facilities in mid-1918. Naval Air Station, San Diego was completed too late to play any substantial role in World War I. After conducting the first-ever carrier takeoffs and landings in the Atlantic, the USS Langley was assigned to Naval Air Station, San Diego, berthing there for the first time in November 1924. This began a continuous use of North Island as the home port for Pacific Fleet carriers, and Naval Air Station, San Diego took on the duties of providing service and training to the personnel of these new components to the Fleet.

Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, military pilots worked hard at trying to make the public more aviation-conscious. The Naval Air Station, San Diego continued as an important player in this ongoing effort, due to its proximity to Hollywood, which allowed it to play a unique role in the promotion of air power. Several movies, among them Flying Fleet, The Flying Marine and Hell Divers, were filmed at the air station, with the full cooperation of the Navy. The Navy wanted to add the Army's Rockwell Field to Naval Air Station, San Diego, and tried for many years to acquire it. The effort was finally successful when President Roosevelt was persuaded to issue an Executive Order that required the Army to vacate North Island by 1935, in spite of the Army's struggle to remain there. At the same time dredge spoils were dumped into the tidal flats which increased the area of North Island by some 620 acres. By 1935 North Island was home to all four of the Navy's carriers--the USS Langley, USS Lexington, USS Saratoga and USS Ranger. During the 1930s activities at the air station were of fundamental importance to the development of combat tactics and logistical support systems that became the foundation for the subsequent success of the Pacific carrier war against Japan during World War II.

The principle historic buildings in the Naval Air Station, San Diego, Historic District consist of more than 20 military administrative, residential and operations buildings constructed with stucco-clad walls, red tile roofs and simple California Mission or Mission Revival style design elements. The visual focus of the historic district, and perhaps its most recognized edifice, is the Administrative Building, a two-story building with a monumental, 110-foot-tall central tower. This tower was functionally designed to carry aerological equipment, serving as the air station's pre-radio control tower. Of other aviation interest are the Seaplane Hangars, three buildings that are single-story, rectangular, open bay buildings and the Garage, a simple, one-story, flat-roofed, rectangular building that functioned to service the air station vehicles.

Naval Air Station, San Diego, Historic District is located in San Diego, California, on North Island, which in fact is not an island, but rather the extreme northwestern end of the Peninsula of San Diego. The historic district is roughly bounded Saufley St., I-4th St. N., Roe St., Murray St., Maxfield Blvd., Carson St., Quentin Roosevelt Blvd, Wright St. and Bay St. The Navy had contracted with the Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego to provide windshield tours of the base. These tours were suspended due to security concerns, but may resume shortly. Visit www.historictours.com/sandiego for further information.

Rockwell Field

Rockwell Field, located on North Island in San Diego, California, was originally called the Signal Corps Aviation School. It was the first U.S. Army school to provide flying training for military pilots, and North Island was the school's first permanent location. The Aviation School was officially established on North Island in 1912; existing historic and architecturally significant buildings reflect the use and development of Rockwell Field from 1918 to 1935. In 1910, climatic conditions, flat terrain, good beaches and protected stretches of water attracted Glenn H. Curtiss, aviation pioneer and Wright Brothers' competitor, to North Island, where he soon founded his Aviation School. In January 1911, Curtiss signed a contract with the owner of North Island to use the land for three years for a flying school, which was established in February 1911. Curtiss invited the Army and the Navy to send officers to his new school for flying training. The Army sent three airmen to the Curtiss school in early 1911, but they were ordered to Texas before completion of their training. During the winter of 1911 to 1912, the Navy sent three pilots to the Curtiss school for flying training. The Army's Signal Corps Aviation School relocated from its original location at College Park, Maryland, to North Island, San Diego, during November to December 1912. The Army flyers established a tent camp at the north end of North Island, and for about a year, the Signal Corps Aviation School rented airplanes and hangars constructed for the Curtiss school. None of the buildings from this early period, constructed on the north end of the island, are still extant.

On July 20, 1917, the Signal Corps Aviation School was named Rockwell Field in honor of 2nd Lt. Lewis C. Rockwell, killed in a crash at College Park in 1912. Also in July, Congress authorized the President to proceed with the taking of North Island for Army and Navy aviation schools. There was a desperate needed for trained military pilots as the United States had entered World War I earlier in the year. President Woodrow Wilson signed an Executive Order in August 1917 for condemnation of the land, which was still privately owned. The Army turned over the north end of the island to the Navy and relocated to the south end of North Island, the location of the Rockwell Field Historic District. The Navy's first occupancy of North Island occurred on September 8, 1917, but Congress did not authorize the purchase of North Island, for $6, 098,333, until July 1919. The Army selected well-known Detroit industrial architect, Albert Kahn, to develop a site and building designs. Permanent construction of Kahn's design began in mid-1918. During World War I, Rockwell Field provided training for many of the pilots and crews sent to France. It also was the source of men and aircraft for the Sixth and Seventh Aero Squadrons, which established the first military aviation presence in Hawaii and the Panama Canal Zone, respectively.

After World War I, construction came to a complete standstill. Rockwell Field did not fare well into the early 1920s. It was demoted from one of the major Army Air Service training fields on the West Coast to an Aviation General Supply and Repair Depot in 1920 and redesignated again as Rockwell Air Intermediate Depot in 1922. By 1922 there were only 10 officers, two warrant officers, 42 enlisted men, and 190 civilians employed at the airfield. Lt. Jimmy Doolittle landed there in September 1922 after establishing a new record for the first transcontinental flight within a single day. The first nonstop transcontinental flight, originating at Roosevelt Field, New York, was accomplished by Army pilots and ended at Rockwell Field in May 1923. In June of that year, pilots from Rockwell Field conducted the first complete mid-air pipeline refueling between two airplanes. As the Navy's emphasis began shifting from seaplanes to the land planes used on aircraft carriers, its requirement for land increased. Eventually, agreement was reached within the War Department to grant the Navy complete control of North Island. After visiting the air station and the Army airfield on an inspection tour in October 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an Executive Order transferring Rockwell Field and all of its buildings to the Navy. The Army moved most of their aircraft to March Field in Riverside, California, but it took another three years to completely phase-out Army activities at North Island.

The historic and architecturally significant buildings of Rockwell Field form the southeastern quadrant of what is today the Naval Air Station, North Island (NAS North Island). The buildings were designed in the Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival styles. The Kahn-designed Mission Revival Field Officers Quarters (later married officers quarters) are reinforced concrete-framed, in-filled with hollow terra cotta tile and finished in buff color stucco. Kahn's Mission Revival Hangars (Buildings 501, 502 and 503 from 1918) are similar in materials with red clay-tile, gabled roofs. They were built to the same plan: a rectangle, 135 feet by 70 feet, with 30 feet clear to the ceiling. A low, flat-roofed, lean-to on the east side of each contained offices. Located on the bluff edge at the North Island end of the Coronado-North Island causeway, the Army-Navy Gate House/Meter Room (Building 505, 1918; later Meter House) functioned as the gatehouse for both Rockwell Field and NAS San Diego. This group of buildings reflects the War Department's plan to create buildings that would be appropriate for Southern California, and illustrates Kahn's "Spanish military" design implemented at Rockwell Field.

Rockwell Field is roughly bounded by McCain Blvd., Wright Ave., J Rd. E and Quentin Roosevelt Blvd. in San Diego, California. The Navy had contracted with the Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego to provide windshield tours of the base. These tours were suspended due to security concerns, but may resume shortly. Visit www.historictours.com/sandiego for further information.

Pensacola Naval Air Station Historic District

Pensacola Naval Air Station was the United States' first permanent naval air station, the first Navy pilot training center and the first naval installation to send pilots into combat. In 1911 the Navy secured an appropriation from Congress for a naval air service and within two years Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels ordered the creation of the first permanent naval air station at Pensacola, Florida, where the climate favored year-round flying. The entire command that arrived at Pensacola Naval Aeronautic Station in January 1914 consisted of six qualified pilots, 23 enlisted men, seven seaplanes, some spare parts and a few canvas hangars. During the station's first three years it produced many firsts, including altitude records, the first catapult launch of an aircraft from a ship and the Navy's first fatal crash.

With the onset of WWI, naval aviation expanded rapidly, leading to the establishment of additional training bases. Pensacola remained a major flight center and the first aerographical officer reported for duty here, the Navy's first aircraft carrier conducted experiments here and the Navy's aerial photography school relocated here. Between 1935 and 1939 the air station expanded its facilities to include aviation mechanics and aviation medicine. Within the historic district are 55 frame and brick buildings, including residential, administrative and maintenance facilities. Particularly notable are the octagonal Armory and Chapel (1854) and six metal seaplane hangers (1916-1918).

Within nine days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Pensacola Naval Air Station adjusted its training schedule to accommodate 2,300 students per month, a 300 percent increase that produced nearly 20,000 pilots by mid-1943. These Pensacola-trained Navy and Marine fliers sank 63 German submarines and 161 Japanese warships and destroyed more than 15,000 Japanese aircraft while losing 451 aircraft to Japanese fliers. Pensacola made similar contributions to the U.S. military effort in Korea and continues its leadership role today as the headquarters for the Chief of Naval Education and Training. For a complete copy of the National Historic Landmark registration form for Pensacola Naval Air Station, click here.

Pensacola Naval Air Station Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, consists of 55 historic structures on 82 acres roughly bounded by Soufley St., Jaynes, Ave., and East Ave. in Pensacola Fl. There is a self guided tour available from the Public Affairs Office, 191 Radford Blvd., 2nd floor, or call 850-452-2311. Please visit the base's website for further information. You can also download (in pdf) the Pensacola Naval Air Station National Historic Landmark nomination.

