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An Article by Albert S. Levino in Harpers Weekly, 1912 (with some modifications)

By 1912 aviation had some great inventors and many daring aviators, but had yet to produce a great commercial mind. Mechanically, the airplane had made swift strides in its brief tenure of life more than any other means of transportation did in twice the time. Commercially, the American airplane industry is not one bit better off today than it was three years ago.

This is the conclusion of a feature article in Harper’s Weekly.

The article postulates several causes for this state of affairs:

Too much exhibition business, which has over exploited the airplane and failed to establish its practical value.
Too much publicity, with too many promises impossible of fulfillment.
The obsessing desire for quick profits rather than steady, normal returns.
Failure to develop cheap but efficient and reliable power plants.
Too many airplane manufacturers.
No development of markets.

Crowds flock to the most dangerous turns of an auto race. Attention is always riveted on the “dip of death” in a circus rather than on a cleverly trained animal.

Robert Fulton’s Clermont once crowed the Hudson’s banks and Stevenson’s Rocket brought thousands to stare, deprecate, or wonder.

Only ten years have passed since a feature of Buffalo Bill’s show was a “horseless carriage.”

We are all looking for thrills. But, once this appetite is satisfied it is almost impossible to arouse scientific or commercial interest in the thriller unless its performances have demonstrated the practicability of the device, and unless they have created a demand for it and made it an urgent necessity.

Airplane exhibitions once provided remunerative thrills. But people quickly learned that as the number of airmen increased, the number of accidents increased; that manufacturers were exploiting merely the novelty and not the usefulness of the product; and they could witness flights from outside the fence quite as well as if they paid a dollar to enter the aerodrome.

They began to look elsewhere than to the airplane for their amusement. Airplanes became too common to lead people even to turn their heads to look at them, let alone pay to see them.

The price of passenger flights fell in twelve short months from $500 to $25, $10, and even $5. Satiety had overtaken curiosity. The wonder of one year had become the commonplace of the next.

Unfortunately for the honest manufacturer, he soon had to cope with a factor even more discouraging than public apathy. The dishonest element that attaches itself to every new industry did not fail to grasp the opportunity presented by the art of flying.

Soon aviation was crowded with this irresponsible, get-rich-quick-gentry. Exhibition flyers frequently left the ground only when they cared to and then for such short flights as they cared to make.

Alleged self-styled aviators, incompetent in every respect, and with machines so badly constructed as to be dangerous to the spectators, cut to one-half the prices asked by good flyers.

Outrageous promises, that ranged from the agreement to land from any building in a city to the free carrying of passengers in machines which later proved unable to leave the ground with only the pilot aboard, were frequent.

President W. Linford Smith of the Pittsburg Aero Club was driven to comment:

“I favored disarmament with the coming of airplanes until I heard and saw at Brunot Island just how much trouble a capful of wind makes for these flying-machines. I now suggest that the only defense needed by war-vessels from air-fleets will be electric fans.”

Undoubtedly the reader, as he opened his morning paper, has read from time to time the announcement that “John Jones, the famous aviator, will today fly over the city” or “will start on a record breaking cross-country journey” or “will fly to shore from the Hamburg-American liner Potsdam, leaving the vessel’s deck after she has passed forty miles out to sea.”

Thereafter nothing more has been heard of John Jones’s promised flight. This has happened so frequently, there has been such a discrepancy between promise and performance by an all-too-numerous type of aviator, that nowadays the public is placing aviation statements on the same level as the “wolf, wolf” cry of the fabled shepherd.

It has been the marvel of many who know the care with which newspapers are edited that space is so forthcoming for almost any kind of statement so long as it was the magic word “aviation” in it.

The most nonsensical utterances of half-crazy inventors whose actions showed they had not the first idea of even the rudiments of human flight; lengthy descriptions of revolutionary machines which turned out to be abortive copies of standard types built by some chauffeur or street cleaner or shoemaker in a barn, hayloft, or cellar. Manifestly puerile statements are made regarding the future of the airplane, and how it will drive both railroad train and steamship out of business.

For these and similar absurdities, there seems to be a 365-days long silly season against which not even the sanest city editor appears immune.

