Two inventive brothers began the age of flight \u2014 not the Wrights, but the Montgolfiers.<\/p>\n
As the world commemorates the centennial of the Wright brothers\u2019 achievement on the beach near Kitty Hawk, it\u2019s worth remembering that airplanes aren\u2019t the only way to fly. An unpowered glider can soar through the sky, a helicopter can hover and flit around, and a cannon can even shoot a circus performer in a parabola through the air. This fall marks the 220th anniversary of the first time a human ascended in a flying machine \u2014 a hot-air balloon built by Joseph Michel and Jacques \u00c9tienne Montgolfier.<\/p>\n
Within a decade of that first flight, balloons were used for military reconnaissance in France. In the 1860s, both sides in the U.S. Civil War used balloons to collect military intelligence \u2014 and sometimes these spies in the sky dispatched instantaneous reports to the ground through telegraph wires, as documented in Charles Evans\u2019s recent book, War of the Aeronauts<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. Throughout the nineteenth century, balloons were used for private amusement and scientific observations, as they still are today.<\/p>\n So what Wilbur and Orville Wright accomplished on December 17, 1903, wasn\u2019t man\u2019s first flight. It was technically, as described by Wright biographer Tom Crouch, the first time in history that \u201can airplane had taken off, moved forward under its own power, and landed at a point at least as high as that from which it had started \u2014 all under the complete control of the pilot.\u201d<\/p>\n But that strictly technical explanation obscures the true meaning of the Wrights\u2019 flight. While the Montgolfiers put us in the sky, the Wright brothers put us in control<\/em>. Balloons and dirigibles were good for getting up and down, but heavier-than-air planes would prove easier to steer against the wind, simpler to operate solo, quicker to land and take off \u2014 in short, airplanes made it easier to go places<\/em> through the sky.<\/p>\n Since 1903, we\u2019ve fought dogfights and dropped atomic bombs. We\u2019ve built jumbo jets that seat hundreds and drones that fly empty. We\u2019ve sent flying fortresses and stealth planes into battle. We\u2019ve built thousands of runways and visited hundreds of aviation museums and eaten millions of in-flight meals. We\u2019ve gone from delivering airmail in rickety monoplanes to checking e-mail in cushy cabins that roar over continents. We\u2019ve seen planes used for the heroism of Lindbergh and Yeager, and the evil of September 11. It is for this, all this, that we honor the Wrights this year.<\/p>\n