Present at Creation
From five witnesses came a family tradition to honor the moment the airplane was born.
- By Tom Crouch
- Air & Space magazine, January 2009
Among the locals helping the Wrights were Tom Beacham (second from right) with young son John and his dog Bounce.
Library of Congress
(Page 2 of 2)
John Beacham always remembered the candy that Orville kept in his pockets for the boys who hung around the camp, Terry recounts. When the Wrights fired up the engine on December 14, John and Bounce scampered off to escape the clatter and the flying sand. That day, the Wrights had laid the launch rail down the lower slope of the big dune. The weight of the machine headed downhill prevented Wilbur from releasing the line that restrained it. When the Lifesavers assisting that morning pushed the airplane up the track a bit to relieve the pressure, Wilbur and the craft shot into the air, the airplane nosing up so sharply that it stalled. Wilbur made a hard landing only 60 feet from the takeoff point, damaging the front elevator support. Young John Beacham never forgot that aborted flight. Decades later, when Terry Beacham told his father that he wanted to become a Coast Guard aviator, the old man commented: “I didn’t know we had any insanity in the family.”
I’ll be on hand for the ceremony again this year. Last time I was invited to join in, by laying a wreath sent by the city of Dayton, the hometown I share with the Wright brothers. It will be good to see my old friends again, the descendants of the original witnesses. I look forward to watching one of them urge a child or grandchild forward to take up the tradition and lay the family wreath for the first time.
Comments (4)
Reading in Phil Scott's book recently I noticed No. 21, Gustave Whitehead's airplane that he said to have flown up to 1.5 km and up to an altitude of 200 feet in 1901.
This is of course has been discounted by a lack of photographs of the actual flight; however, I would like all to note that his design is a very stable one, with a low aspect-ratio wing and long "V" fuselage that hardly required a tail.
Not to discount the Wrights' contribution to aviation history, but the two photographs in "The Wrong Stuff?, pages 30-31, unless someone can prove otherwise, I'll say it will fly no problem with a 12-horsepower motor on it.
As someone who made and flew kites of all sizes for over twenty years professionally, I think this design should be taken seriously to put history straight being the object, as the Smithsonian is wont to do in most subjects, and to do that by building one. It had to be a much easier-to-fly machine than a Wright flyer and would be quite simple to reproduce to prove all this.
As that world was, it's doubtful to me that the Wrights were ever aware of Whitehead's machine but I'm hardly an expert on such, yet after having seen this early design now, there's no doubt in my kitemaker's eye that it'll fly well; then, with that realization it brings into focus the importance it has to history.
Posted by Tom Mallard on February 18,2009 | 07:26 PM
Why not tell of E. C. Huffaker?
Posted by David Aldridge on January 26,2010 | 04:11 PM
I get annoyed at comments such as this because for some reason its a popular pastime to belittle the accomplishments of The Wright Brothers. Little is written about the quantum leap of technology displayed when the same year we achieved the concept of mass production of crude powered carriages and also controlled powered heavier than air flight.
The Wright Brothers weren't simply making scale drawings of what they thought would make a structure suffient for flight. They were proving design concepts and and powerplant performance through the use of what the brothers considered their greatest achievement, the original wind tunnel complete with scale model subjects and measurible results in all three axis.
The Brothers didn't simply get lucky, they worked ideas and confirmed results along the way. Another item that is often overlooked was the design of the propellers. There were no existing items to copy from. The closest item were ship's propellers which were not even close to what was required for air travel. Through the use of the wind tunnel the brothers were able to fine tune their model propellers for x--amount of thrust at x-amount of rpm vs. the speed of the prop blade tips. Their engine design was amazing considering the technology available at that time. If memory serves me correct somewhere around 12-20 Hp. weighing in around 120 lbs was unheard of in 1902. Just another check mark on their list of accomplishments necessary for first flight.
I could go on for hours on why it was going to be the Wright Bros. that conquered flight. They knew it would fly before they even started construction of the Wright Flyer. I'm affraid we've been short changed regarding all that these two brothers had accomplished before they actually set foot on Kill Devil Hill.
Posted by James Hare on September 16,2010 | 02:46 AM
My grandfather's name is William l. Daniels. He told me when I was a teenager he had seen the first flight. His uncle was John T. Daniels. My grandfather was born in Buffalo, NY. If anyone has a grandfather who was 5 or 6 yrs old at that time, or any pertinent info, please contact me, William l Daniels, at
sixbangerra1816 [at] yahoo [dot] com
Posted by Wlliam L Daniels 2nd on May 20,2012 | 05:54 PM