Conceive any normal man swallowing the yarn that the Pennsylvania railroad had a new locomotive that would haul a twelve-car train without stopping from Chicago to New York in ten hours!

Yet is that half as stupid as the widely statement made a few months ago by a well known British airman, that an airplane with a 2,000-hp motor carrying 4,000 people will cross the Atlantic in 15-hours.

Maybe someday a man will go to bed in New York and awaken in London; also, there may come a time when a man will retire on earth and dress on Mars, but newspapers do not print serious articles in anticipation of the events.

Frank Coffyn, The Wright pilot who has carried more passengers that any other aviator in the world recently commented on the statement of a prominent cross-country flyer that he was going to start across the Atlantic next August in a hydro-biplane with himself and a mechanic as passengers and operators.

“He said he’s going to take 2000 gallons of gasoline with him,” said Mr. Coffyn. “There’s a weight of 1,400 pounds to start with in fuel alone, not making mention of lubricant, food, etc. and Breguet, who managed last October to lift a total weight of about 1,400 pounds beside his machine stayed aloft for only 5-minutes!

Is it possible to cross the Atlantic in an airplane very soon? Why, it’s possible now — but only Heaven knows when it will be accomplished!”

It is on such publicity that many aviation stock companies are formed. Generous promoters have dropped mines and covered carpet-tacks for the more lucrative airplane. Today the market is fairly flooded with $1, $5, and $10 shares of aviation shares of aviation stock, whose promoters offer anything from 7 to 50 percent dividends. Rich as is the future of the flying machine, the airplane industry can no more support get-rich-quick parasites than can any other business.

There is general recognition that the heart of the airplane is its motor. Yet, though the United States gave the flying machine to the world and today manufactures more automobiles than all countries put together, no American airplane motor has yet been developed that compares in efficiency with a French engine.

That foreign motor today holds every world’s record, excepting only Loridan’s duration flight. But its cost, particularly with 45 percent import duty added, practically prohibits its general use in this country.

What a field there is here for our automobile manufacturers! There is an Aladdin fortune awaiting the man who delivers a dependable efficient, economical 50-horsepower airplane engine, weighing not over 3-pounds per horsepower, for $1,000, or even $1,500. For the very best flying machine built today can be produced for $500 except for its power plant. And it is in the manufacture and sale of a reliable airplane retailing at about $3,000 that the biggest dividends will be found.

There are now in the United States six airplane-manufacturing firms. All six companies sold fewer than 20 airplanes in this country in 1911. The Wright, Farman, Bleriot, Nieuport, Breguet, and Deperdussin firms are the only manufacturers who earned $25,000 clear last year.

Suppose that the Wrights in this country or the Farmans in France – both tremendously wealthy firms – were to cut the price of their machines to $3,000. What would happen to the builders? The airplane has out stripped the industry. Its mechanism is far ahead of its commercial development.

I asked several men prominently identified with American aviation to give Harper’s Weekly their ideas as to what was the matter commercially. Here is what they said:

Wilbur Wright: “What my brother and I want to do is to conserve the business. What the average man, neither daredevil nor simpleton, can safely do with the airplane is the problem with which we are concerned. There is a splendid future for the flying machine, but conservative and sound business methods must be invoked to develop and sustain the industry. To my mind miscellaneous exhibitions and too much of the wrong kind of publicity are the chief troubles of aviation. No other industry would stand for these features. Aviation cannot.”

Ernest L Jones, editor of Aeronautics, oldest American periodical in its field: “There are too many fakers in the business. The stock-selling crowd has scared away the conservative rich man who might back a well-run firm. There has been too little commercial development of the airplane and too much hip-hip-hurrah business.”

“Including airplanes and accessories, not more than four American firms are doing business on a sound scale and basis. The others have been too busy getting the easy money and letting future development take care of itself.”

Frank Coffyn, leading passenger-carrying aviator: “Almost every ill to which aviation in this country has fallen heir to is due to the exhibition circuit end of the game and to faking that has been done there and in publicity. It is curious, too, how much more national governments are bent on testing the merits of airplanes for war purposes than for trade or travel. Surely if flying machines meet the exacting demands of military authorities as machines of destruction, they are certain to be a great deal more useful and far more numerous in the occupations of peace.”