Scott Field Historic District

Scott Field began when Shiloh Valley Township, Illinois, leased 640 acres to the War Department for use as an aviation site in June 1917. The War Department named the site after Corporal Frank S. Scot--the first enlisted man to die in an aircraft accident--on July 10, 1917. The layout of Scott Field was typical of aviation fields built during World War I. Construction began in June 1917, and the Unit Construction Company was required by the Signal Corps to build approximately 60 buildings, lay a mile-long railway spur to connect the field with a main line on the Southern Railroad and level off an airfield in 60 days. Scott Field began as an aviation-training field for World War I pilots in August 1917 when the 11th and 21st Aero Squadrons from Kelly Field, Texas, arrived. Later the 85th and 86th squadrons arrived, and more than 300 pilots and many ground units were trained for service by the war's end in 1918. Flying was discontinued at Scott Field after the war and the base population dropped. The War Department purchased Scott Field in 1919 for $119, 285.84

Scott Field was transformed into a lighter-than-air (LTA) station in 1921. Lighter-than-air ships were used at Scott Field to research the capabilities of aerial photography, meteorology and conduct altitude experiments. In the late 1920s, emphasis shifted from airships to balloons. In 1929, the 12th Airship Company was deactivated and replaced the next day by the 1st Balloon Company. Airplanes began to dominate activities at Scott Field, and in 1937, the lighter-than-air activities officially came to an end. Scott Field's central location was advantageous when it was considered for the relocation site of the General Headquarters Air Force, which managed the combat arm of the U.S. Army. Scott Field grew from 628 acres in 1938 to 1,882 acres in 1939. Most of the frame World War I and lighter-than-air constructions were torn down--only a few, such as the 9th Airstrip Squadron headquarters/barracks building, a brick theater and nine sets of brick noncommissioned officers' quarters at the south end of the field were saved.

New housing, industrial and administrative buildings were completed by May 1939. The expansion program continued into 1940 with the construction of 21 more buildings, including a 200-man barracks, a 300,000-gallon elevated water tank, a 43-bed hospital, Hangar No. 1 and a General Headquarters Air Force office. During World War II Scott Field's main mission was to train radio operator-mechanics. By June 1945, Scott Field had trained 77,370 technicians who went on to be responsible for vital command and control communication throughout the Air Force. In January 1948, Scott Field was redesignated Scott Air Force Base. Scott AFB continued as a major training base for the Air Force until 1957. The 1405th Air Base Wing maintained the base properties and served as the base's home unit, which as of 1990 housed the 375th Military Airlift Wing.

Scott Field (now Scott Air Force Base) is located 25 miles east of St. Louis, Missouri, in Shiloh Township, Illinois. The base is located off Hwy, 158, two miles south of I-64 (Exit 19). Individual tours are not available, but group tours can be arranged by calling the Scott Air Force Base Public Affairs Office at 618-256-4241.

Kelly Field Historic District

Kelly Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas, has been a vital center for American military aviation throughout its history. As World War I raged in Europe, the United States began to build up and expand its military aviation forces. In his search for a new army aviation training site, Maj. Benjamin Foulois found 700 acres of flat farmland with a water supply near the Missouri-Pacific rail line, then seven miles south of San Antonio. Aviation operations began here on April 5, 1917, the day before the United States declared war on Germany. Kelly Field, named for George Edward Maurice Kelly, the first military pilot killed in an airplane crash at nearby Fort Sam Houston in 1911, was one of 14 schools in the country conducting primary flight training during World War I. The school trained aviators, mechanics and support personnel for war duty. After additional land was acquired, the field was divided into Kelly Number 1 (later renamed Duncan Field) and Kelly Number 2. The Air Service Advanced Flying School, which headquartered at Kelly Number 2, trained pilots including Charles Lindbergh, Curtis LeMay and numerous future Air Force chiefs of staff. By the end of World War I, more than 250,000 men had passed through the facility. After World War I, rapid demobilization followed, and primary training at Kelly was discontinued. In 1922 the U.S. Air Corps decided to consolidate its flight training at two fields, Kelly Field and Brooks Field, named the Air Corps Training Center. Later, in 1931, all primary training was consolidated at the newly completed Randolph Field, to the north of San Antonio, Texas.

The area designated as the Kelly Field Historic District reflects the base's strategic importance during the late 1930s and early 1940s as a training center for America's military pilots, and contains buildings from the "new permanent area" or "reconstruction" of Kelly Field. The base experienced growth at this time to meet the needs of a developing air force and, later, a nation at war. In the time period between the two world wars, the organization and role of the air arm of the U.S. military was the focus of heated debate--whether or not the Air Service should function as an independent military branch and whether or not the Air Service should undertake bombardment operations independent of surface operations. As a result of this debate, Kelly Field was reconstructed on the eve of World War II, and that addition is the core of the Kelly Field Historic District. The district is located near the center of the present-day base, and contains a mixture of 39 buildings. Most of these were constructed between 1940 and 1943 to provide training, administrative, repair, supply and residential facilities for recruits, instructional and maintenance personnel, and both commissioned and noncommissioned officers. The buildings are constructed from a variety of materials including concrete, hollow-clay tile and stucco, and wood frame. Many are well designed examples of Art Moderne, Mediterranean or Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, while others reflect more utilitarian International style elements.

During World War II, Kelly saw a tremendous increase in its civilian and military workforce, including women, who were known as "Kelly Katies." Kelly Field continued to serve an important role in the war effort after it was consolidated into the San Antonio Air Depot in January 1943. By 1943, it had become the largest maintenance and supply facility in the country. At that time supply depot activities became the primary mission of the base and flight training activities were transferred elsewhere. After the Air Force was established as an independent military service in 1947, the field became known as Kelly Air Force Base. Personnel at Kelly were significantly involved with air transport and maintenance during the Korean conflict, the Cold War, Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Once the largest employer in San Antonio, Kelly Air Force Base was realigned in 2001 in response to peacetime defense spending priorities. Part of the base has been converted into an industrial center for both commercial and military businesses and the rest has been combined with neighboring Lackland Air Force Base.

The Kelly Field Historic District roughly encompasses the 1600 and 1700 areas of the former Kelly Air Force Base, roughly between Billy Mitchell Blvd., Wagner and Luke Drs. in San Antonio, Texas. Lackland Air Force Base is not open to the public.

Hangar 9, Brooks Air Force Base

Brooks Field, in San Antonio, Texas, was one of a number of U.S. Army airfields established during World War I to train Army pilots. Construction began at the site in December 1917, which was officially established as Brooks Field in February 1918. In addition to providing primary training for flying cadets, Brooks also trained flying officers as instructors in the Gosport Method of flying, a system developed in England to improve the high mortality rate of fliers. Hangar 9 is the only surviving building of more than 60 constructed here during World War I. Many renowned airmen graduated from the Primary Flying School at Brooks Field during the 1920s, including Generals Nathan F. Twining, fourth chief of staff of the Air Force, 1953 to 1957, and first Air Force officer to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Curtis E. LeMay, chief of staff of the Air Force, 1961 to 1965; and Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, who made the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight, New York to Paris, in 1927. Rapid demobilization followed World War I, and most of the Army's wartime airfields were abandoned. From 1919 until 1922, Brooks Field was the site of an Army Balloon and Airship School. In 1922, the Army Air Service consolidated primary flying training at Brooks Field, which continued until 1931 when all primary training was transferred to Randolph Field, north of San Antonio. Randolph was an entirely new Air Corps station, conceived and designed as a model airfield for flying training. It also became the headquarters location of the Air Corps Training Center.

Hangar 9 was hastily constructed in December 1917 and January 1918 to house the Curtiss JN-4 airplane, the "Jenny," which became the basic training plane for thousands of American pilots during World War I. The hangar was one of 16 constructed at Brooks and is recognized as the oldest existing airplane hangar on a U. S. Air Force installation, although a brick hangar at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, also completed in 1918, is a rival for this distinction. Hangar 9 was considered temporary construction when it was built, but its solid wood frame construction insured its longevity. It has a bolted wood truss roof in a modified gambrel form, with large sliding wooden doors at the ends that slide open to the full width of the building by means of exterior door carriers. The side walls are framed with stacked double sash windows with exterior braces or buttresses.

In the summer of 1926, the School of Aviation Medicine relocated from Mitchel Field, New York, to Brooks Field. The school trained medical personnel in the specialized field of aviation medicine, and also conducted research to improve physical and technological problems experienced by fliers. The School of Aviation Medicine also transferred to Randolph Filed in 1931, but returned to Brooks when a new expanded school opened in August 1959. In October 1959, Brooks became the headquarters for the Aerospace Medical Center, a single organization to address all fields of science related to aerospace medicine. It combined aerospace medical research, education, training, and a clinical facility at one location.

Hangar 9 was restored in 1969. It currently houses the U.S. Air Force Museum of Aerospace Medicine, an extensive collection of photographs and equipment related to aviation and aerospace medicine, as well as information on the early history of Brooks Field. The museum was dedicated as a memorial to Edward H. White II, a native of San Antonio who was the first American to walk in space in June 1965 on Gemini IV. White died in 1967 in a flash fire inside the Apollo command module during training for the first manned flight of the Apollo program. For a complete copy of the National Historic Landmark registration form for the Hangar 9, Brooks Air Force Base, click here.

Hangar 9, Brooks Air Force Base, a National Historic Landmark, is located at 8008 Inner Circle Dr. in San Antonio, Texas. The Museum of Aerospace Medicine is open Monday-Friday from 8:00am to 4:00pm and Saturday by special arrangement, groups larger than 10 please call 210-531-9767. For further information call 210-536-2203 or visit the museum's website. You can also download (in pdf) the Hangar 9, Brooks Air Force Base National Historic Landmark nomination.

Crissy Field, Presidio of San Francisco

Crissy Airfield was established as a U.S. Army Airfield along the San Francisco Bay in 1919 and was the sole airfield in the United States to remain in constant operation between 1919 and 1936. It became the first Air Coast Defense Station established on the Pacific Coast. The airfield is named after Mayor Dana H. Crissy who lost his life while participating in an army test flight. Crissy Airfield is renowned as the site of many aviation firsts during the 1920s and for its connection with many notable aviation pioneers. The airfield is closely associated with Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, an important figure in World War II aviation who was appointed as the first Air Service Officer for the Western Department as well as the first commanding General of the Army Air Forces. Arnold was instrumental in the establishment of Crissy Airfield which was completed by 1921. Other notables associated with the airfield are Carl A. "Tooey" Spaatz, George H. Brett, and Delos C. Emmons, all important figures in the development of air power during the interwar years and World War II. Among its many notable events were the June 23,1924 dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight performed by Lt. Russell L. Maughn, and the first attempt to fly from the mainland United States to Hawaii, led by naval Commander John Rodgers, on August 31, 1925.

The field is located on the northern shoreline of the San Francisco Presidio facing the Bay and on the site of a previous landfill completed for a 1915 exposition. Crissy Airfield is the only intact Air Coast Defense Station airfield in the Nation with the majority of its associated buildings still remaining as well. The buildings associated with the airfield include administrative buildings, buildings used for storage/technological purposes, three massive hangars and housing quarters. The housing is located west of the former airstrip along the elevated bend of Lincoln Boulevard with breathtaking views of San Francisco Bay. The buildings were primarily constructed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style. By 1936, operations at Crissy Field were taken over by Hamilton Field in Marin County.

