joy magnetism: As the joy flies




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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

As the joy flies

Magnet #558 - Wright Bros Centennial

I picked up this magnet at the Greensboro airport in North Carolina a few years ago, when the First Flight Foundation helped celebrate a century of flight. I was sad I didn't get to join in any of the festivities.

The Wright Bros remind me of my first and only visit to the Outer Banks. I know. And I call myself a Carolina Girl. But after a terrible, terrible night where my mother was bitten by some bug that landed us in some rural clinic's parking lot in the middle of a somewhat scary night, having woken up some poor doctor to help my mom out, uh, yeah - we never went back.

I do hazily remember a cloudy day tromping around Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills to visit the Wright Bros National Memorial. I remember it being a vast windy place. I suppose that came in handy for Orville's first successful flight - where he flew for 12 seconds for just about 120 feet. Wilbur had his turn later that day, for about a minute and like 850 feet. (Hear that, Ohio? North Carolina. First. In. Flight. No matter where the Wright Bros hail from.)

My last memory of the Wright Bros is a little more recent - when I tried to use an image of their grand flying machine in an ad for a local North Carolina client. Uh, yeah. Let's just say that even though they've been dead for almost 100 years, they're still makin' a pretty penny. (That said, please note that this magnet is for editorial use only, and is fully protected under the rights of the original copyright owners.)

Well, I guess they deserve every pretty penny. After all, who would have thought that a century later, a team could spend today daytripping from New York City to Houston (fly down, attend meetings, eat lunch, and fly back) all in less 18 hours flat - with about seven hours flight time.

Quite an amazing feat, if you consider that driving down by car is just over a day's travel, riding the rails down is about two days' travel, and if you're curious, about 50 days. By wagon train.

Hey, Wright Brothers? Thanks a mil!
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5 comments:

jen said...

I recall lots of annoying burrs in the grass at Kitty Hawk. Even then I didn't like the outdoors. Heh. Wasn't there a scary animated mannequin-type show or something?

joy said...

I think it was a peek into their workshop with wax models of the brothers. I think.

Though maybe that's the Plymoth wax museum I'm remembering.

The Geek said...

A friend of the family was turning 80, but did NOT want a birthday celebration tagging him as such an old man, so his daughter (my godmother) planned a huge party for him at the Hiller Aviation Museum. He loves to fly, and got his pilot's license on his 20th birthday, so the party was billed as his 60th anniversary of flight! Went over very well, and we had a great time... Cute little museum there, tucked up next to the freeway! http://www.hiller.org/

joy said...

GG, that's a fantastic spin on a birthday. Love it. And thanks for the reco - I love little museums - sometimes they're better than the big houses.

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