Hugo Gibson, propeller manufacturer: “The support aviation gets today is on the basis of unreasonable profits from spectacular and death-invoking antics. Aviation is a science and requires an army of scientific workers, not nerveless incompetents or high-strung scatterbrains. Businessmen are needed in aviation, even more than engineers.”

“There is no finer or more exhilarating sport than flying. And in the hands of careful, conservative pilots, knowing the exact capacity of their machines, the present-day airplane is considerably safer than the public has been led to believe it is. But trying to loop-the-loop, ego-born steep dives and the Dutch roll, excessive banking, spiral end-on turns, racing around one, or even 5-mile tracks, etc., are not the functions of the flying machine. Performing any or all of these “stunts” avails nothing in giving us the commercial airplane which may be relied upon as the automobile is today for pleasure and for trade.”

The airplane has a future that neither expert nor lay mind can define. The serious, practical side of flying is an almost an unknown quantity because aviation has so far been mostly circus “stunts.” Shorn of these features and the end of exhibitions and meets are fortunately now in sight. The airplane will come into its own.

The First Flight Society inducted NASA retired aeronautics engineer Richard Whitcomb, who made supersonic flight possible, into the Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine at the Wright Brothers National visitor’s center in Kill Devil Hills, NC, during celebration activities commemorating the 104th anniversary of flight on Dec. 17, 2007.

His portrait will be displayed in the flight room of the visitors’ center where it will join those of other aviation pioneers. The tradition began in 1966 with the portrait of the Wright brothers.

Whitcomb followed in the best tradition of the Wright brothers, who when confronted with the claim of experts that man could never fly, showed them that they were wrong.

Whitcomb was also faced with the claim that man could never fly faster than the speed of sound. Many in the aeronautical experts in the 1930s and 1940s believed in the existence of an invisible barrier in the sky that prevented aircraft from flying faster than the speed of sound, which was approximately 700 mph.

Government researchers at McCook Field in Dayton and others first identified the problem on aircraft propellers in the 1920s. When the tips of a whirling propeller approached the speed of sound, it lost efficiency because of a drastic loss of lift. They simply could not turn any faster.

The big problem seen by the experts was the problem of overcoming drag. Both the Wrights and Whitcomb used their intellect and wind tunnel tests to solve the problem of drag. Tom Crouch, senior curator at the Smithsonian’s air and Space Museum noted that “Whitcomb battled the enemy of drag and won.”

The problem of drag facing the designers of supersonic aircraft was the large increase in drag associated with the formation of shock waves that occurred at speeds just below and above the speed of sound (transonic speeds). An airplane can experience severe instability at these speeds.

When an aircraft moves at the speed of sound, shock waves build up in front of it creating a single, very large shock wave. During transonic flight, a plane must pass through this large shock wave as well as contending with the instability caused by air moving faster than sound over parts of the wing and slower in other parts. The phenomenon is explained by the Bernoulli principle.

One day late in 1951 Whitcomb relates that he was thinking about the problem and trying to visualize the air passing over a body at transonic speed when he came to the startling realization that the air passing over a body at transonic speed behaved in a different way than the experts thought. He concluded that what really caused transonic drag was not the diameter of the fuselage alone, rather it was the drag rise created by the total cross-sectional area of the fuselage, wings and tail.

Since wings added most to this area, drag could be reduced significantly by tucking in or narrowing the fuselage where the wings attached and then expanding the fuselage at their trailing edges. Using this configuration the air would be displaced less violently, the waves and drag would diminish, thus enabling an airplane to pass more easily through the transonic zone.

He concluded that the same amount of air had to be replaced to get out of the way to make room for the plane, but with the trimmed down “wasp waist,” the air would not be displaced in such violent shock patterns. The configuration became known as the “area rule.” It was shaped more like an old-fashioned soda bottle.

His discovery was particularly timely because at that moment virtually all military fighters aimed at sustained level supersonic flight was doomed to remain below Mach 1 because of the incapability of the jet engines of the time to overcome the tremendous drag rise.

