Category Book of Flight

О DAY, specialized aircraft perform a variety of

important jobs. Planes transport military troops, carry relief cargoes of food and medicine to people in disaster-hit areas, dust crops with chemicals to fight insect pests, fight fires, patrol large areas, and monitor weather conditions. In remote or wilderness regions, rugged bush planes are the only way doctors and other people can reach isolated outposts. In war zones, large transport aircraft move and drop thousands of military troops.

Some planes are small craft designed for fun, sport, and leisure flying. Each

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▼ Bush Plane

A hunter poses with his game and a Noorduyn Norseman float plane he flew on a hunting trip in Canada. Bush planes carry hunters, wilderness explorers, and medical teams to remote spots no other transportation can reach. [2]

Water Bomber

Whoosh! A C-130 Hercules drops a load of water mixed with fire retardant chemicals over a forest fire in California. The versatile C-130 is also widely used as a military transport and cargo plane.

V Parachute Drop

Military paratroopers jump from a C-141B Starlifter during a training mission. The Starlifter transports combat troops over long distances. It delivers both soldiers and supplies and also carries wounded soldiers to hospitals.

л Airlift

Members of the 82nd Airborne Division wait to be airlifted by transport planes at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Military planes can move many thousands of forces quickly to training stations or combat zones.

N the last few decades, aviators have continued to set new records. In 1977, American cyclist Bryan Allen used leg muscle to pedal the First human-powered aircraft, the Giwamer Connor A pedaling mechanism drove a propeller, powering the craft to 11 miles an hour. Alade of cardboard, aluminum, and plastic, the ultra­light plane weighed 207 pounds, including the pilot! In 1980, Allen pedaled (hwamcrАІЬаІгом over the English Channel.

In 1986, pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager set a milestone aviation record, Hying nonstop around the world without refueling. They made the trip in nine days in the Voyanir. Extra fuel tanks were built in the plane’s long, thin wings.

Finally in 1999, the Brcilliny Orbilcr J, a shiny silver-colored balloon, made the first round-the-world balloon trip. Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard and British co-pilot Brian Jones flew’ for 30,000 miles, crossing mountains, deserts, and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Gossamer Albatross

In 1980, cyclist Bryan Allen test flies the Gossamer Albatross, a human-powered craft operated by pedaling. Flown by Allen, the Gossamer Albatross won the Kremer Prize for human-powered flight when it crossed the English Channel.

* Brutling Orbiter )

Covered with a skin of silver mylar, the Breitling Orbiter 3 was fi1 ed with helium and hot air. The balloon’s gondola (below) held tanks of propane fuel, oxygen to breathe, and tinycrewquarters. lt is today displayed in the Museum.

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For no it war…eery emotional to feel the luck ice had ^ to fly around tbit f, І beautiful world. ” ^ / ,

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—Bertrand Piccard, co-pilot ; ,1

> Around the World in 20 Days

Breitling Orbiter 3 drifts over the Alps on its 30,000-mile journey around the globe in 1999.The long trip also set a balloon flight duration record of 19 days,

21 hours, and 55 minutes.

ROCKETS have been around For centuries. The

Chinese used gunpowder rockets as weapons as early as the 13th century. They filled pointed bamboo tubes with gunpowder, sealed one end and lit the other. The explosion created a thrust, or pushing force, that propelled the rocket the opposite way. Rockets were later fired in the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key described their "red glare in the "Star Spangled Banner.”

In the 20th century, scientists developed rockets to explore space. Rocket engines arc the only engines that can operate in the vacuum of space. In space there is no air, and so no oxygen. Rockets carry both fuel and their own oxygen supply, called an oxidizer. Large rockets can also produce tremendous power, enough to escape Fai th s gravity. In 1926, American scientist Dr. Robert Goddard launched the first liquid – propellant rocket. He concluded that a rocket could be more efficiently propelled by liquid fuel. In World War II, Germany built powerful rocket weapons. Then in 1957, the Soviet Union stunned the world by using a rocket to launch the first Earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik.

+ < V-2’Vengeance Weapon"

One of Germany’s most frightening weapons, a V-2 rocket roars into the sky during World War II. The first long-range ballistic missile, it carried 2,000 pounds of explosives. Over 3,000 were fired at Britain and other targets.

H Ready for Launch

Germans prepare a V-2 for launching. Small by modern standards, the V-2 was 46 feet tall. The forerunner of later rockets, it could race 150 miles in five minutes and destroy whole city blocks.

