The Original Top Gun
Last month marked the centennial of military aviation. In September of 1908, Orville Wright demonstrated the latest version of the Wright Brothers’ flyer to the U.S. Army at Fort Myer, Virginia.
On September 17 , Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge joined Orville aboard the flyer. Minutes into the flight, a propeller snapped, causing a crash that made Selfridge the first powered-flight fatality. Wright survived with injuries.
Speaking to the New York Times, Army General Luke Wright expressed his regret, then noted, “I see no reason why this accident should give any serious setback to the experiments in aeronautics being made by the army.”
Why should it? Even though they hadn’t yet invented YouTube and the heavy-metal sound track, they could still see that the flying machine was going to totally rock at killing people. Of course, it was ultimately preferable to kill enemies on the ground than to entice them into free rides, but there would be time to work out the details.
I can’t say the death of Selfridge was a good thing, but there was a certain undeniable poetic justice to it. If mankind was going to fly, of all things… and if, having divined the sacred knowledge, his first impulse was going to be to paint the damn thing olive drab, then the gods of air warfare would take their sacrificial offering up front, thank you very much. It was their way of giving us a moment to think again and change our minds.
But we didn’t, of course. There’s no proof of rightness so compelling as early blood. It frees us to move forward twice as fast, with half the thought, so that the departed “shall not have died in vain.”
Don’t get me wrong. Air power has played a key role in maintaining freedom and fighting oppression around the world. It’s kicked a lot of asses and saved a lot of asses. Every story has two sides (at least), and we can’t tell only one side if we want to respect ourselves in the morning. One of my former classmates flew Chinooks in Afghanistan, and I have to think that both he and Afghanistan are better for his service. But we have to acknowledge that the very first time the military played with airplanes, a guy got killed. That’s important.
If they could swoop down on us today, I’m sure the Wright Brothers would be astounded at how far their technology has come in 100 years. They would be captivated by the engineering and aerodynamics, by the sheer weights and speeds and forces involved. We put the tails in back now. We use metal instead of canvas. It would blow their minds.
I’m sure, for old times’ sake, the Air Force would even give them a ride.