On August 1954, his ideas were confirmed in practice when a Grumman F9F-9 successfully breezed through sonic speed in level flight without the use of an afterburner, the first time this had been done.

Whitcomb was awarded the prestigious Collier trophy for his achievement and many other awards.

He continued to refine and extend his basic concept for commercial jets and well as military planes.

In the 1960s he conceived the “supercritical airfoil,” an airfoil whose primary attribute was improved performance at high subsonic speeds.

In the 1970s he developed what is called “winglets.” These are devices placed at the wingtips, normal to the wingspar, extending both upward and downward. The devices reduce wingtip vortices and the induced drag such vortices create. The aerodynamic efficiency of the wing is improved and fuel consumption reduced as well.

Tom Crouch notes that “Dick Whitcomb’s intellectual fingerprints are on virtually every commercial aircraft flying today.”

Whitcomb’s personality was in many respects similar to that of the Wrights. He was a conservative and shy and didn’t like administrative duties. In the laboratory he was a creative radical and in some respects management didn’t know quite know how to deal with him, so they pretty much let him do what he wanted.

Anousheh Ansari, 40, has purchased her $20 million ticket and rode the Russian Soyuz TMA-9 spaceship to the international Space Station on September 18, 2006. with her were Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and Spanish-born U.S. astronaut Lopez-Alegria.

She is the fourth tourist to visit the space station.

Ansari, born in Iran, is an American entrepreneur millionaire from Plano, Texas.

As a young girl in Iran, she used to gaze at the stars and dream of some day flying into space. Her opportunity came when the Russians began selling tickets to the International Space Station in 2001 to raise money for their space program.

A Virginia based company, Space Adventures, brokers the tickets for the Russians. She has spent the last few months training for the trip at the NASA’s Johnson Space Center and at Star City outside Moscow.

Ansari is no stranger to space adventures. In 2001, she and her brother-in-law contributed most of the $10 million X-Prize whose objective was to spur commercial space travel. Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne won the prize in 2004.

Ansari can afford the steep ticket price. In 1993, she and her husband, Hamid, quit their jobs at MCI and started their own telecommunications company. They took a big gamble at the time. They cashed out their retirement funds of $50,000 to start the new company. Seven years later they sold the company for $750, 000.

She emigrated to the United Stated in 1984 at the age of 16. The Shah had been overthrown and as a woman she would have no opportunity to study science at an Iranian university. In America she received her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science at George Mason University and a master’s degree from George Washington University.

Ansari was listed in Fortune’s Magazine’s “40 under 40″ in 2001 and honored by Working Woman Magazine as the winner of the year 2000 National Entrepreneurial Excellence Award.

While in the space station for eight days, she will be conducting blood and muscular experiments for the European Space Agency. She believes that entrepreneurial minds and money will speed innovation. She hopes that her example will spur others to explore space for the future of mankind.

She returned safely on Sept 29 in Kazakhstan.

Orville and Wilbur Wright not only manufactured bicycles, they were active cyclists who took long rides and participated in bicycle races. Wilbur describes one fun ride around the Dayton area of 31 miles. Orville won races and medals.

My son Don, is an aeronautical engineer who works for the FAA, enjoys riding bicycles and belongs to a racing team in Seattle.

This year he journeyed to Europe to participate in the 2006 Tour De France pre-race over the Alps. Some 8,000 cyclists took advantage of the opportunity. The route included three beyond category climbs, and one 1st category climb over a 104-mile ride including the leg killing combination of ascents and descents of the massive Galibier and Le Telegraph passes.

The official start of the race was at the bottom of the L’ Alpe d’Huez. As I am wrote this, I watched the Tours 15th stage in which Floyd Landis won the Yellow Jersey on this mountain. The 13.8-kilometer ride to the top includes 21 hairpin switchbacks. An estimated 1 million spectators watched.

Floyd Landis went on to win the yellow jersey in Paris for the Tour.

Here is the story in Don’s words:

“Whoo, I made it! Three beyond category climbs, a 1st category climb and 104 miles – more difficult than any single stage in the Tour. I think it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve concluded that a 39×27 is not a low enough gear for 16,000+ feet of climbing at grades of 7-11% for miles on end. A compact crank, or at least 38 x 28, would have definitely helped.