Inside the V-2

The V-2 got its powerful thrust by burning alcohol using liquid oxygen. These were mixed and ignited in a combustion chamber, creating hot gases. As they expanded they burst from the rocket’s nozzle, forcing it upward. The V-2’s explosives were carried in its nose.

Sputnik

On October 4,1957, a Soviet launched the first satellite. Sputnik ("Traveling Companion").A metal ball 23 inches across, it orbited Earth, sending "beep, beep" radio signals. A re Sputnik hangs in the Museum. [3]

Goddard щ Rocket

In 1941, Dr. Robert Goddard (top picture, left) examines one of his most advanced rockets as his assistants watch. This S^22-foot-high test rocket was fueled with gasoline and liquid oxygen. lt is today displayed in the National Air and Space Museum.

A 1935 A-3 Rocket

Three of Dr. Goddard’s assistants lift his liquid-fueled A-34ocket to fit it into a launch tower in Roswell, New Mexico. In the secluded southwest desert, Goddard tested many of his inventions.

Robert H. Goddard (1882-191,5)

Dr. Robert H. Goddard, inventor of the first flying liquid-propellant rocket, stands beside his creation. On March 16,1926, the Massachusetts physics professor launched the rocket from his aunt’s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. Fueled with liquid oxygen and gasoline, it shot up 41 feet in 27: seconds oddard envisioned multi-stage rockets and using rockets to reach the Moon.

He is considered the father of American rocketry.

THE space age began with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. In 1959, the United States began testing a new aircraft. Sleek, streamlined, and rocket- powered, the North American X-15 was the fastest, highest-flying airplane ever built. Its purpose was to fly to the end of the atmosphere and up into the edge of space. It gathered information that was later of great use to engineers planning a U. S. space program.

The X-15 was made of a strong heat-resistant metal alloy to endure the heat of hypersonic (many times faster than sound) speeds. It was able to withstand 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit.

The X-15 flew to an incredible 354,200 feet, over 67 miles high, and reached a speed о f 4,520 miles an hour, or Mach 6.7. The pilot used air controls in the atmosphere and fired rocket thrusters to maneuver in space. I low did he know which controls to use? Test pilot Scott Crossfield said, “When one didn’t work, I simply used the other.”

► H2-F3 Lifting Body

Another experimental vehicle was a wingless aircraft called a "lifting body." Launched in mid-air from a B-52, the craft could fly about 17 miles high a: nearfy 1,240 miles an hour. This Northrop M2-F3 now hangs in the Museum.

* Astronaut Wings

Five pilots who flew the X-15 went so high they were awarded astronaut wings for space travel. Space is considered to begin at an altitude of 50 miles. The X-15 flew to over 67 miles.

►North American X-15

In 1967, this rocket-powered research plane reached the threshold of space. It flew to 354,200 feet, a record for winged craft that still stands. One of the three X-15s built now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum.

BY the 1960s, the United States was competing with the Soviet Union lor supremacy in a “Space Race.” Both nations launched rockets j carrying animals — dogs and monkeys —to test space flight on living things.

On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union moved ahead in the race by putting the first man into orbit. He was cosmonaut, or "sailor of the cosmos,” Yuri Gagarin. The United States responded with its piloted Alercury spacecraft. The first one, on May 5, 1961, carried astronaut, or "star sailor,” Alan Shepard on a 15-minute flight that did not go into orbit. On February 20, 1962, Mercury’s Friencbhip 7 blasted into orbit wi th John Glenn.

The next step was Gemini, a two-person spacecraft program. Gemini astronauts practiced docking with other spacecraft and other skills that would be needed lor a mission to the. Moon. Now the race to the Moon was on!

< Gehihi Firsts

A hundred miles above the Earth,

Gemini 4 astronaut Ed White takes the first U. S. spacewalk June 3,1965. It lasted 23 minutes. On December 15,1965, Gemini 6 edges to within a fpw feet of Gemini 7 in the first rendezvous of piloted U. S.spacecraft.

T Snug fu

Inside the tiny cabin of Freedom 7, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard lies in a couch surrounded by instruments. The first U. S. piloted spacecraft, it was just big enough for one person to squeeze into.

HREE, two, one—we have liftoff!” With these words, rocket engines explode with a deafening roar, spewing out columns of fire and gas. Smoke billows into the sky and the ground shakes as the mighty engines thrust the rocket into the sky and send it hurtling toward space.

