JF Ptak Science Books Post 2772
In the times that I've had to research the Wright Brothers (they do deserve that capital “B” if they are not named separately) I've never seen a reference for their 1910 flight school in Montgomery, Alabama. The school came to be as part of an effort to educate a team of fliers who could then go out and educate the general public in the art of flying.
This was a solidly-grounded idea much in the same tradition as any of the concerted and considered efforts by the Wright Brothers. (It is remarkable how competent and exploratory they were in their pursuit of flight. Right from the time that Wilbur was laid up in bed recovering from typhoid fever in 1896, he was doing some clear and excellent thinking on the matter, beautifully concluding that getting into the air in an aeroplane was not so much the case as it was staying in the air; and that depended upon control of the aircraft, and for that he gave very considerable time to the study of how birds control their flight. This realized, flight was not long to follow—five years from sickbed and near-death to 1000 glides, seven to powered flight, all paid for by the brothers, and mostly funded by their bike shop. And by the way, according to David McCullough in his biography of the Wrights the whole flying exercise--including materials, books, machinery, travel, food, and so on--from 1900 to 1903, cost the brothers under $1000. )
Seven years after Kill Devil Hills and the great success, the Wrights came to establish their first flight instruction school in a parcel of land that had been a cotton field, a wide piece of flat land outside of Montgomery, Alabama. There was nothing there except for the flatness, and so to attract the school local businesses worked to clear the land and construct a building that would serve many purposes, which explains the advertisements for those who contributed to the project:
[Photo source: Alabama Pioneers, https://www.alabamapioneers.com/airplane-montgomery/]
Wilbur had made the first flight in Alabama in March 1910, and the school followed soon after. After a relatively short period of instruction, the first graduate of the place, Walter Brookins (1889-1953), would become one of the celebrated Wright Exhibition Team, and set records that same year for highest and longest flights in the U.S. Another early graduate was Henry Arnold, “Hap” Army, General of the Army and only USAF five-star general, who was among other things a barnstormer before his military career.
In any event, I just wanted to share this picture, as I like it so much.
With a fair dose of poetry sprinkled on it, that cotton field is now covered by Maxwell Air Force Base.
Notes:
1. There's a ton of other stuff, too, that I've not seen concerning them, but in this instance the photo of the hangar/school is so charming and the story so compelling that I think I just missed something that is probably a piece of highly visible popular culture.
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