AJ Ricker WINGS #1

1. What impact did flight have on life in the twentieth century?

            According to Tom Crouch, in his book Wings, the impact of flight on life in the 20^th century is almost incalculable simply because it opened the door to a love of science and technology that has forever changed the world.  Says Crouch, an early and very “obvious” change was that flight introduced the “weapon of the century” (Crouch 11).  After all, Crouch reasons, the major event of the 20^th century (dropping of the A-Bomb on Japan) could not have occurred if not for flight.  Other significant changes include globalization – with passenger flight there is more cross-cultural interaction and even a “homogenization” or blending of cultures.  Crouch also points out that many areas of our lives have been majorly impacted by the advent of flight – including business interests (such as the retail market geared just for travelers), religious interests (travel for pilgrimages), and even sports events (such as the Olympics).  In fact, flight is so significant to 20^th century history that, notes Crouch, we tend to mark significant flight history with our own timelines (12).  In the later part of the 20^th century, flight’s influence has been geared more toward advances in technology – and a more firm belief among our world’s citizens that man will continue to advance into farther reaches of space exploration. 

2. Why did it take so long for man to realize the dream of flight?

            In his text Wings, author Tom Crouch delves into the history of humankind’s interest in flying and gives several reasons why it took us until the 20^th century to accomplish flight.  Historians can show that man was clearly interested in the notion and symbolism of flight since before written records began with imagery of man “flying” to the heavens. “It began with our deep and distant ancestral envy of birds and involved nothing more or less than the realization of the oldest and most potent of human symbols,” says Crouch (15).  He adds, “…we placed our gods in the sky and made flight, the one gift we had been denied, an attribute of divinity” (Crouch 15).  Even with this drive to escape from the ground, as well as even having many of the materials that would eventually be used in flight, mankind was unable to achieve this feat simply because we didn’t have the science.  It wasn’t until the 17^th and 18^th centuries that major mathematicians and philosophers (early scientists) made the important discoveries about physics that would eventually lead to successful flight.  In addition, this wasn’t just a “sudden” discovery by one or two brilliant people.  In fact, the process included a variety of science breakthroughs, spanning hundreds of years, involving air, heat, lift, material design, and wind manipulation.  Even the toy pinwheel played a pivotal role in theory as well as plain old inspiration.  Like all scientific discoveries, methods took time to refine; and, the results had to be tested and duplicated in order for the next step to come. 

6. How did the United States government and other countries respond to the Wrights’ efforts to sell their invention?

            After losing a large sum of money while financing the failed Langley Aerodrome, the U.S. government was not all that eager to rush into a deal with the Wright brothers when they decided to market their flying machine, notes Tom Crouch in his book Wings.  After some failed flights during testing at the less windy Ohio site of Huffman Prairie, many people thought that they were more or less a flash in the pan.  Eventually, through equipment adjustments and (mostly) more experience, the brothers were able to maintain longer flight times consistently; and interest in their discovery increased (Crouch 81).  Soon, the Wright brothers realized that this interest could result in their hard work being stolen so they successfully patented it.  The problem was that they refused to demonstrate their machine unless the buyer signed a contract and this pretty much goes against common business practices.  In addition, since the U.S. government agency in charge of procuring such a machine had already been publicly embarrassed by the Langley fiasco, the U.S. Army’s procuring agency was simply not willing to take a chance on “the claims of two bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio” without solid proof of success (Crouch 82).  They reached out to other nations with similar negative results.  Basically, the brothers “were attempting to do business with the governments of the world as if they were merchants in West Dayton” (Crouch 83).  Even so, Britain and France were both interested but they also felt certain that they could independently develop their own flying abilities by working off of Wrights’ concepts.  Eventually, the brothers hired an arms firm to help them market their discovery.  Then, the government, in typical bureaucratic form, created a “performance specification for an airplane and accepted a bid from the Wright brothers” (Crouch 83).  Once the brothers learned to successfully negotiate government red tape, they had better success here and abroad.