On these pages you can see rockets of

(many sizes and shapes developed during the

Space Age. They were built for many purposes. Some were used as missiles, or weapons.

Others were used as launching vehicles to send communications or weather satellites into space. And some have launched spacecraft with animals and human beings into space.

The Saturn V rockets were the largest, most powerful ever built. They were used to launch the Apollo missions to the Moon. Each Saturn V rocket had three stages. Stacked all together, the rocket stood nearly as tall as a 40 story building! Il weighed over 3,000 tons, most of that nearly 2,950 tons ol rocket fuel. [4]

► Space Shuttle [railing clouds of steam and fire, the space shuttle Endeavour thunders into the sky. The shuttle’s twin rocket boosters along with its main engines lift the ship up toward Earth orbit.

Fun Fact: Power to Burn

The energy produced by Saturn V’s first staqe engines alone was about 160 million horsepower, roughly the same as that created by 86 Hoover Dams!

* Orbit Нар

After launch, Apollo 11 orbited around the Earth as the astronauts carefully positioned the craft for the lunar journey. Then, the ship blasted free of Earth orbit, and set course for the Moon. This map plots the path of Apollo 11 as it traveled around the Earth.

► Mission Ратсш

Embroidered mission patches show the names of astronauts on each mission and a picture symbolizing each flight. Missions include, from top: Apollo 7, Apollo 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 10,and Apollo 11.

ON July 19, 1969, Apollo 11 reached lunar orbit. The next day Alichael Collins piloted Columbia in I orbit around the Aloon as the other two! astronauts crawled into the lunar module Eagle. Neil Armstrong fired Eagle’s descent engine.

Th en he gently landed Eagle s spiderlike legs on the Moon’s surface. In words broadcast to parth, he announced to. Mission Control in I Iouston. Texas: "The Eagle has landed.”

Dressed in a space suit, Armstrong opened Eagle’s hatch and stepped down onto the Aloon. The first human to explore a new world, he described his step as a "giant leap for mankind.” Buzz Aldrin soon followed. A TV camera showed the amazing event to viewers on Earth. The two astronauts spent 2 hours on the Aloon s surface. They planted an American flag, collected Moon rocks, took photographs and scientific measurements, and received a telephone call from President Richard Nixon. Finally, they returned to the Eagle. Alter 21 hours and 36 minutes on the Aloon, they lifted off to dock with Columbia for the journey home.

< Greetings From Earth

During their historic visit to the Moon, Apollo 11 astronauts left this aluminum plaque behind. Its message of peace was signed by all three astronauts and by • U. S. President Richard M. Nixon.

► Moon Visitor

The second man on the Moon, astronaut Buzz Aldrin climbs down the ladder of the lunar module Eagle to the lunar surface. He and astronaut Neil Armstrong explored the Moon’s surface and collected lunar rock and soil samples.

Fun Fact: Feeling Light

The Moon’s gravity is one-sixth that of Earth’s. This allowed the astronauts on the Moon to jump high easily. If you jumped lightly on the Moon, it would feel like bouncing on a trampoline.

Apollo ii Crew

Astronauts of Apollo 11 made the first successful landing on the Moon. From left: Neil Armstrong, flight commander, Michael Collins, pilot of the command module Columbia, and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., co-pilot of the lunar module Eagle.

У Splashdown

After reentering Earth’s atmosphere, protected from the fiery heat by their spacecraft’s heat shield, the astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Navy divers arrived by helicopter to rescue them.

FTER Apollo 11, five more Apollo missions landed on the Moon. The last three missions brought along a special car, called the Lunar Roving Vehicle. Known as the Lunar Rover, or "Moon buggy,” this battery-powered car helped the astronauts drive for miles over ihe Moon to collect rock and soil samples and explore its dusty surface.

The Rover had a TV camera so people on Earth could see what the astronauts saw. Viewers discovered an amazing variety of terrain, including lunar plains, canyons, anti craters.

The astronauts worked outside for several hours a day, exploring, doing scientific experiments, and collecting samples.

All together, the Apollo astronauts collected 855 pounds of rock in many dillerent sizes. One discovery was a rock found to be over four billions years old. Called the "genesis rock, ” it was thought to be part of the Moon’s original crust. Such geological clues helped scientists unlock many secrets ol the Moon’s past.