Crissy Field, part of the Presidio of San Francisco and a National Historic Landmark, is administered by the National Park Service's Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is located on the north shoreline facing the San Francisco Bay in San Francisco, California. The site is open daily from dawn to dusk. Admission is free of charge. Please call 415-561-4323 or visit the park's website for information.

Miller Army Airfield Historic District

Miller Army Airfield, on New York's Staten Island, was established from 1919 to 1921 as part of the aerial coast defense system formed to supplement existing coast defenses, and reflects early, experimental years in aviation history. The field was well located for harbor defense purposes as it was centrally situated between Fort Wadsworth and Fort Hamilton on either side of the narrows, Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook and Fort Tilden on the Rockway Peninsula. The Miller Army Airfield Historic District includes a double seaplane hangar and lighthouse. The double seaplane hangar, constructed in 1920, is the most important building remaining at Miller Field because of its direct association with early aviation history. The Monitot Type hangar was constructed by Smith, Hansen and MacIssac and Rangely Construction Company, both of New York. The seaplane hangar was constructed as part of the Hangar Group of Buildings which included an airplane hangar, an aero repair shop, a boiler house, an aero store-house, a motor test house, an armorers house, a fuel additive house, a pier and boat house, a gasoline pumping system, a water supply system and sewer system. Of these buildings only Hangar #38 remains. It is a steel frame structure with stuccoed walls, originally consisting of two bays, side by side, each measuring 110 by160 feet with full-width lift doors on the northeast end. From 1935 to 1939, the Works Progress Administration built several additions. A two-story, flat-roofed west wing was built of steel and concrete, as was the boiler room, and extends halfway along the southern side of the hangar. On the eastern side is a similar wing, one-story high, with a slightly pitched roof on steel beams, which extends around to the southern side as well. Seaplane Hangar #38 is believed to be a unique design among early military aviation bases. A survey of seaplane hangars revealed that although several early hangars with varying degrees of alterations could be found along the Eastern Seaboard, a hangar located at Crissy Field, in San Francisco most closely resembled the Seaplane Hangar at Miller Army Airfield.

In 1923, one of the first of a series of tests made at Miller Field by private aircraft manufacturers was conducted on the Remington-Burnelli aircraft. Bellanca Aircraft Corporation utilized the hangars at Miller Field during the summer of 1928. In the spring of the following year, the American Aeronautical Corporation assembled and tested two Italian seaplanes, one SS-55 twin hulled Savoia-Marchetti flying boat and one S-62 Savoia-Marchetti flying boat. In 1926 a training session for eight Army Air Service pilots who were preparing for a good will Pan-American flight through North, Central and South America was held here. One of the planes to be used, a Looning Amphibian, was tested at the field. Popular aviation heroes also visited and used Miller Field. Famed Arctic pilot Floyd Bennett arrived at Miller Field in the spring of 1928 to prepare for an emergency flight to rescue downed fliers on Greenly Island, Canada. Bennett and his party left Miller Field on April 19. During the flight Bennett contracted pneumonia and died in a hospital in Quebec later that month.

The Elm Tree Light, a light station that operated throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, replaced a large elm tree at the foot of New Dorp Lane that served as a mark in the late 18th century for sailing vessels going from New York, Middletown and Brunswick. Although the light station was abandoned in 1924, the lighthouse remains on its site to the rear of the hangars. The Elm Tree Light is a significant part of the historic setting and reflects the 200-year long history of continued land use at its site.

In 1973, Miller Field was acquired by the National Park Service as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. At that time, about 24 buildings and structures from the air field remained. All of the buildings were in deteriorated conditions at the time of the acquisition, especially the two hangars. The condition of the airplane hangar (Building 33) in particular had reached such a state of deterioration that renovation was no longer practical and the hangar was demolished. Other buildings were renovated to provide housing and today the Elm Tree Light and Hangar #38 best reflect the history of the airfield.

Miller Field is located on Staten Island, New York, and is part of the National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area, a 26,000-acre recreation area located in the heart of the New York metropolitan area. Access to Miller Field is from community streets (Hylan and Father Capodanno blvds. and connecting sts.). Miller Field is a heavily used recreational area throughout the year and provides half of the recreational field use available to Staten Islanders. The Staten Island Bicycling Association meets weekly at Miller Field to begin their cycling tours. The current bicycle path runs from South Beach to Midland Beach and plans call for bicycle connections from St. George at the Staten Island ferry terminal through Fort Wadsworth and Miller Field to Great Kills park and Tottenville at the south end of the island. There is no fee for admission. Call Miller Field/Staten Island at 718-351-6970 or visit the park's website.

Pope Air Force Base Early Expansion MPS

Pope Air Force Base (AFB) in Fayetteville, North Carolina, has played a leading role in the development of U.S. air power. Established within 15 years after the first successful powered flight in 1903, Pope Field is one of the oldest installations in the Air Force. Pope Field was officially established on April 1, 1919, by the War Department and named after Lt. Harley Halbert Pope, who was killed in an airplane accident on January 7, 1919. The 267th Aero Squadron was the first unit stationed at Pope Field, and many of its members were veterans of World War I. Their primary mission was to support the Artillery Regiment at Camp Bragg. Initially, balloons and hand-made, single-engine biplanes were stationed at Pope Field. Until 1927 the aircraft at Pope Field were used in passive roles, such as aerial photography, mapping of local terrain, spotting for artillery, reporting forest fires and carrying the mail. In 1927, Maj. Carl Spaatz led a flight of 14 Keystone B-1 Bombers from Pope to demonstrate the practicality of destroying bridges with aerial bombs. The destruction of a condemned bridge on the Pee Dee River confirmed his theory, and its application during World War II significantly shortened the war.

Pope Field was enlarged during the 1930s, and the 32 buildings comprising the Pope AFB Historic District were built during that period of expansion in 1933 and 1934. The district includes two distinct property types: administrative buildings and residences. Common architectural features of these buildings include hollow tile masonry walls, painted stucco exteriors, reinforced concrete foundations and, originally, Spanish tile roofing. One of the most noted buildings, Fleming Hall, which served as Command Headquarters during World War II, is a Georgian Revival, three-story building. The Old Fire Station, building 300, is a one-story building with Spanish tile roof and painted stucco facade--this site later became a Medical Supply building. The Old Family Housing units at Pope AFB consist of 21 one-and two-story dwellings on Etheridge, Maynard and Virgin streets--all characterized by hollow tile masonry set on concrete foundations, with wood floors, painted stucco exteriors, tile roofs, small rear stoops/porches and basements.

Throughout World War II, air and ground crews trained at Pope Field with Army airborne units in preparation for airborne and aerial resupply missions. In 1941 Generals Marshall, McNair and Clark visited Pope Field and witnessed one of the largest air maneuvers in history up to that time: the first mass paratroop drop (more than 500 paratroopers) undertaken in the western hemisphere. In February 1942, a squadron of A-20s based at Pope Field located and sank the first German submarine off the shores of the United States near Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout. The 317th tactical Airlift Wing at Pope Field, which saw extensive service in the Pacific during World War II, was one of the first carrier-based fighter groups formed. After World War II, the Continental Air Command took over Pope Field and maintained control until 1950, when the Tactical Air Command assumed control. In October 1954, the 464th Troop Carrier Wing was transferred to Pope Field and a major period of facility expansion ensued. In 1958 the Wing converted from C-119s to C-129 aircraft, enabling it to establish tactical airlift capability.

During the 1960 earthquake disaster in Chile, Pope AFB was one of two primary areas used to provide medical supplies and personnel assistance to this country. Airlifts of men and materials were sent from Pope AFB to Florida in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Wing received the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award in 1961 and 1963 for assistance to the Vietnamese Air Force. An increase in the Wing's operational capacity occurred with the arrival of the first Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft in 1963, enabling the Wing to carry U. S. Strike Command paratroopers and equipment to any war zone in the world. In 1971, the 464th TAW was deactivated and the 317th TAW administratively moved to Pope AFB. Today Pope Air Force Base is home to the 43rd Airlift Wing and two tenant units: the 23rd Fighter Group and the 18th Air Support Operations Group.

The Pope Air Force Base Historic District includes buildings located along Academy, Ethridge, Maynard and Virgin sts. in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Due to heightened security, the base is not accessible to the public; military or Department of Defense identification card holders and their guests are welcome. Please call Pope Air Force Base Public Affairs at 910-394-4183 for further information.

Maxwell Air Force Base Senior Officers' Quarters Historic District; Building 800; Building 836

Maxwell Air Force Base, historically known as Maxwell Field, is one of the earliest sites used for aviation purposes in the United States. In 1910, Wilbur Wright selected old cotton fields west of Montgomery, Alabama, as a flying field for student pilots training to be Wright-Fliers, an exhibition team organized to promote the Wright brothers' new airplane manufacturing company (The Wright Company). The field was only used by the Wrights from March until May, when pilot training relocated to Huffman Prairie in Dayton, Ohio.

The Federal government leased the former "Wright Field" during World War I to provide an engine and repair depot for the Army Air Service, and purchased the land in January 1920. Almost all Army air stations and depots developed during World War I were leased properties with temporary construction, built to last two to five years. By the mid-1920s, dilapidated wartime buildings had become a national disgrace. Congressional investigations also showed that the strength of the Army air arm was deficient. This critical situation eventually led to the Air Corps Act of 1926 and two major programs that dramatically transformed Army airfields. The Air Corps Act changed the name and status of the Army Air Service to the Army Air Corps, and authorized a five-year expansion program. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, this program and its companion, the 1926 Army Housing Program, produced well-designed, substantial, permanent buildings and infrastructure at all Army airfields retained after World War I.

Maxwell Field benefited greatly from these new building programs. Maxwell's first permanent building, completed in 1928, was a barracks for 163 enlisted men (Building 836). The Air Corps expansion program also caused the Air Corps Tactical School to relocate to Maxwell Field. New construction required for the school included an academic and administration building (Building 800--Austin Hall), a large number of Officers' Quarters (Senior Officers' Quarters Historic District), quarters for Non-Commissioned Officers, two more large barracks for enlisted men, hangars and a number of support buildings. Austin Hall was completed in June 1931 and officially opened with a dedication ceremony in September. A large addition to the south facade doubled the size of the building in 1934.

