Teddy Roosevelt Goes Flying

The Wright exhibition team was performing at an air meet in St. Louis when pilot Arch Hoxsey crossed paths with Teddy Roosevelt on October 11, 1910. At the time, Roosevelt was campaigning for Missouri’s state Republican party. In this silent clip, Roosevelt initially refuses Hoxsey’s invitation to fly, but changes his mind. One can only imagine what Roosevelt was thinking as Hoxsey put the biplane into three steep dives, pulling up sharply each time. Video: Library of Congress (3:36)

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Preview thumbnail for video'Test Flying the XF-90

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Preview thumbnail for video'Operation Tumbler-Snapper

In the spring of 1952, the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency conducted a series of atomic bomb drops and tower shots at the Nevada Proving Ground, code-named Operation Tumbler Snapper. One of Tumbler-Snappers objectives was to see how soldiers and military equipmentincluding one of only two Lockheed XF-90 fighters ever builtreacted to the detonation. Jet aircraft (including the XF-90 and some F-47s) were seen to be less damaged by the atomic blast than were the bombers (a B-45, a B-29, and some B-17s). This excerpt from a contemporary U.S. Air Force documentary about the Tumbler-Snapper program focuses on the airplane testing. Source: Internet Archive/ US Dept. of Energy

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Preview thumbnail for video'Wright B Over Manhattan, 1912

In the winter of 1912, Frank Coffyn filmed the first silent motion pictures of New York ever taken from an airplane.Coffyn, a member of the Wright Exhibition Team, equipped the Wright Model B with the first-ever airplane pontoons, and barely missed the ice floes bobbing in New York Harbor as he lifted off. He mounted a camera rigidly between the seats, its view changing as the nose of the airplane moved. Coffyn began with an overflight of the Statue of Liberty and produced the first aerial motion pictures of the monument and Ellis Island. He then passed over the round structure of Fort Jay, a military prison on Governor's Island, and circled to Battery Park at the tip of New York, coordinating his banks and turns by watching the flutter of a length of string tied to the cross wire of his Wright B. For his dramatic final demonstration, Coffyn flew under both the Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridges before landing with the wind at his back for speed and coasting to the dock at Battery Park. The clip ends with footage of Coffyn some 31 years later, as he reminisced about the golden days of the Wright team. Video: National Air and Space Museum

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Preview thumbnail for video'Teddy Roosevelt Goes Flying

The Wright exhibition team was performing at an air meet in St. Louis when pilot Arch Hoxsey crossed paths with Teddy Roosevelt on October 11, 1910. At the time, Roosevelt was campaigning for Missouris state Republican party. In this silent clip, Roosevelt initially refuses Hoxseys invitation to fly, but changes his mind. One can only imagine what Roosevelt was thinking as Hoxsey put the biplane into three steep dives, pulling up sharply each time. Video: Library of Congress

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Preview thumbnail for video'Ace Drummond (1936)

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Preview thumbnail for video'Great Restorations

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Preview thumbnail for video'Chuck Yeager Press Conference, 1953

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