т Lunar Rover

The Lunar Rover was made of lightweight metal, mainly aluminum. It hail wire mesh tires to grip the dusty lunar surface. The battery- powered car had a TV camera, umbrella-shaped antenna, and tool rack. lt could travel 7 miles an hour. In it, the astronauts explored many miles from base.

* Rock Hunt Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke looks for samples at Station 1,an exploration site. At left, a famous makeshift golf club was swung by Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard just before he left the Moon. The Moon’s gravity, one-sixth that of Earth’s, helped him hit two balls 200 and 400 yards.

OLLO 17 was the last mission to visit the Moon. At the end of the mission in 1972, the astronauts left behind a plaque. It signaled the end of the human Moon explorations. When the astronauts climbed into their lunar module and left lor home, they had completed a great adventure and an important job.

A total ol 12 men landed on the Moon. They gathered a vast store of knowledge. From rock and soil samples, scientists learned about the Moon’s formation, history, and chemistry. They discovered that iMoon minerals are similar to Earth’s but many have heavier iron and titanium content. They found the Moon has a very thin atmosphere of helium, hydrogen, argon, and neon. They also found that the Moon has a magnetic. field.

Considered one of the greatest scientific achievements of human history, Apollo established the United States as the world leader in space technology. It also began an exciting new era of exploring the frontiers of space.

Fun Fact: Long Way From Home

The Moon’s distance from Earth is about

239,0 miles. Apollo 11 took a total of four days to get to the Moon, traveling at speeds of up to 24,182 miles an hour.

H E years between World War I and World War 11 are often called the Golden Age of Aviation. During this time people believed anything was possible. Designers worked constantly to build better performing planes. Fliers pushed the limits of flying. They set new records for distance, speed, duration, and altitude. In this period, many famous air races were established. Pilots competed for trophies, prize money, and the glory of conquering the skies.

The National Air Races in the United States drew huge crowds in the 1930s. Famous races included the 50-mile speed race for the Thompson Trophy and the long-distance, cross-country race for the Bend і Ц Trophy.

The Schneider Trophy race, a competition for seaplanes, was held from 1913 to 1938. France won the first Schneider Trophy in 1913 with an average speed ol 46 miles an hour. In 1931, a British plane won. Its average speed—340 miles an hour — shows how far airplanes had come.

< Wiley Post (1899-1935)

Wiley Post became the first person to fly solo around the world in 1933. He also set early altitude records and designed the first pressure suit. Here, Post wears an early design of his suit, adapted from a deep-sea diver’s outfit. It supplied oxygen from a tube to the helmet and allowed Post to reach heights of nearly 55,000 feet. He proved that flying in the jet stream, a high, fast-flowing river of air, could increase a plane’s speed. Post died in a crash in 1935 with his friend, humorist Will Rogers.

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Racing Souvenirs

Mementos from the Museum collection recall the era of early air races. They include a poster for the 1932 National Air Races, an advertisement for the 1928 Schneider Trophy seaplane race, and a ticket to the 1929 National Air Races.

Fun Fact: Pylon Polishing

In the 1920s, racing pilots began flying as close as possible around pylons, the tall checkered markers, without crashing into them. This skill, called "Pylon Polishing,"thrilled fans.

Wihhie Mae

Wiley Post set two round-the-world records in his Lockheed Vega, Winnie Moe. lhis painting shows the Winnie Мое carrying Post and a navigator over the Volga River in 1931. They circled the globe in 8 days and 15 hours. In 1933, Post flew the 15,596-mile trip solo in 7 days and 19 hours.

► James H. "Jimmy” Dooumt

(1896-1993)

A famous flier of the Golden Age, Army Lieutenant Jimmy Doolittle served in World War I as a flight instructor. In 1929, he became the first pilot to fly "blind," using only instruments to take off, fly, and land. A top racing pilot, Doolittle won the 1925 Schneider Trophy in a U. S.Army float plane (above). In 1931, he won the Bendix transcontinental air race.

The next year, Doolittle set a world record of 294 miles an hour when he flew a Gee Bee race plane and won the Thompson Trophy.

SKYLAB, the first U. S. space station.

was built after the Apollo missions.

It was launched May 14, 1973. I he size of a small house, Skylab measured 118 feet long. Built from part of an empty Saturn V rocket, it had living and work space for three astronauts, solar panels lor power, and telescopes to study the Sun and Earth.