The Air Corps Tactical School was the first school in the world to teach the tactics and techniques of military aviation. When the Air Service Field Officers' School (its initial name) opened in 1920 at Langley Field, Virginia, it was also the Army's first school to provide professional education for its air officers. The Tactical School played a critical role in the development of Army air doctrine. Unlike the land and sea forces, the fledgling air arm did not have traditions, training principles, and war doctrines developed over centuries. In the 1920s, Langley Field was the breeding ground for visionary and revolutionary ideas of air power that were developed and refined as official air doctrine at Maxwell Field in the 1930s. A significant number of "TAC School" teachers and graduates became key military leaders during World War II and the early Cold War. Austin Hall is also significant because the Order of Daedalians was founded here in March 1934. The organization was established initially for World War I military pilots, with new categories of members and eligibility added after World War II.

TAC School classes were suspended indefinitely in the summer of 1940. Expansion of the Army Air Corps for World War II required huge personnel increases and major reorganization of Air Corps training programs. Austin Hall became the headquarters of the new Southeast Air Corps Training Center, one of three regional centers established to provide pilot, navigator and bombardier training for all new aviation cadets. By the end of World War II, the center at Maxwell was responsible for the training of more than 100,000 cadets.

After the war, a new school called Air University was established at Maxwell to provide professional military education for air officers. In September 1946, classes began at the Air War College and the Air Command and Staff School, two of the first schools established at Air University. Since that time, the university has expanded to include a large number of schools; its Air University Library is the Department of Defense's largest library and the largest Federal library outside of Washington, D.C. Air University continues to be the U.S. Air Force's center for professional military education, also providing academic education, graduate education and professional continuing education for officers, enlisted personnel and civilians.

The Senior Officers' Quarters at Maxwell were constructed from 1932 to 1935 to house teachers and students at the Tactical School. Architects of the Army Quartermaster Corps designed 99 elegant residences for the high-ranking officers and placed them in a neighborhood setting with winding streets, sidewalks, shade trees and open grassy areas. Standardized plans designed for the Army Housing Program were based on historic architectural styles that reflected a region's history and local building materials. At posts on the Atlantic seaboard, buildings were designed in the Quartermaster's version of the "Colonial" style; construction in the Southwest was based on Spanish Mission architecture. The strong French influence in the Deep South during the colonial period inspired Quartermaster architects to design buildings in the Senior Officers' residential area at Maxwell in a style they called French Provencial, also used in the design of buildings at Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Maxwell Air Force Base Senior Officers' Quarters Historic District is roughly bounded by West Dr., N. Juniper and S. Juniper sts., Inner Circle, Center Dr., Sequoia and East drs. Building 800-Austin Hall is located on Second St. and Building 836--Community College of the Air Force Building is located on Maxwell Blvd, near Montgomery, Alabama. All are on Maxwell Air Force Base, an active base. Tours are available but must be scheduled in advance. Please call 334-953-6201 or 334-953-2014 for further information.

Randolph Field Historic District

Randolph Field, Texas, played an exceptional role in the development of the air arm of the U.S. Army, which eventually achieved its independence as the U.S. Air Force in September 1947. It was conceived and designed as a model airfield for flight training in the mid-1920s for the fledgling Army Air Corps. The completed "Air City" became the site of unique Air Corps schools for flying training and aviation medicine, as well as a landmark in airfield planning and design. In addition, administrative headquarters at Randolph Field, including the Air Corps Training Center, the Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center and the Army Air Forces Central Flying Training Command, were keystones in the organizational structure of the Army Air Corps and the Army Air Forces. Their roles were pivotal in the Army air arm's 40-year campaign to become an independent branch of the U.S. armed forces.

The Army began a flying training program soon after delivery of its first airplane to the Signal Corps in the summer of 1909. By the end of World War I there were 27 flying fields for training in the United States, however, all instruction at the schools ceased immediately with the signing of the Armistice (November 11, 1918). Rapid demobilization followed and flying training during the postwar period was erratic for several years. The Army eventually established a flying training system with two levels. Primary Flying Schools were located at Carlstrom Field in Arcadia, Florida, and March Field in Riverside, California. Three Advanced Schools were planned to provide training for pilots specializing in pursuit, bombardment, and observation. However, the Observation School at Post Field at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was the only one to provide advanced training during this period because funds for training were so scarce. To conserve resources, the Army Air Service decided to centralize its flying training in 1922 at two fields about seven miles apart in San Antonio, Texas. Brooks Field provided primary flying training and the Advanced Flying School was located at Kelly Field. Passage of the Air Corps Act in July 1926 led to further reorganization of the flying training program, and the schools at Brooks and Kelly Fields became part of a new organization, the Air Corps Training Center.

Brig. Gen. Frank P. Lahm, one of the two assistants to the Chief of the Air Corps authorized by the Air Corps Act, became the Training Center's first commanding officer. Lahm was a pioneer in American aviation history, the first military officer taught to fly by Wilbur Wright in 1909 and the first American to win an international balloon competition (1906). On April 18, 1927, Lahm appointed a board of five officers to submit plans for a model field for flying training, including housing, administrative and school buildings, hangars, and associated support buildings and infrastructure. War Department General Order No. 12 (September 27, 1928) designated the planned flying field as Randolph Field, named in honor of Captain William M. Randolph, killed in an airplane accident at Gorman, Texas, on February 18, 1928. The dedication ceremony for Randolph Field was held on June 20, 1930, even though less than half of the construction was completed. The Air Corps Primary Flying School opened at Randolph Field on November 2, 1931. Flying training was no longer conducted at Brooks Field, but the Advanced Flying School remained at Kelly Field.

The Air Corps' need for an airfield specifically for flying training led to a radical new concept of airfield layout and design. It broke all previous precedents at Army posts and air stations. Over several years, the original idea for a field with a circular shape evolved into a model airfield for flying training that also incorporated the most advanced principles of the new profession of city planning. The final plan for Randolph Field produced a unique military installation that was an exceptional achievement for Army architects, planners, and Air Corps officers. Buildings and structures were generally constructed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style with hollow core tile and concrete block covered with stucco and roofs of Mission red clay tile. Hangars, however, were built in the Art Deco style and originally had checker-board painted roofs. Most of the buildings were built according to standardized plans designed by the Army Quartermaster Corps in the late 1920s. However, Randolph Field's most prominent buildings--the Administration Building, Chapel, School of Aviation Medicine and Cadet Academic Building--were designed by local architects. This was partly because the Quartermaster Corps did not have standardized plans for these special types of buildings, local architects were more familiar with local building conditions and materials, and the timetable for completing the Air Corps' new field. The entire installation was built in less than three years.

Randolph Field Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, is located at the center of Randolph Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas. Requests for tours must be received in writing at least three weeks prior to the tour date. Tours may be tentatively scheduled by calling 210-652-4407. For more information visit the base's website or contact the 12th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs Office at 210-652-4410.

March Field Historic District

March Field in Riverside, California, was important in the development of the Army Air Corps, serving as the key training and bombardment facility on the West Coast between 1928 and 1943. The airfield is an example of incorporating city planning principles in the layout of military bases and as the first complete aviation post laid out and constructed during peacetime by the Quartermaster Corps and the Army Air Corps. The base is associated with architect Myron Hunt and stands as the only known military base to have been designed by him. On March 20, 1918, the airfield was named in honor of 2nd Lt. Peyton C. March, Jr. who was killed in an aviation accident at Fort Worth, Texas.

The field was utilized as a primary aviation training facility during World War I and continued serving in this capacity thereafter until 1921, one of only two primary pilot schools in operation after the war. However, after the passage of the Air Corps Act, March Field once again became a primary aviation facility from 1927 until 1931, when primary training was consolidated at Randolph Air Force Base. March continued to be the central base for West Coast bombing and gunnery training until 1941. Through the Air Corps expansion program March Field began its second phase with the construction of permanent facilities to reflect the regional topography, climate and history of the area, a trend incorporated into Army base construction during the mid-1920s. The new facilities were constructed in the Mission Revival style and are now believed to be the world's largest group of hollow-wall concrete buildings. Hangars, officers' quarters, industrial buildings, a hospital and base theater, are just some of the 228 buildings, structures and objects which comprise March Field Historic District. The buildings are generally surfaced in concrete, either stucco or poured concrete, and display clay Mission tile roofs.

March Field Historic District is bounded by Meyer and Riverside drs. and Graeber St. in Riverside, California. The March Field Air Museum is located adjacent to the March Air Reserve Base and is open 9:00am to 4:00pm daily, excluding major holidays. Please call 909-697-6602 or visit the museum's website.

Hamilton Army Air Field Discontiguous Historic District

Hamilton Army Airfield, in Novato, California, was built as a bombardment base and the headquarters for the 1st Wing of the Army Air Corps, one of only three bases established for this purpose nationally. The base was utilized for the defense of the western section of the country until 1940. Hamilton Field also played a significant role during World War II in training and national defense by serving as an overseas staging area, acting as one of three major bases of the west coast wing of the Air Transport Command's Pacific Division and for its role in the Operational Training Unit Program. The base was named after Army Air Corps aviation pilot, First Lieutenant Lloyd Andrew Hamilton, originally from Marin County, California, killed while serving his country in World War I. However, the base had been previously known as the Air Corps Station, San Rafael. Construction of Hamilton Airfield commenced on July 1, 1932, with the majority of first phase construction complete by 1935.

Architecturally Hamilton Airfield is significant for its deviation in form and style from other airfields heretofore in existence. The airfield was designed in the Spanish Eclectic style and included planned landscapes which integrated natural oak groves, knolls and hills. However, perhaps most impressive of all was the development of the base as a planned community, an innovative approach in construction of Army bases which had only been adopted in the mid-1920s. Hamilton Field represented a growing trend in construction that reflected the climate, topography and history of the region in the architectural style of the base. Hence the buildings are of hollow tile or reinforced concrete construction with stucco exterior and Mission tile roofs. Architecturally the buildings consist of Spanish Eclectic with Mission, Moorish and Spanish Churrigueresque, Renaissance and Art Moderne elements. The district includes facilities such as officers' housing, a base hospital, a post theater and hangars. After the base's contributions in WWII the base was reassigned several times until buildings and land were transferred to the Navy, Army and Coast Guard. However by 1989 the Army was mandated to close its facilities on Hamilton Air Force Base.

Hamilton Army Air Field Discontiguous Historic District is located primarily on the southwest part of Hamilton Army Air Field in Novato, California. Much of deactivated base was transferred to the city, and Hamilton Field is now a residential community, please visit its website further information.

