FLIGHT AND ITS HISTORY

Wilbur and Orville Wright 

     In the year 1900,  the Wrights tested their 50 lb. , 17 ft. wingspan glider in Kitty Hawk, Carolina. It wasn't really that great. It didn't float.

     In 1901 at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, the brothers flew the largest glider ever to be flown. It weighed nearly 100 lb. and wingspan of 22 ft. They found out for better landings, it would have to skid. Many problems happened though. First, the wings didn't have enough lift to lift itself off the ground. Second, the forward elevator wasn't very useful in controlling the pitch; and the wing warping sometimes caused the airplane to go out of control. In their failure, they predicted that no one would probably. At least not fly in their years.

     But, the Wright brothers studied their tests again and this time said that the predictions they had made were not able to be depended on. They decided to build a wind tunnel to test a variety of wing shapes and their effect on lift. Based upon these tests, the brothers had a better grip of how a wing works. The results also gave them better percent in predicting how wings worked.   In 1902 the Wrights flew a bunch of piloted test glides, with few bad ones . Studies of the bad ones showed that a movable tail would help balance the glider. They connected the movable tail to the wing-warping wires to control turns. With glides to verify their wind tunnel tests, the Wrights were ready to build a motor aircraft.

      After days of studying how propellers work, and in 1903 the Wright Brothers made their motor and a new flying machine. The aircraft needed to be strong enough to be able to carry the added weight and movement of the motor. When built, the aircraft weighed over 700 lbs. This became the first flyer. In December of 1903, the Wrights built a movable track to launch the Flyer. The track helped the flyer to gain enough speed to fly. On December 17,  on the third try to fly the machine, Orville took it for a 12 second, flight. This became the first, motor powered, piloted flight in the world's history.

JOHN GLENN

        In a bunch of shredded paper, John Glenn made his 2nd trip through Manhattan Canyon in a parade, 2nd trip to space and 36 years after he became the first man in orbit. Dressed in a blue suit, in an open top convertible beside his wife, Annie. "It truly rates the word awesome,'' John said at a ceremony after the parade at City Hall, where he and the members of the Discovery received the keys to the city by  Rudolph Giuliani. Glenn's first parade on March 1, 1962 after his  flight is said to be the largest in New York. Over  3,400 tons of confetti and ticker-tape came down along a seven mile route. Even boosted by crowds from Wall Street, his shuttle flight was huge by New York ratings and people along a route less than a mile long were surprisingly calm.
    A parade honoring the World Series champion Yankees had an estimated 3.5 million people show up on Oct. 23. Police said John's parade was attended by 500 thousand - a figure that appeared  inflated. Glenn told the crowd, which included many children, that he hoped the Discovery flight would make another generation - as well as the old - to reach for the stars.