A “laboratory in the sky,” Skylab s main goal was to learn if astronauts could survive in space for long periods. Three crews lived in Skylab from 1973 to 1974 for up to 84 days. Orbiting the Earth every 93 minutes at 17,000 miles an hour, they ate, slept, and worked in zero gravity, or weightlessness. Because muscles weaken without gravity, they exercised daily. Mission Control constantly monitored their bodies. The tests showed the crews remained healthy. In Skylab, thev performed hundreds of experiments and took thousands of photographs ol the Sun and Earth. Skylab was a big success. Later abandoned, it fell from orbit in 1979.

Dinner is Served

Skylab’s crew ate a variety of fresh and frozen foods, heated on this warming tray. Forks, spoons, and knives had magnets to keep them from floating away. Food had plastic covers. The crew ate by a window to enjoy the view.

* 4 Space Spider

Can spiders spin webs in the weightless conditions of space? To find out, Skylab took along spider passengers. This spider named Arabella (left) was confused and could not spin well for two days. Then, she adjusted and spun normal webs.

Pulling Power

In the weightlessness of space, human body fluids drift up to the upper body. Astronaut Owen Garriott tests a machine called the Lower Body Negative Pressure experiment. lt corrects the problem by pulling fluids back down to the legs.

Life on Skylab

Owen Garriott gives fellow astronaut Alan Bean a haircut. A suction hose collects the hair so it won’t float away. At Christmas, Skylab astronauts decorated their space home with a Christmas tree made of food cans.

* Inside Story

A cutaway of Skylab’s orbital workshop reveals its two sections. At top was a laboratory where the crew worked on scientific experiments. Below, the living quarters had a shower, toilet, galley, and eating and sleeping areas.

N the 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union began a new period of cooperation. They even agreed to launch a joint space mission, called the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. In July 19/5, two manned spacecraft took off. One was an American Apollo capsule launched from Florida. The other, a Soyuz capsule, was launched Irom Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union. On July 17, the two capsules met in Earth orbit and successfully docked. They used a specially designed docking module. It lit to the Apollo on one end and to the Soyuz on the other end.

After docking, the two crews met, shook hands, and visited each other’s ships. 1 hey talked and ate together, and also did experiments in astronomy together. The spacecralt remained docked together for two days. Both returned safely to Earth. With this historic meeting, the two countries began to help each other in using space for peaceful purposes.

У "Hello!"

Reaching through the hatch, American astronaut Ihomas Stafford (right) shakes hands with Soviet cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov. Tlie mission symbolized goodwill between the two nations.

A A Toast

Astronauts Thomas Stafford and Donald Slayton celebrate the success of their mission by drinking a toast. The American and Soviet crews exchanged greetings and visited each other’s craft four times before returning home.

< Apollo-Soyuz On Display

Visitors to the National Air and Space Museum can see a replica of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft docked with the special docking adapter built for the mission. The display gives a good opportunity to compare U. S. and Soviet spacecraft.

MAGINE a time when people only dreamed ot flying, when the sight of a jet streaking across the sky would have been astounding, and the idea ol launching a rocket into space too fantastic to comprehend. You may be surprised to learn that time was not very long ago. It is possible that someone you know was born before airliners and jets even existed.

The stories you are about to read — and the amazing pictures you will see — capture the wonder and excitement of a history that is still unfolding. At the dawn of the 20th century, the first powered aircraft took to the skies. By the century’s end, the International Space Station was on its way to becoming a reality. In the first years of the new millennium, engineers are developing reusable space vehicles, designing airplanes that wi 11 fly at fi ve times the speed ol sound and exploring a human mission to Maes.

The pioneers of flight paved the way for a future idled with adventure and achievement, a fact demonstrated every day at the Smithsonian s National Air and Space Museum, hilled with history-making aircraft anti spacecraft, the Museum brings to life the work ol the inventors and scientists who created them, portrays the courageous av iators and astronauts who flew them and explains how our world is changing because of the progress in aviation and space exploration. The Smithsonian National Ліг anh Space Museum Book of Flight celebrates the Museum’s famous collection and reveals highlights ot its many exhibitions.

In the following pages, for example, you will be introduced to two brothers — \ ilbur and Orville Wright. As children they made and flew kites. \ hen they got older they designed and built bicycles. Soon they were able to put their mechaniCctl skills to use in achieving their dream: On December 17, 1905, on a windswept beach near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, they flew the

first powered airplane into the history books.

Mill ions of people come to see the original Wright Flyer at the National Air and Space Museum every year.