Rogers Dry Lake

Rogers Dry Lake (also known as Muroc Dry Lake), at Edwards Air Force Base in California, has been used by the U.S. military since 1933 when a small advance party from March Field in Riverside came to design a bombing range for the Army Air Corps. The area proved ideal for flight, with 350 days a year of flying weather and the lake providing a ready-made emergency landing field; four years later the entire Air Corps was performing bombing and gunnery maneuvers here. The south end of the lake was used during World War II for training P-38 Lightning fighter pilots and B-24 Liberator and B-25 Mitchell bomber crews. A realistic 650-foot replica of a Japanese Navy heavy cruiser, dubbed "Muroc-Maru," was used for strafing, identification and skip bombing practices before being removed in 1950.

Col. Benjamin W. Chidlaw and Lt. Col. Ralph P. Swofford chose Muroc Dry Lake in 1942 as the testing location for the then secret Bell-built XP-59A jet airplane. In September, America's first turbojet arrived at Muroc. Since 1942, Edwards Air Force Base (Muroc Air Force Base) and its tenant, the NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility have played a leading role in advancing the capabilities of aerospace technology. Lakebed Runway 18 was typically the landing facility for the X-15, a hypersonic research vehicle that flew for nearly a decade at Edwards. Edwards Air Force Base also served as a support facility for flight operations of the NASA Space Shuttle Orbiter. NASA Space Shuttles, launched from Kennedy Space Center, have utilized Lakebed Runway 23 as a landing strip. Many participants of Edwards Air Force Base's flight testing programs have also played major roles in the American manned spacecraft program, notably NACA-NASA administrator Dr. Walter Williams and test pilot-astronauts Donald Slayton, Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong and Joseph Engle. Rogers Dry Lake made possible the development and testing of generations of American aircraft, leading to the Space Shuttle.

Rogers Dry Lake, a National Historic Landmark, is located at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Due to heightened security, tours have been suspended until further notice. For a virtual tour please visit the base's website.

Variable Density Tunnel

First operational in 1922, the Variable Density Tunnel at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was the first wind tunnel in the world to use the principle of variable density air pressure to test scale model aircraft and it established the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as a technically competent research facility. Max Munk, a German NACA technical assistant who was familiar with European wind tunnel design, designed the Variable Density Tunnel--the first pressurized wind tunnel in the world. The Variable Density Tunnel was able to predict flow characteristics of test aircraft models more accurately than any other tunnel in existence at that time. In 1927 the Variable Density Tunnel was partially destroyed by a fire that damaged its interior. The tunnel was rebuilt and operational by 1930.

The Variable Density Tunnel was deemed obsolete by the standards of the day in the 1940s and was gutted. It was then used as a pressure tank to support the operation of the Vertical Wind Tunnel and Low Turbulence Wind Tunnel. Although declared potentially unsafe for further operations in 1978, all modern Variable Density Tunnels are merely an extension of this idea first formulated and put into operation by Munk in 1921. The Variable Density Tunnel was a technological jump that rejuvenated American aerodynamic research which had fallen behind European countries prior to World War I and eventually led to the development of the best aircraft in the world.

The Variable Density Tunnel, a National Historic Landmark, at Langley Research Center is located at 100 NASA Rd. in Hampton, Virginia. It is closed to the public. Please visit Langley's website for further information.

Full Scale 30- by 60-Foot Tunnel

Almost all high performance aircraft used by the United States before and during World War II were tested at the Full Scale Tunnel at the Langley Research Center in Virginia. By 1929 the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) wind tunnel complex at Langley was completed and producing useful high quality aerodynamic research data, but NACA engineers realized there was a gap in their wind tunnel inventory--a full scale wind tunnel. The design of the Full Scale 30- by 60- Foot Tunnel began in 1929 under the leadership of Smith J. De France. With funds having been appropriated before the start of the Depression, NACA was able to buy materials at bargain prices and utilize talented, unemployed aeronautical engineers. Work on the Full Scale Tunnel progressed quickly and by 1931 the tunnel was complete. Soon a large procession of military aircraft was dispatched to Langley for drag cleanup tests.

During most of World War II the Full Scale Tunnel at Langley, the only tunnel in the world capable of performing these tests, operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In recent years the Full Scale Tunnel has tested aircraft such as the Harrier VTOL fighter, the F-16, the American supersonic transport, the Space Shuttle and the Lunar Landing Vehicle. In 1995, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) terminated its operations at the Full Scale Tunnel and turned the facility over to Old Dominion University for use as an engineering research laboratory.

The Full Scale 30- by 60- Foot Tunnel, a National Historic Landmark, is located at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The facility is closed to the public. Please visit Langley's website for further information.

Eight-Foot High Speed Tunnel

Completed in 1936, the Eight-Foot High Speed Tunnel at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was created by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the parent agency of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It was the first continuous-flow high-speed wind tunnel able to test large models and actual working parts of airplanes. It could also operate indefinitely, giving engineers sufficient time to run their tests and check their results. For the first time NACA engineers had a research tool that could supply high-speed test results on a large scale.

Over the years NACA engineers continued to modify the Eight-Foot High Speed Tunnel, specifically attempting to improve performance in the transonic range (Mach 0.7 to Mach 1.4). The "slotted throat" design, a partially open or slotted wind tunnel wall, added in 1950 made it possible to obtain meaningful test results in the transonic range. Renamed the Eight-Foot Transonic Tunnel, this landmark in wind tunnel design allowed NACA engineers to accurately determine the affect of the transonic range on supersonic fighters and bombers. Although phased out of service in 1956 the Eight-Foot High Speed Tunnel provided the technology upon which the United States constructed rockets that eventually flew to the moon and beyond.

The Eight-Foot High Speed Tunnel, a National Historic Landmark, at Langley Research Center is located at 100 NASA Rd. in Hampton, Virginia. It is closed to the public. Please visit Langley's website for further information.

Wendover Air Force Base

Wendover Air Force Base, located just south of the town of Wendover, Utah, played an important role in training heavy bombardment crews and ushering in the atomic age. The base was first conceived in 1939 when the Army Air Corps commenced an extensive expansion program. High on the Air Corps list was the construction of adequate bombing and gunnery ranges. By 1940 a site was located at Wendover, and work began in November of that year. Initially the Air Corps desired some three million acres of land of which 90 percent was public domain. However, because of grazing commitments to local ranchers and farmers, only one and a half million acres were allocated. On April 6, 1942, the first training unit arrived and found the area ideal for bombing and gunnery practice due to the terrain of the region and lack of large population centers. Twenty-one heavy bomb groups trained in Wendover including the 306th BG (first to daylight bomb Nazi Germany), the famed 100th BG (known as the bloody 100th due to aircraft losses) and the Flying Tigers 308th Bomb Group which served in China, Burma and India. Additionally, members of three bomb groups trained in Wendover won the Medal of Honor. The base also served as the test and training site for the atomic bomb and the 509th Composite Group under the command of Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. It was Colonel Tibbits, flying his B-29, "Enola Gay," who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.

The 509th Group was organized December 17, 1944, and trained at Wendover until May 1945, when they left for Tinian Island in the Marianas. During the group's stay at Wendover, the base became a maximum-security area with signs stating, "What you see here, What you do here, What you hear here, Stays here." Information about the group's mission was so restricted that even members of the 509th did not know the purpose of this training, although Colonel Tibbets was briefed on the Manhattan Project (the code name the U.S. government used for its plan to build an atomic bomb) in September 1944 and given authority to add modifications necessary to make the B-29 capable of delivering the atomic bomb. The crew of the Enola Gay proved that an atomic bomb could be used under combat conditions.

During the final days of World War II and for a short time in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Wendover played a role in the U.S. guided missile program. The first flight of an unmanned U.S. Air Force vehicle to break the sound barrier occurred over the Wendover bombing range. The American "JB-2," a version of the German V-1 rocket, was also extensively tested at Wendover.

Wendover Air Force Base was closed by the Air Force in 1963. The buildings that remain are typical of military buildings constructed during World War II. The frame buildings were neglected after the base's closing, and fell into disrepair until the Historic Wendover Air Field Museum restored them for the benefit of the public.

Wendover Air Force Base is located half a mile south of the town of Wendover, Utah, along the Nevada border. The Wendover Airfield Museum preserves the restored hangars and other buildings, and displays maintenance and training equipment. The operations center, fueling service and museum are open from 8:00am to 6:00pm daily. A self-guided driving tour is available and guided tours can be arranged by calling in advance. Visit the museum's website at www.wendoverairbase.com for more information.

Eglin Field Historic District

Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, has made major contributions to the defense of the United States in the development of tactical strategies, testing of weaponry and missile research. Development of the military base began in 1933 when U.S. Army Air Corps officials from Maxwell, Alabama, initiated a search for a site suitable for a bombing and gunnery range. In 1935 the War Department acquired by lease 137 acres of land near Valparaiso on which to build an airport. Eglin eventually grew to be the largest Air Force base in the Western Hemisphere, and played an important role in World War II. It covers 724 square miles of land and 86,500 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico. There are more than 3,000 buildings on the base, of which 164 were built during World War II. The Eglin Field Historic District contains 20 buildings representative of that era. These buildings are distinguished by the structural clay tile used in their wall construction. The administrative buildings and residences are rectangular in form, capped by shallow-pitched roofs and lack ornamentation. Common plans for wartime buildings, the urgency of wartime, local environmental conditions, and the availability of construction materials, dictated the design of Eglin's buildings. Some of the family housing quarters in the district display architectural characteristics related to the Minimal Traditional style, which reflects the transition from the earlier pre-War Tudor and Colonial Revival styles and the post-war Ranch style.

During World War II, Eglin Field served as the nation's principle station for air warfare experimentation. Accelerated aircraft and armament tests began in September 1941, three months before Pearl Harbor. In May 1941, the Army Air Corps designated Eglin as the Air Corps Proving Ground, removing it from the jurisdiction of the Southeast Air Corps Training Command and placing the base immediately under the control of the Chief of Air Corps. It was at Eglin Field that Lt. Col. James "Jimmy" Doolittle's B-25 crews from the 89th Reconnaissance Squadron and 17th Bombardment Group practiced short-field take-offs in preparation for the carrier-based raid on Tokyo on April 18, 1942. Although the damage the bombs inflicted was relatively small, the psychological effect on the Japanese was significant and America's resolve was strengthened. The primary purpose of the Proving Ground was to provide a station for tactical tests of aircraft armament and accessory equipment and of aviation tactics and techniques. Also, it was here, that final tests of the B-17, the workhorse of the allied air effort against Nazi Germany, were completed and evaluations of the B-29, which was to be employed against the Japanese isles, were initiated. Charles Lindbergh accompanied a flight from Eglin Field January 21, 1944, in an experimental XB-29, which had arrived at the base for tests. The crew of the flight included 1st Lt. F.A. Lewis and Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets, who flew the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic weapon on Hiroshima, Japan, and Charles Sweeney, who flew in the B-29 that dropped the second atomic weapon upon Nagasaki. By late 1944, development of a U.S. version of the German V-1 missile had begun at the proving grounds. During the war, it became apparent to military planners that America needed armaments and materials that could function in all climates and under all circumstances. To meet this need, the United States designed and constructed the McKinley Climatic Laboratory at Eglin.