The start was pretty disorganized. I stayed in a hotel at the top of the Alpe d’ Huez. The start was in Bourg d’Oisan, at the base of the Alpe at 7:15 AM. We had been told that there was a free shuttle if you sign up in advance, but none of the people I talked to knew anything about it. That turned out not to be a big deal as it gave me the opportunity to descend the Alpe, something I had only done previously in a driving thunderstorm.

I flew down the switchbacks, passing plenty of other riders and a few cars, and was having a great time. It had taken me a little over an hour to go up it a couple of years ago; it only took 15-18 minutes to go down it.

The start was supposed to be in waves of a thousand every fifteen minutes or so. With a number of 3726, I figured that I would be starting around 8 AM. They directed all the riders down this side road into a big disorganized mass. At one point there was a diversion for numbers higher than 600. (There were more than 8,000 riders registered for this insanity.)

I saw a number of riders less than 600 take that lane, as it was not backed up like the main lane was. We progressed forward very slowly, then finally were able to get on our bikes and ride forward, still very slowly. At one point, the lane for the riders with numbers greater than 6,000 re-merged with the main lane – all the riders who went down that lane actually got a shortcut!

Suddenly, I was riding under what looked to be the start banner and realized that I had just started! Sure enough, it was around 8 AM.

We had about 10-15 miles of flat road before the first climb. People were generally going pretty slow, so I spent a lot of time trying to find my way around and through large groups of cyclists. We went by a couple of intersections with median strips where they had a policeman waving yellow triangular flags over their heads like at the Tour de France. Pretty cool.

When we started up, my plan was to take it easy up the first two climbs, hopefully saving something for the Galibier and the finish up Alpe d’Huez. Even though I was trying to go easy, I was steadily passing scores (hundreds) of riders who were basically spread across the entire width of the narrow road. Motorcycles with the race kept going up the left side of the road, trying to maintain a little space over there for any traffic that might be foolish enough to be coming the other way.

At the top of the Col du Glandon (which we did instead of Col de la Croix Fer because of road maintenance), things came to a halt. I followed some other cyclists who had gotten off their bikes and were hiking over the Glandon on foot above the road. There was a water stop at the top of the mountain, and I thought that was what had caused the jam-up. When we got back to the road on the other side of the mountain, there were police blocking the road.

The descent off of Glandon is very steep and tricky, with a sheer drop-off on one side. The police said that there had been an accident involving 5 cyclists. I never heard what had happened or how the cyclists were.

I ended up being delayed over an hour. I later heard a number of cyclists called it quits at that point and turned around. I was worried about how they would start us going again, and did not relish the thought of descending the Glandon with thousands of other cyclists at the same time. Fortunately, they let us off in small groups. As on Alpe d’Huez, I was not impressed with the descending skills of the other cyclists. I flew down that thing, again passing hundreds of cyclists on the long descent. The switchbacks were tight and unforgiving, but they were easy to see and slow down for.

On the flats between the Glandon and the Col du Telegraph, I again could not find a group going the speed I wanted to go. I couldn’t even find a group that was maintaining 20 mph. Finally, after passing a lot of groups, one group latched on to me, then some of their guys took some pulls. (Most of the riders were content to let anyone pull forever.) One guy finally came up and pulled for the last few miles at 25 mph – just what I was looking for. And he didn’t mind staying up there. At one point, I went up alongside him and told him we were doing a great job –- he just said that he flats.

At the base of the Telegraph, I was out of water, so I stopped at a bar to get some. It took me about 10-15 minutes just to get a water bottle filled. I started up the Telegraph, thinking that it was the shortest and easiest of the climbs, again passing other cyclists at a good clip. After a little bit, I came upon a sign that said 10k to the summit. I was hoping it was going to be more like 5k at that point, as I was starting to feel it. At 3k to go, I was really running low on energy, and for the first time, although I was still passing a good number of cyclists, I was also being passed by several groups.