People also come to the Museum to see other early airplanes like the Spirit of St. Louis. In it, a 25-year-old airmail pilot named Charles Lindbergh flew nonstop from New York to Paris in 1927, a 33’L hour flight that six other pilots died trying to achieve. Five years later, Amelia Farhart became the first woman pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic. Her bright red Lockheed Vega sits in the Museum’s Pioneers of Flight gallery.

Aviation’s powerful influence on world history is shown in exhibits that describe military activities over the decades. In the Book ot Flight, you’ll learn all about famous battles and discover how the first bombers and fighter planes worked. You will meet heroes like America’s World War 1 flying ace, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, as well as other military legends such as Baron Manfred von Richthofen, also known as the "Red Baron.” (Do you know what lamous cartoon character is still waging war on the Red Baron? Look for the answer in one of the book s many Fun Facts.)

The courage of V odd V аг II fliers is shown in the inspiring story of the luskegee Airmen, the first African-American fighter pilots. This skilled and daring group fought against great odds to defend our country’ on two fronts — against the enemy in Europe and against racial prejudice in this country.

By the middle ot the 20th century, aircraft designers were focusing on speed. Suspended

* Touch the Moon

A young visitor at the National Air and Space Museum delights in touching the Moonrock, collected by Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972.The Museum is one of only two places on Earth where visitors can touch lunar rock. The other is Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

▼ Hands-on Learning

In the Hail of Air Transportation, interpreter Katherine Tuow helps young visitors compare early passenger aviation with modern travel. She shows them a model DC-3 airliner and lets them try on early and recent pilot uniforms from a "Discovery Cart."

from the Museum’s ceiling is the Bell X-l, a bright orange, bullet-shaped plane equipped with a rocket engine. In 1947 an American test pilot named Chuck Yeager accelerated it to 700 miles per hour to break the sound barrier for the first time.

It was not long after this milestone that the race to conquer space was on. In 1962 America’s effort to orbit the earth was successful. Astronaut John Glenn ’s Mercury Friaubbip 7 capsule is now on display in the Milestones of Flight gallery. Other Museum exhibits trace the expansion and progress of space exploration, as well as the science and technology behind the breakthroughs. H undreds of displays and artifacts — rockets, capsules, tools, vehicles, equipment, space suits, even space food — tell this continuing story.

One of the National Air and Space. Museum’s most popular displays features a rock from the Moon. This four-billion-year-old sample was taken from the lunar surface in 1972 by astronauts participating in the Apollo 1/ mission.

Since it opened on the National Mall in Washington, D. C. in 1976, the Air and Space Museum has welcomed more than 212 million people. The world’s most visited museum.

it is the length of three city blocks and has exhibitions on two floors. Amazingly, however, there is room tor only 10 percent of the national collection of aviation and space artifacts.

For this reason, the museum is constructing a new building that will be large enough to display an additional 80 percent of the collection.

Jn December 2003, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Wilbur and Orville Wright’s historic flight will be celebrated by opening the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles International Airport. This amazing facility will be ten stories high and three football fields long. It is named for the man who provided a major contribution to help construct it.

lsitors to the Udvar-Hazy Center will be able to walk among artifacts on the floor and also along elevated “skyways” to view hanging aircraft. Many engines, rockets, satellites, helicopters, airliners and experimental flying machines will be displayed for the first time in a museum setting. Over 200 aircraft and 135 spacecraft will be on view, including the prototype space shuttle Enterprise and the SR-71 Blackbird, the world’s fastest airplane.

There will be an observation tower overlooking Dulles air traffic, plus restaurants

and shops. Visitors will also be able to enjoy exciting movies in a large-screen theater, and ride thrilling simulators.

As the Director of the National Air and Space Museum, I feel I am one of the luckiest men on the planet. I not only have the chance to be in the world’s most fascinating museum every day, I also know what it is like to be in the cockpit, having served for many years as a Marine Corps pilot. In addition, I was privileged to continue my flying and play a role in the space program by working at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Although my career has included many roles, the one I care most about is being a father and grandfather. It is for this reason that I want to preserve and share the magnificent history and technology of aviation and space explorat ion with you and others.

Over the past century, we have come a long way. But lor future generations, the best is yet to come.

General John R. “Jack ” Dailey, USAIC (Ret)

Director

R ational Air ojw Space Museшп

!NCE ancient times, people have dreamed of living: like birds. In Greek myths, heroes made wings to fly. In Persian legends, people zoomed through the sky on magic carpets. Г he ancient Chinese invented kites, and some reportedly carried humans aloft. During the Middle Ages, many people tried to fly. Some strapped on wings of cloth or feathers and jumped off towers or cliffs. Yet nothing worked, and many died.