Eglin Field Historic District is roughly bounded by Barranca, Choctawhatchee, Fourth and "F" aves. on the Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. It is an active base and generally not accessible to the public. However, group tours (20 to 40 people) are available for high-school age and older, depending on AAC mission demands and security levels. Each group must provide its own bus transportation and will be accompanied by an Eglin escort. Contact the Eglin Community Relations department a minimum of three months prior to the desired tour date at 850-882-2817 (or try ext. 2836 or 2879).

McKinley Climatic Laboratory

America's involvement in a global conflict in World War II meant that aircraft would be subjected to a variety of climates, ranging from arctic conditions in Alaska and hot deserts in the Middle East to tropical rain forests in the Far East. In the winter of 1942 to 1943, the otherwise efficient German Air Force could not get its aircraft in the air during sub-zero weather. This grounding of the entire German Air Force, coupled with the difficulties the Cold Weather Test Detachment was experiencing at Ladd Field, Alaska, made it clear to the United States that cold weather-testing was indeed necessary, and a reliable means of testing must be found. The cold weather-testing program was officially assigned to the Army Air Force Proving Ground Command (AAFPGC) at Eglin Field, Florida, on 9 September 1943. Lt. Colonel Ashley C. McKinley reasoned that testing under controlled conditions would yield far superior test results and would be up to 10 times more economical that testing at Ladd Field, which had been expensive and produced only meager results. He further suggested that all U.S. aircraft and equipment be operable at -65 degrees Fahrenheit, and that a refrigerated hangar be constructed to produce such an environmental extreme under controlled conditions. The solution was to construct a refrigerated hangar at Eglin Field. This project called for a hangar type building of sufficient size to house a Main Chamber for aircraft as large as a B-29, several separate cold rooms, armament test chambers, shops and offices. The plans for the project were approved in 1944. Despite the high priority of its construction, the Climatic Laboratory's planned completion date of March 1945 was repeatedly delayed by a combination of technological challenges, wartime material shortages, and post-war strikes by sub-contractors. By May 1947, the first tests were conducted under a simulated arctic environment. Aircraft tested included a Fairchild Packet, a Boeing B-29, a Lockheed P-80, a North American P-51, a Lockheed P-38, and a Sikorsky R5D helicopter. During the tests, temperatures as low as -70 degrees Fahrenheit were reached. The first attempts at the recreation of Arctic conditions on a large scale were successful. With the completion of the Eglin Climatic Hangar, the newly born U.S. Air Force acquired its largest and most important test facility. As Col. McKinley played a key role in its design and construction, the Climatic Hangar was renamed in his honor following his death in 1970.

Within 50 years, more than 300 different aircraft and 2000 other equipment items were tested for the Department of Defense, private industry, and a number of allied governments. On the purely technical side, its merits and achievements were record setting. Cold weather testing was for the first time, put on a permanent, scientific basis. Early Air Force tests proved so successful that the Climatic Hangar became a facility utilized by all Department of Defense agencies. Several renovations to the Climatic Hangar were later needed in 1968 with the design and construction of the C-5A aircraft. The Salt Test Chamber and Sun, Wind, Rain & Dust chamber were added in 1973 to 1975. Recently, renovations have concentrated on the removal of ozone-depleting coolants.

The Climatic Laboratory consists of six chambers, four in the main building, Building 440, and two detached chambers in Buildings 430 and 448. The Main Chamber is the largest known insulated aircraft hangar, having a total enclosed volume of approximately 3, 282,500 cubic feet. The size of the chamber, 252 feet wide by 201 feet deep by 70 feet high in the center and 35 feet high at the sides, permits testing of the world's largest aircraft and very large pieces of equipment. An area was added to the main chamber in 1968 to specifically allow the C-5a Galaxy to be tested. This appendent area is approximately 60 feet by 85 feet with a ceiling height of 75 feet. With this appendent area included, usable floor space is approximately 55,000 square feet. The floors consist of 12 inches of reinforced concrete laid in blocks 12-1/2 feet square. The sidewalls have reinforced concrete and tile construction from the floor to a height of 28 feet. Above the concrete and tile, the entire building is made of steel. The entrance into the hangar, known as the Main Doors, encompasses the entire front side of the hangar. Self-supporting and self-propelled, the large door is built in two sections, each weighing 200 tons.

The McKinley Climatic Laboratory is located in Building 440 on Eglin Air Force Base. It is an active base and generally not accessible to the public. However, group tours (20 to 40 people) are available for high-school age and older, depending on AAC mission demands and security levels. Each group must provide its own bus transportation and will be accompanied by an Eglin escort. Contact the Eglin Community Relations department a minimum of three months prior to the desired tour date at 850-882-2817 (or try ext. 2836 or 2879).

Ladd Field

Ladd Field was established in 1940 originally as a Cold Weather Test Station at the insistence of Maj. Gen. H.H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Corps. Construction began in the fall of 1938. Named in honor of Maj. Arthur K. Ladd, killed in an aircraft accident in South Carolina in 1935, it was built just east of Fairbanks, Alaska. The first Army Air Corps troops arrived at the field in April 1940. Its World War II facilities were designed to fulfill three missions: cold weather experimental station, air depot for repair and testing of aircraft and the principle base in Alaska for the Air Transport Command. Here, at Alaska's first army airfield, vital lessons were learned in wing-icing, navigation, aircraft maintenance and operation, instruments and controls, radio communication, cold weather-clothing, armament and a wide variety of other investigations for operating aircraft in arctic-like conditions. As the Japanese prepared to invade the Aleutians in 1942, the 11th Air Force established an Air Depot at Ladd Field for the repair, testing and supply of aircraft in the Alaska Theater. Beginning in 1942, Ladd Field also became the center of the "Alsib (Alaska/Siberia) Movement," wherein nearly 8,000 military aircraft from the United States were transferred to Russian aircrews for use on the Russian Front, where the Soviet forces engaged the invading armies of Nazi Germany and its allies. Despite Alaska's harsh winters, this air-ferry route came to be preferred over the longer Miami-Iraq-Moscow route. Soviet diplomats and missions also traveled through Ladd Field during the enroute to and from the Soviet Union and the United States. A contingent of Soviet pilots landed at Ladd on September 24 to begin five days of training before flying the new airplanes home. The Americans wanted to deliver the airplanes to Siberia, but Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, wishing to avoid an appearance of U.S.-Soviet collaboration in the Far East, suggested that the pilots pick up the aircraft in Alaska. The Soviet Union and Japan were not at war until the closing days of World War II, and the Soviets seemed to want to avoid any incidents that might incite the Japanese.

The first Air Corps troops arrived at Ladd Field in September 1940, and soon the first B-17 Flying Fortress arrived for experimental work. Cold weather-testing continued at Ladd Field until the spring of 1942 when concern over a Japanese invasion caused the Alaska Department to request the testing be halted. The 11th Air Force took over the field and established an air depot for aircraft repair, service and supply for the Alaska Theater. Within a few months, however, the commanding General of the Army Air Forces directed the reestablishment of cold weather-testing, which continued well after the conclusion of World War II. The establishment of the Air Depot at Ladd in 1942 resulted in the addition of nearly 1,000 officers and men to the garrison. Depot activities, combined with those of the Air Transport Command, resulted in the extension of the existing runway, construction of a second and the building of additional hangars and housing. The Air Transport Command took over Ladd Field in October 1943. By September 1945, when the Russian mission left Alaska, 7,930 aircraft had been delivered to the Soviets by way of the Alsib movement. On November 1, 1945, the Air Transport Command transferred Ladd Field back to the 11th Air Force. Fifteen years later, on January 1, 1961, the Department of the Air Force transferred Ladd Air Force Base to the Department of the Army. The Department renamed the now historic field Fort Jonathan M. Wainwright, for the heroic World War II commander of American forces of Corregidor in Manila Bay in the Philippines.

Because of the extremely cold winters in Alaska's interior, all buildings for the original garrison were permanent in nature. Officers' quarters are arranged in a horseshoe, centered on an open lawn. The huge, metal-clad Hangar No. 1 was the first to be completed at Ladd, in 1941. East, west and south of the hangar are extensive concrete or earthen aircraft parking areas where, later, airplanes destined for the Soviet Union received final preparation. Beyond them is the first of two parallel runways at Ladd Field. In 1941, this reinforced-concrete runway was 5,000 feet in length. By 1943, gravel extensions had been laid out at each end, giving a total length of over 9,000 feet. Two Kodiak, T-type hangars were erected at the end of the parking area east of Hangar No. 1. In 1943 three Birchwood-type hangars were authorized for the south side of the enlarged field. These nearly identical buildings are extant, and in good condition. For a complete copy of the National Historic Landmark registration form for Ladd Field, click here.

Ladd Field, now known as Fort Wainwright , is a National Historic Landmark, and is located on State Rte. 3, bordering the Tanana River, east of Fairbanks, Alaska. Individual tours of the base can be obtained (no large group tours, however); in this time of heightened security no foreign nationals may accompany these tours. Please call Fort Wainwright's Public Affairs at 907-353-6682 for more information. You can also download (in pdf) the Ladd Field National Historic Landmark nomination.

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site

The Tuskegee Institute, established by Booker T. Washington in the 1880s in Tuskegee, Alabama, to educate African Americans, was the center for African American aviation during World War II and home to the Tuskegee Airmen. The few African Americans who learned to fly in the early 1900s were self-taught or trained oversees. In 1939, the U.S government passed the Civilian Pilot Training (CPT) Act, authorizing selected schools, including the Tuskegee Institute, to provide basic training for black pilots in case of a national emergency. The following year, Tuskegee was authorized to teach advanced CPT courses. With the outbreak of World War II the U.S. military chose the Tuskegee Institute to train pilots for the war effort because Tuskegee had the facilities, engineering and technical instructors and a climate well suited for year round flying.