Finally, the summit, and another good, though much shorter descent before the next climb, the monster Galibier (above 9,000 feet in elevation). I knew I was in need of some solid food (gels and Power Bars just weren’t cutting it at that point). I stopped at a little kind of drive-in food stand that was selling sandwiches and pizza. Pizza sounded good to me, so I ordered one. When it came, I didn’t realize how big it was going to be. I wolfed down half of it, then offered the rest to the other emaciated riders waiting in line for food. Then it was time to start the Galibier.

I remembered the Galibier from having ridden it a few years ago as very long, but not very steep. However, with the amount of energy I’d already expended, and the heat, which was making it very difficult to stay hydrated, it seemed a lot harder this time. It was here that I decided that my gear selection was inadequate – my normal cadence in my lowest gear resulted in a speed of about 7 mph, 6 mph was okay, but I was starting to get bogged down. 5 mph was a really slow cadence, and if I was under 5 mph, I felt like it was time to stop.

All those people I’d been passing had lower gears that would allow a higher cadence at lower speeds, saving their legs a bit for the distance. I ended up having to stop 2 or 3 times on the way up the Galibier. It was at this point that I started wondering if I was going to complete the ride. (Actually, I’d been wondering that since the day before when I took a little recon ride that my legs didn’t like too much, and started wondering about my gearing.) At the top, I took a quick stop for more water and some orange and banana slices that they had. I knew that it would be pretty much all downhill from there until Alpe d’Huez.

Again, the descent was loads of fun. The first part is more technical (and more exposed). I remember that the other time I’d done it, I thought I would never want to do it in a race because of the exposure – if you missed a turn on some of those turns, it was a long way down. But this time, maybe knowing what to expect, I didn’t think it was bad at all. The descents were definitely the most fun part of the whole event and well worth the price of admission by themselves.

I was again passing large number of riders, but when the road finally straightened out a bit, a group latched onto me and we started riding together. It was a good thing, too, because it was a headwind the whole way back. Even though it was downhill, when the grade lessened, the headwind was making it a bit difficult to go it alone. After a slight uphill that detached a number of in our group, five of us finally started riding in a continuously rotating paceline, which was necessary due to the wind.

We all stopped at the final food stop at the base of Alpe d’Huez. It was about 4:15 PM. If I hadn’t been delayed an hour at the Col du Glandon, I would have still had a shot at a gold medal if I could get up the Alpe in about an hour. Well, I could do that on fresh legs, but not on toasted ones like I now had. I was kind of glad that I didn’t have a shot at that because all I wanted to think about now was surviving.

It took me about a ½ hour to eat, drink, fill water bottles, and convince myself that I had better get started. I knew that the first 4 switchbacks were the hardest, at grades over 11%, so I set a goal of making it to switchback 17 before thinking about stopping (The numbers get smaller as you ride up the Alpe).

I didn’t make it. I had to stop at 18. Then I started having some chain skipping problems, so I had to stop a couple more times to deal with that. The places that I had remembered it as being less steep were still very difficult. What had taken me over an hour a few years ago (when I was not trying to go real hard) took me nearly 2 hours (1:45 to 1:50) this time, including about 3 or 4 stops. Some riders were walking their bikes, but most had those infuriating low gears that they could continue to ride in even though they were going just slightly faster than a walking pace. It was sure faster than I was going while I was stopped, though!

It eases off in the last couple of kilometers as you go through the alpine village at the top. The last kilometer really eases off, then it goes a little downhill through a roundabout, then around a left hand to an uphill finish. I was waiting for that and really kicked it up for the finish, jumping to the big ring for the little downhill and sprinting past some riders on the finishing uphill.

It was kind of cool in that they had the final 1 k blocked off with the Tour de France type fencing, and there was a grandstand set up with people cheering you on. There wasn’t any 1 k kite or banner, but the finish banner was pretty neat.

As soon as I crossed the finish line, I stopped and bent over my bike. Then I noticed that the place where your timing chip actually recorded your finish was a few feet further on, and all the people I had just passed were going by me to the electronic finishing lanes.

Oh well, what else? I rolled forward to the electronic finish and got my official time – 10 hours and 33 minutes – good enough for a silver medal (which you had to purchase).

Well, that’s it for my excellent adventure (for the old guy from Newcastle, Washington).”

Comment: I would say so! For a guy in his late 40s, his performance was simply amazing.