Then in 1783, two French brothers,

Joseph and Etienne. Montgolfier, invented the hot-air balloon. \ orking in their family’s paper factory’, they noticed that paper put on a fire was lifted up the chimney. 1 hey filled a large cloth-and-paper bag with hot air from a fire. I’he hot air made the balloon lighter than air, and it rose over Pans, carrying two noblemen. This was the first recorded human flight.

In 1804, Englishman George Cayley invented the first heavier-than-air craft, a model glider. Later piloted by German Otto I. ilienthal, gliders we re the ancestors of the modern airplane.

4 Sir George Cayley (1773-1857)

Often caked the "Father of Aeronautics," Sir George Cayley first establ shed the scientific principles of heavier-than-a’r fl:ght. Studying b rds, he understood that wings create a force called’lift." He also understood propulsion and control in fi ght and he predicted powered aircraft in the future. He first built a five-toot – long model glider based on a kite. Later, in 1853, he built a large glider that carr e: his unw lling coachman a short way. Afterward, tne frightened coachman resigned, saying "I was hired to drive, not fly!"

Flight Control

Lilienthal steers his glider by swinging his legs and shifting his weight. This method of control was limited and dangerous.

Gliding Pioneer

Jumping into the wind, Otto Lilienthal sails through the air in a hang glider as spectators watch. Lilienthal tested many of his glider designs by leaping off a custom-made, cone-shaped hill near Berlin. He flew over 2,500 flights, up to 64 feet high and nearly a quarter mile long.

Otto Lilienthal (18^9-1896)

Otto Lilienthal was a German engineer who studied bird flight and was the first person to actively pilot, or control, a glider. Between 1891 and 1896, he built and flew 18 glider designs of lightweight cotton, willow, and bamboo. Unpowered, they glided on winds and updrafts, the same way birds soar. Lilienthal scientifically recorded his research, which greatly helped later inventors. A fearless flier, he finally crashed when he lost control in a gust of wind. He died the next day. His last words were:"Sacrifices must be made."

High-Flying Act

Ballooning and gliding became exciting spectator sports in the 1800s. This 19th-century German poster ^

features a young woman л

balloonist and aerial acrobat НІ

named K. Paulus. Шш

◄ Go Fly a Kite

Some 19th-century thinkers returned to the idea of kites as ways to carry people aloft. Here, Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, explains his idea fora large kite made up of many triangular surfaces.

BALLOONING was popular in the 1800s. And with gliders, people could actually soar on wings like birds. Yet balloons and gliders were hard to con­trol. They drifted with the wind. Inventors now began trying to achieve powered, controlled flight.

In 1852, Frenchman Henri Giffard attached a steam engine to a cigar-shaped, hydrogen-filled bal­loon. He called it a “dirigible," meaning steerable. Yet the airship’s steam engine was heavy and the craft proved slovr and still hard to maneuver. Others tried adding power to heavier-than-air flying machines. Many were bizarre contraptions. A few hovered or hopped briefly off the ground, but never flew.

In 1896, an American scientist, Dr. Samuel Langley, launched an unpiloted steam-powered model aircraft. It flew nearly a mile. Yet when Langley tried launching a large piloted version, it crashed on takeoff — twice. This seemed to prove what most people believed: flowered, pilot-con­trolled flight was simply impossible.

► Samuel PierpontLangley (1831,-1906)

Professor Samuel P. Langley, the third secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C., was a respected astronomer. The public was stunned when his unmanned steam-powered model Aerodrome No. 5 flew over the Potomac River in 1896.

In 1903, Langley attempted to launch a full-size "Great Aerodrome" with a pilot aboard. The craft was equipped with a large new gasoline engine, but no real means of control. On two attempts at takeoff, the big Aerodrome s flimsy wings collapsed. The craft sank in the water "like a handful of mortar," a newspaper reported, dumping the unlucky pilot in the river.

Fun Fact: Leviathan

It

Wings on Wheels

Inspired by the Ferris Wheel, this early French flying machine was designed by the Marquis d’Equevihey. Its multiple wings were intended to increase lift. Instead, the machine proved too heavy to lift off

A, Early Triplane

A different attempt at multiple-wing design was this early French triplane. Although it looked more like an airplane, the craft could not fly either.