Moton Field at the Tuskegee Institute was built between 1940 and 1942, and named for Robert Russa Moton, second president of Tuskegee Institute. The facility included two aircraft hangars, a control tower, locker building, clubhouse, wooden offices and storage buildings, brick storage buildings, and a vehicle maintenance area. Staff from Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama, provided assistance in selecting and mapping the site. Architect Edward C. Miller and engineer G. L. Washington designed many of the buildings. Archie A. Alexander, an engineer and contractor, oversaw construction of the flight school facilities. Tuskegee Institute laborers and skilled workers helped finish the field so that flight training could start on time. The Army Air Corps assigned officers to oversee the training at Tuskegee's Moton Field. They furnished cadets with textbooks, flying clothes, parachutes and mechanic suits. Tuskegee Institute, the civilian contractor, provided facilities for the aircraft and personnel, including quarters and a mess for the cadets, hangars and maintenance shops, and offices for Air Corps personnel, flight instructors, ground school instructors and mechanics. Tuskegee Institute was one of the very few American institutions to own, develop, and control facilities for military flight instruction.

On July 19, 1941, the first class, which included Capt. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. began rigorous training in subjects such as meteorology, navigation and instruments. Successful cadets then transferred to the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field, built five miles away by the Army Air Corps, to complete their pilot training. More than 1,000 pilots were trained at the two fields to form one of the most highly respected U.S. fighter groups of World War II. Under the command of Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. the 332nd fighter group--comprised of the 99th, 100th, 301st and 302nd fighter squadrons--flew successful missions over Sicily, the Mediterranean and North Africa. The fight group was known to bomber crews as the "Red-Tail Angels" after the markings on their aircraft, or the "Black" or "Lonely Eagles," as well as the "Black Bird Men" by the German air force. The Tuskegee Airmen completed 15,000 sorties, in approximately 1,500 missions, destroyed more than 260 enemy aircraft, sank one enemy destroyer and demolished numerous enemy installations. The Tuskegee Airmen were awarded many high honors, including Distinguished Flying Crosses, Legions of Merit, Silver Stars, Purple Hearts, the Croix de Guerre and the Red Star of Yugoslavia. In 1945, the 332nd Fighter Group was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for "outstanding performance and extraordinary heroism." Having fought America's enemies abroad, the Tuskegee Airmen returned home to join the struggle for equality. The 477th Bombardment Group staged a peaceful protest for equal rights at Freeman Field, Indiana, in April 1945. The Tuskegee Airmen and the 10,000 African Americans that served as flight instructors, officers, bombardiers, navigators, radio technicians, mechanics, air traffic controllers, parachute riggers, electrical and communications specialists, laboratory assistants, cooks, musicians, and supply, fire fighting and transportation personnel, paved the way for full racial integration of the United States military. A portion of Moton Field was deeded to the city of Tuskegee for use as a municipal airport which is still in use today, while the remaining portions of the field and many of the associated buildings are currently being restored by the National Park Service. Nearby Tuskegee Army Air Field was closed after the war and is now used by a private hunting club.

The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service, is located at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama. It is open 9:00am to 4:30pm, central time, excluding major holidays. Please call 334-727-6390 or visit the park's website for further information. For further information, visit the Legends of Tuskegee web exhibit produced by the National Park Service's Museum Management Program. The National Park Service also adminsters the nearby Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, which contains the original buildings of this institute and now forms the historic campus of Tuskegee University.

United States Naval Base, Pearl Harbor

The United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii, is significant historically as a strategic port that helped the United States become a formidable world power. Construction of the base at Pearl Harbor commenced in 1908 and officially opened when the USS California sailed into harbor in 1911. By 1916 Pearl Harbor was the headquarters of a naval district and subsequently became the command center for the Pacific Fleet. The naval base contains approximately 300 buildings of historic significance, but among the most notable are Drydock #1, the Arizona and Utah Memorials, and moorings F6, 7 and 8.

The Pearl Harbor Naval Base is the site of the December 7, 1941 surprise aerial attack by the Japanese upon American Pacific forces, that thrust the United States into World War II. This devastating attack took more than 2,000 lives. The battleship USS Arizona was sunk and 1,177 American crewmen were entombed within its confines. Altogether 18 ships were sunk or disabled. Of the eight battleships at Pearl Harbor the Arizona, California and West Virginia were sunk; the Nevada was grounded; the Oklahoma capcized, and the others were damaged. The remains of the USS Arizona today serve as a memorial to the men who lost their lives that fateful day. The shrine which rests atop the ship's superstructure can be accessed by motor launch. Pearl Harbor has continued its role as a United States naval base since 1911.

The United States Naval Base, Pearl Harbor, a National Historic Landmark, is located along Hwy. 73 three miles south of Pearl City on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Due to heightened security, access to the base is restricted with exception to the USS Arizona Memorial. A virtual tour is available online.

USS Arizona Memorial

The battle-scarred and submerged remains of the battleship USS Arizona located just off the island of Oahu, Hawaii, are the focal point of a shrine erected by the United States to honor and commemorate all American servicemen killed in the Japanese air attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The USS Arizona, laid down at the New York Navy Yard and commissioned on October 17, 1916, as a part of the Atlantic Fleet, was sent to join the Pacific Fleet in 1921 where it remained until the end of its career. At 7:55am on December 7, 1941, the Japanese unleashed the first wave of an air attack on the United States. Under the command of Commander Mitsuo Fuchido, the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor, Hickam Air Force Base , Ewa, Wheeler Field and Kaneohe Air Base, catching the Army, Navy and Marine forces off guard.

The second wave, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Shigekazu Shimazaki, struck Bellows Airfield, Kanehoe, Hickam and Pearl Harbor approximately one hour later at 8:50am. Japanese torpedoes, bombs and projectiles slammed into ships, aircraft and men, wreaking a terrible toll. The USS Arizona suffered from several hits and around 8:10am the battleship was dealt its deathblow, a 1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb that slammed through its deck and ignited its forward ammunition magazine. The Arizona reportedly received eight more bomb hits as it sank. When the attack was over, American losses totaled at least eight battleships, three light cruisers, three destroyers and four auxiliary craft either sunk, capsized or damaged, 188 aircraft lost and 159 damaged, and 2,403 killed or missing and 1,178 wounded. Approximately half of the dead came from the USS Arizona, with fewer than 200 of the 1,117 aboard surviving. As a result of this attack, the United States entered World War II and defeated Japan in 1945 following the dropping of two nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1962 a memorial was constructed and by 1980 visitation had increased so much that legislation was passed that authorized the National Park Service to operate the new USS Arizona Memorial.

The USS Arizona Memorial, a National Historic Landmark located at Pearl Harbor Naval Base and administered by the National Park Service, is located off State Hwy. 99 (Kamehameha Hwy.) about a 45-minute drive west of Waikiki, Hawaii. The memorial is open daily 7:30am to 5:00pm. Please call 808-422-0561, or visit the park's website for further information.

The USS Arizona Memorial is the subject of an online-lesson plan produced by Teaching with Historic Places, a National Register program that offers classroom-ready lesson plans on properties listed in the National Register. To learn more, visit the Teaching with Historic Places home page.

Opana Radar Station

The Opana Radar Site on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu marks the first operational use of radar by the United States in wartime. In December 1939, the U.S. military, experimenting with the advantages of radar, established an Aircraft Warning Service (AWS) that used radar for the defense of American territory. Under the command of Col. Wilfred H. Tetley the AWS established six mobile radar detector sets at Kawaiola, Wainae, Kaawa, Kokohead, Schofield Barracks and Fort Shafter. On Thanksgiving Day in 1941, the same day the Japanese fleet sailed for its Pearl Harbor mission, the radar set from Schofield Barracks was moved to the Opana Radar Site, a location 532 feet above sea level that provided an unobstructed view of the Pacific Ocean. The unit was comprised of four trucks carrying the transmitter, modulator, water cooler, receiver, oscilloscope, operator, generator and antenna.

On December 7, 1941, the Opana Radar Site was manned by Private Joseph L. Lockard and Private George Elliot, who detected approaching aircraft at 7:02am while practicing with the radar equipment. The men reported their findings to the temporary information center at Fort Shafter. The information center staff had gone to breakfast and Lt. Kermit Tyler received the report. Tyler reasoned that the activity was a flight of Army B-17 bombers scheduled to arrive at that morning and advised the radar crew not to worry. Elliot and Lockard continued plotting the incoming planes until 7:40 when contact was lost. Shortly before 8:00am the two men headed to Kawailoa for breakfast and only learned about the attack when they arrived. Elliot and Lockard rushed back to Opana and operated the radar until the attack ended. The missed opportunity to correctly identify the incoming Japanese air attack is one of the great "what might have beens" of military history. Today, a modern Navy telecommunications station occupies the top of the Opana Hill adjacent to the Opana Radar Site.

The Opana Radar Site, a National Historic Landmark, is located off the Kamehameha Hwy. on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. It is not accessible to the public.

Hickam Field

Hickam Field, adjacent to Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base, was established in 1935 as Hawaii's principal army airfield and bomber base. On December 7, 1941, 51 airplanes were on the ground at Hickam, the headquarters of the Hawaii Air Force, and a flight of 12 B-17s was expected to arrive that morning. The first wave of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was primarily targeting battleships and carriers, but the airfields were also to be hit to prevent a counterattack against the Japanese bombers and torpedo planes.

At Hickam Field, Japanese Zero fighters and Val dive-bombers strafed and bombed the fight line and hangars, concentrating on the B-17 bombers. The 12 U.S. B-17s arrived unarmed and low on fuel during the attack. Most succeeded in landing at Hickam where they were attacked on the ground. The second wave of the Japanese attack struck Hickam at 8:40am and by 9:45 the attack was over. Nearly half of the airplanes at Hickam Field had been destroyed or severely damaged. The hangars, the Hawaiian Air Depot, several base facilities--the fire station, the chapel and the guardhouse--had been hit.

The big barracks had been repeatedly strafed and bombed and a portion of the building was on fire. Thirty-five men were killed when a bomb hit the mess hall during breakfast. Hickam's casualties totaled 121 men killed, 274 wounded and 37 missing. Despite the damage inflicted by the Japanese, they ignored the vital repair facilities and gasoline storage tanks at Hickam, Pearl Harbor and elsewhere on Oahu. Hickam Field emerged from the attack stronger than before and played an important role in World War II and since. Today, Hickam is the headquarters of the Pacific Air Force. For a complete copy of the National Historic Landmark registration form for Hickam Field, click here.

Hickam Field, a National Historic Landmark, is a part of Hickam Air Force Base. A virtual tour is available on the website. Guided tours are offered on Wednesdays (mission and security conditions allowing) for groups of 10 or more people when scheduled in advance. Call 808-449-2490 for further information. You can also download (in pdf) the Hickam Field National Historic Landmark nomination.

