Wings Assignment #2

1. Did flight have any influence outside of aviation? If so, how?

Yes, outside of aviation, flight had an influence on many different areas; “like everyone else, the artists and intellectuals got caught up in the excitement of flight” (Crouch, 121). Cubist painters became involved and went to Issy-les-Moulineaux and began to build mode airplanes, and Gabriele D’Annunzio, an Italian poet and novelist, as well as the pet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, began to write about flight in their literature. Others, such as Vasily Vasilyevich Kamensky, became interested in flight and together with others he began to lecture on airplanes. Additionally, popular culture was heavily affected by flight with “clocks, fans, pencil boxes, cigarette cases, pitchers, places and ginger jars were a few of the items emblazoned with the images of airplanes in flight” (Crouch, 123). Pulp magazine yarns also began to have stories about flight, contrary to people having grown up reading dime-novel tales. Children began to play with aviation dolls and model airplanes as well as other games and puzzles, and another popular item were aeronautical postcards. Language was also affected by aviation with many of the words being of French origin, such as aviation, fuselage, and helicopter. Flight also affected the field of science with people in other fields such as physics and engineering, becoming interested in helping further research how to develop flight.  

5. In your opinion, did the Wright Brothers’ patent suits affect the progress of aviation?

The patent suits began on August 18-19, 1911 when the Wright Brothers filed a complaint against Glenn Curtiss prohibiting him from making, selling, or exhibiting airplanes that infringed on the Wright Brother’s patents as well as filing a suit against the Aeronautic Society of New York prohibiting them from exhibiting a Curtis airplane. Additionally the Wright Brothers sought several other injunctions. These various patent suits were all consuming for two years and many in the government and aeronautic industry agreed that these suits retarded the growth of American Aeronautics and had “”caused the United States to fall from first place to last of all the great nations in the air””(Crouch, 147). However, I do not think that these patent suits severely hindered the progress of aviation. I do not believe that the Wright Brother’s did it for the profit, although Orville did profit from the suits, but rather I think that they did it to protect their rights and their ideas that they had worked so hard to achieve. Although these patent suits probably did slow down some of the progress in aviation in America, I do not believe that it had any significant hindrance on the progress of aviation in American.

7. What was the cult of the heroic airman?

According to the author, the cult of the heroic airman “began as a natural extension of the adulation lavished on the aeronautical heroes of the prewar era” (156). The French culture had given great admiration to their pilots, both in racing and in exhibition, as well as to the men who risked their lives to achieve a French victory. The cult of the heroic airman were French airman that had somehow made some contribution to the French during the war and had managed to inspire the country by defending the French nation. One of the first as Ronald Garros. According to a story written about him in a newspaper, he had shown his dedication to his country when he sacrificed himself for France by throwing himself and his aircraft straight at a German aircraft which resulted in both parties deaths. Although this story was deemed to be false, “the French needed heroes” (Crouch, 156). These heroic airman were used to inspire the country as “the aviator…was like a medieval knight, boldly carrying out the national standard into combat with a champion from the other side. Such a man would live or die on the basis of his own skill and courage” (Crouch, 156).

Crouch, Tom D. Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 2003. Print.