◄ Givaudan No. i

A third French invention, the aeroplane Givaudan No. 1 was a fanciful flying machine. Equipped with odd front and rear cyclinder wing sections, it never got off the ground.

< Aerodrome No. 5

This model of Langley’s Aerodrome No. 5 shows the machine’s tandem cloth wings, twin pusher propellers, and steam engine, in center. The No. 5 had a wingspan of about 13 feet, a fourth as big as the full – size Great Aerodrome.

The first powered flying machines used steam engines. Yet these were much too heavy and too weak to be practical for flying large aircraft. In the late 1800s, Otto Daimler invented the first gasoline engine. Eventually, lighter-weight and more efficient gas engines helped make manned powered flight possible.

Birdwatching Observing buzzards gave Wilbur his wing-warping idea."My observations of…buzzards,"he wrote,"leads me to believe that they regain their lateral bal­ance, when partly overturned by a gust of wind, by a torsion of the tips of the wings."

The First Flight On December 17,1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville takes off in the Flyer, as Wilbur watches. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. A beach lifeguard took this famous photograph.

► Pilot Control A model shows how Orville controlled the Flyer, today in the National Air and Space Museum. He moved his hips to control wing-warping cables and moved a lever with his hand to make the Flyer’s nose go up or down.

Fun Fact; Coin Toss

The brothers flipped a coin to see who would test-pilot the Flyer first. Wilbur won, but the Flyer stalled. Orville tried next, and the rest is history.

“Js/i І it astonishing that all these secrets hare been preserved for so many years just so we could discover them!!”

—Orville Wright, 1903

A How Wings Lift

An airplane’s wing produces lift by its curved shape, called an "airfoil "Air passing over the rounded upper surface rushes faster than air moving over the flat bottom surface. Ihis creates a low pressure area over the wing. The high pressure area under the wing pushes the wing upward.

Pedal Power

The Wrights attached model wings to a bicycle wheel, and turned it by pedaling to test the wings’ lift. The bicycle men believed a pilot could learn to control an aircraft much as a cyclist learns to balance and control a bike.

The key methods the Wrights used to achieve powered flight were: 1) wings to lift the plane; 2) an engine to propel the plane forward; and 3) movable surfaces, such as wing edges, for control. These are the same principles used to fly a Boeing 747 today.

M Time It!

Wilbur and Orville used this stop watch to time their historic flights at Kitty Hawk. On December 17,1903, the Flyer made four flights, the longest 852 feet in 59 seconds.

The Wrights were the first to realize an airplane propeller is really a small, twisted wing that rotates. They designed propellers of carved wood.

FOR years after their first flight, the \ right brothers received almost no credit or recognition for their accomplishment. Alany at home and abroad scoffed and refused to believe they had even actually flown. Then in 1908. Wilbur went to France and demonstrated an improved Flyer, the Type A. Before a large, skeptical crowd, Wilbur took off. Soaring triumphantly into the sky, he circled the air field, making tight, steeply banked turns and perfect figure eights. The crowd went wild. Before this, they had only seen flying machines that could barely lurch off the ground anti fly with little control. Wilbur was a hero. He flew over 100 demonstrations, lasting up to two hours, and took many passengers up for rides.

After these European demonstrations, the W rights were widely accepted as masters of flight- The next year, W right planes led the wtiv at the world’s first air meet, the 1909 Grande Semaine d’Aviation in Reims, France.

f French Souvenir

Back in America in 1910, Wilbur adjusts a toy kite at Bayside, New Jersey.

He brought the toy from Paris for the son of friend Frank Coffyn.

Seeing is Believing

During a 1908 demonstration in France, Wilbur Wright flies a passenger over a country field. Two farmers watch in awe.

< Off to the Races

Wright planes were showcased at the world’s first air meet in Reims, France, in 1909. Flying a Wright Type A, Eugene Lefebvre rounds a pylon in a race.

After achieving powered flight, the Wright brothers remained fascinated by kites and gliders. They glided for pleasure until Wilbur’s death in 1912. He died of typhoid at age 45. Orville lived to see amazing advances in aviation. He died in 1948 at age 77.

The Wright brothers sued inventors who copied their idea of wing-warping with ailerons. These moveable devices on wings are still used today. They allow the pilot to bank the plane, lifting one wing while lowering the other, on turns. The courts ruled that ailerons are based on the Wrights’idea.