Wheeler Field

Established in 1922 as an Army airfield, Wheeler Field was the principal Army Air Corps field in Hawaii during the 1920s and early 1930s. Several "firsts" in flight history occurred at Wheeler--a 1927 nonstop flight from Oakland, California, to Wheeler and in 1935 Amelia Earhart took off from Wheeler on the first solo flight between Hawaii and California. By December 1941, Wheeler contained the headquarters of the 14th Pursuit Wing and the 15th and 18th Pursuit Groups and approximately 90 aircraft.

During the first wave of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, 25 dive-bombers dropped approximately 35 bombs on the hangars at Wheeler Field. The Japanese airplanes returned to strafe the fight line, turning it into a river of fire. Four fighters from the 46th Pursuit Squadron were able to take to the air and attack the Japanese over southeastern Oahu. The second Japanese wave arrived and strafed the field, but caused little more damage before the attack ended at 9:45am. Eighty-three aircraft had been destroyed, 38 enlisted men were killed and 59 men were wounded. Wheeler Field quickly recovered and played an important role in World War II. The Seventh Air Service Command was established at Wheeler in 1944 to provide service and support for the B-29 bombers in the Marianas which began massive raids against Japan that fall. Placed in care-taking status in 1949, Wheeler Field was reactivated during the Korean War and houses Army helicopters today.

Wheeler Field, a National Historic Landmark, is adjacent to Schofield Barracks in central Oahu. It is located on the Wheeler Army Airfield, an active base and due to heightened security concerns, it is not accessible to the public.

World War II Facilities at Midway

The World War II Facilities at Midway are recognized for the historic role they played in a crucial World War II battle in the Pacific Theater of operations. Midway is a coral atoll six miles in diameter with three islands--Sand, Eastern and Spit. The atoll's name is said to come from its location, midway between San Francisco and Tokyo. Geographically, it is a part of the Hawaiian chain of islands, located 1,140 nautical miles from Oahu; politically, it has never been a part of the state of Hawaii. The United States took formal possession of the unoccupied islands in 1867. The U.S. Navy assumed jurisdiction over Midway in 1903, and remained custodian of the atoll until 1996. The Commercial Pacific Cable Company established a communications station on Sand Island. The cable establishment gained company in 1935 when Pan American Airways' Clippers arrived at Midway and established weekly commercial flights across the Pacific. Pan Am built a small hotel and flight facilities on Sand Island. Because of this commercial enterprise, the U.S. Congress authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge an entrance channel between the islands, a harbor and seaplane runways in the lagoon as a civil works project in 1938. Later, the U.S. Navy contributed funds and the dredging increased in scope in preparation for a naval air station. In 1939 the Navy established a partnership with several construction firms, which formed Contractors Pacific Naval Air Base for the construction of facilities for two patrol airplane squadrons on Sand Island. The civilian employees also began construction of land runways on Eastern Island. A U.S. Marine detachment assigned to Midway arrived in September 1940. They belonged to the 3rd Defense Battalion and promptly began constructing defenses. In September 1941, the 6th Marine Defense Battalion replaced the 3rd Defense Battalion.

The first Japanese attack on Midway occurred on December 7, 1941, when destroyers successfully shelled naval installations. Then, flush with victory after victory in the Pacific and southeast Asia, Japan prepared in the spring of 1942 to capture the Midway Islands, establish a toehold in the Aleutians, and draw out what was left of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and decisively defeat it. Centered on four aircraft carriers, the Japanese fleet of 162 warships and auxiliaries approached Midway in the first days of June. Due to the breaking of most of Japan's JN 25 Naval codes, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, learned that Japan was planning a massive raid on Midway in the spring of 1942. Admiral Nimitz ordered his forces, centered on three carriers, to sea to intercept the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Marines, Navy and Army personnel on Midway worked furiously to strengthen their defenses. On June 3, Midway's aircraft spotted a part of the Japanese invasion fleet approaching. Before dawn, on June 4, the Japanese launched 108 aircraft, which attacked both Sand and Eastern islands, inflicting considerable damage. U.S. airplanes took to the air from Midway to counter the attack but the Marine fighters suffered greatly. Earlier, strike aircraft consisting of Army Air Corps bombers, Marine scout bombers and Navy torpedo planes departed Midway to attack the Japanese carriers. These Midway-based attacks were unsuccessful but added to the Japanese confusion and aided in the outcome of the battle. The Japanese, unaware that the American carrier aircraft were fast approaching, decided to launch a second attack upon Midway. The American carrier dive bombers struck while the Japanese were still rearming and the strike force aircraft were still on the carrier’s decks. At the end of the Battle of Midway, all four Japanese carriers, which were involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor, had been sunk, while the United States lost the carrier Yorktown. The Japanese lost 256 of their finest aircraft, and more than 200 of their most experienced pilots and several thousand sailors perished. The Japanese Navy never fully recovered and its expansion into the Pacific had been stopped. American naval power in the Pacific was restored. The American victory at Midway was the turning point of the Pacific campaign of World War II.

In 1942, the Seventh Air Force sent the 73rd Fighter Squadron to Midway to relieve the badly battered Marine fighter squadron, VMF 221. After the Battle of Midway, the Seventh Air Force bombers staged through Midway on raids to Japanese-held Wake Island. By the middle of 1943, Midway's population had reached 5,000 and the atoll had a critical submarine base and a new air base on Sand Island. In 1945, air operations on Eastern Island were closed, except as an emergency landing field. Pan Am, which had returned to Midway after the war, closed its operations there in 1947, the same year the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) took over Midway's airport operations remaining on Sand Island until 1950. In 1957, a major $40 million building program got underway on Sand Island when Midway became home of the Pacific Airborne Early Warning portion of the DEW line, a network of radar picket ships to give a distant early warning of aircraft or missile attack on North America. Many of the quarters built at that time have since been removed. On October 31, 1996, through a presidential executive order, the jurisdiction and control of the atoll was transferred to the Fish and Wildlife Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior as part of the National Wildlife Refuge system. The World War II Facilities at Midway consist of ammunition magazines, a concrete pillbox, gun emplacements for 3-inch batteries, which were manned by U.S. Marines, and two emplacements for the 3-inch naval battery, all on Sand Island. Other properties associated with the defense of Midway, but not listed in the National Register, include seaplane ramps/hangar on Sand Island and the Eastern Island runways.

The World War II Facilities at Midway,a National Historic Landmark, are located on Sand and Eastern Islands of the Midway Atoll. Midway Atoll is managed as a national wildlife refuge and open to the public. Midway’s rich historical heritage was recently commemorated by the designation of a National Memorial to those who fought in the Battle of Midway. For more information, visit the National Wildlife Refuge's website.

The World War II Facilities at Midway are the subject of an online-lesson plan produced by Teaching with Historic Places, a National Register program that offers classroom-ready lesson plans on properties listed in the National Register. To learn more, visit the Teaching with Historic Places home page.

Radar Station B-71

The Klamath River Radar Station B-71 in is a rare survivor of a World War II early-warning radar station, the first step toward the more sophisticated and pioneering early-warning radar defense network. Rather than using camouflage materials, the buildings of Radar Station B-71 were constructed to resemble farm buildings to disguise their true purpose. The station consists of three buildings: a power building disguised as a farmhouse, an operations building disguised as a barn and a functional wood frame two-stall privy or outhouse, now a partially collapsed ruin. The two major buildings were constructed for the Army by a private contractor specifically for the early warning aircraft station, and consist of block walls roughly two feet thick covered with wood-framed gable roofs with wood shingle finish.

As a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor and in the Aleutian Islands, the necessity of guarding American coastlands became more urgent on the Pacific Coast than on the Atlantic. The threat was further demonstrated when a Japanese submarine shelled an oil refinery north of Santa Barbara, California, on February 23, 1942. Another Japanese submarine shelled Esteven Point in British Columbia, Canada, on June 20, 1942, and again at Fort Stevens, Washington, on July 21, 1942. On September 9, 1942, a Japanese submarine-launched aircraft dropped incendiary bombs on Oregon forests roughly 40 miles north of the Klamath River. The radar station south of the Klamath River, in what is now Redwood National Park, was built in late 1942 and early 1943 as the northernmost California station in a network of 72 proposed stations, 65 of which were actually built, stretching from the Canadian border into Mexico. The Klamath station was designated by memorandum dated November 6, 1942, from the Office of the Commanding General, IV Fighter Command, as Station B-71, named "Trinidad." It was also referred to as the "Klamath River" station.

The station was manned by members of the Army Air Corps quartered in barracks near the town of Klamath. One day's operation of the station required a crew of about 35 men to cover the 24 hours in shifts. The station reported by direct telephone to an Aircraft Warning Service Filter Office in Berkeley, California. As the threat of Japanese attack waned towards the end of World War II, the coastal early radar stations began to be phased out. But with the need for early-warning radar decreasing, the need for air-sea rescue radar increased, and effective July 1, 1944, the Klamath station was converted to emergency rescue service, with the SCR-271 radar replaced with the RC-150 IFF equipment. Station B-71 was thus one of only 22 radar stations on the Pacific Coast, which remained operational until the end of World War II. Station B-71 was abandoned and reverted to private ownership after the war, until the National Park Service acquired it with the creation of Redwood National Park.

Located in Redwood National Park in Northern California, Radar Station B-71 is located on Coastal Dr., just south of the mouth of Klamath River. From the south, take Newton B. Drury Scenic Pkwy. to Coastal Dr. (trailers and motor homes not permitted). A trail leads to the station from the road, although the buildings are not open. The park headquarters is located at Second and K sts. in Crescent City. Visit the park's website or call 707-464-6101 ext. 5064 for further information.

Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears, U.S. Army

Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears are located on Amaknak Island in Unalaska Bay, in the Aleutian Islands Chain, 800 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska. In early June 1942, Japanese aircraft attacked Unalaska in a fierce two-day bombardment that resulted in 43 American deaths. At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor these two bases were the only U.S. defenses in the Aleutians, and they continued as important coastal defenses throughout the war.

In 1912, the U.S. Navy installed a radio station at Dutch Harbor. In the Washington Naval Treaty of 1912, the United States agreed not to fortify the Aleutians. Even when Japan withdrew from the treaty in 1934, the United States took no steps to fortify the Aleutians. Not until 1938 did a Navy board urge the construction of naval, air and submarine bases at Dutch Harbor and Kodiak and an air base at Sitka. At Dutch Harbor, construction began in July 1940 on both army and naval installations, the army mission being defense of the naval air station. When the first army troops arrived at Dutch Harbor in May 1941, they found a new Marine Barracks and Dutc