The Dream of Flight

“FLYING machines, one and all, have quickly illustrated the adage of our youth, ‘What goes up must come down.’”

So began a somewhat skeptical editorial in The New York Times of May 25, 1908—less than five years after the Wright brothers made their famous flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, U.S.A. Still doubtful of the success of the newfangled “flying machines” that were starting to appear in the skies overhead, the writer mused that “comparatively few of us have any desire to float in the air at a great height from the earth.” Though conceding that future generations might take more kindly to air travel, the article asserted that the “dream of long-distance passenger airships . . . may never be realized.”

How wrong that prediction turned out to be! Today, more than one billion passengers fly in “long-distance passenger airships” every year. Yes, within one century, airplanes have been transformed from the flimsy wood-and-fabric contraptions they were at the turn of the century to the sleek computer-equipped jetliners of today, which cruise seven miles [10 km] above the earth and carry hundreds of passengers to far-flung destinations in climate-controlled comfort.

The rapid progress of aviation technology in the 20th century has been truly remarkable and has radically changed our world. Actually, the story of man’s quest to conquer the skies can be traced back much further than the past few decades—or even the past few centuries. Human flight is a dream that has obsessed men since ancient times.

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Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, world’s fastest jet, at some 2,200 m.p.h.

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Boeing Stratoliner 307, c. 1940, 33 passengers, cruising speed 215 m.p.h.

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Boeing Company Archives

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The Wright brothers’ “Flyer,” 1903

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U.S. National Archives photo