hckrnws
The first powered aircraft fatality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hermann_W%C3%B6lfert and his mechanic Robert Knabe, 1897
After the crash, the Wright's built a new plane, the 1909 Military Flyer. It came back the next year to Ft. Myer and became the first plane, anywhere in the world, to be bought by a government (1). Orville Wright taught three Army officers to fly on that plane, and then, the Army being what it is, a fourth guy got a letter from Wright explaining how to fly and told "take this plane to San Antonio and teach yourself to fly at Fort Sam Houston." After he had done about 40 more flights, only some of which ended in crashes, the 1909 Military Flyer was retired in 1911. It was given to the Smithsonian. While the other Wright airplanes (2) in the Smithsonian collection have been cleaned up and restored, made to look more like they did when brand new, the Military Flyer has been kept in its 1910 parts: there is a stain on the bottom wing (right below the engine) that is from the use of this airplane more than 115 years ago.
1: The contract was for a plane to fly for an hour, at 30mph out and back, carrying two people (pilot and observer). There was a 10% penalty on the 25,000 for every mph by which the plane was slower than 30mph, and a 10% bonus for every mph by which the plane was above 30mph. The Military Flyer averaged 32 mph on the loop it did, so the Army paid the Wright's $30,000.
2: There are 8 surviving original Wright Airplanes left in the world, the Smithsonian owns three of them: the 1903 Wright Flyer, the 1909 Military Flyer, and the Model Ex Vin Fizz.
#1 sounds like a dangerous incentive. But different times!
Bah, there's a report of an earlier one in Ovid's Metamorphoses from 8 CE.
Article title says plane but in the text it says powered flight.
But not "non human-powered" flight? If Icarus flapped a little, that counts.
If you can’t maintain altitude without losing significant airspeed, you’re just falling.
Even if you maintain both you can still be falling (orbits!)
> The crash had fractured his skull. At the time, neither man wore head protection, as aviation helmets were not yet standard equipment.
It’s kinda wild to me how reliable we are at having to learn the hard way to wear a helmet for each new sport or endeavour.
So I looked up and discovered that bicycle helmets became a common thing in the 1970s. Perhaps motorcycles were earlier. But either way I have to ask - what did people wear helmets for in 1909? Im thinking that most helmet usage came later.
Helmet usage, as in protective headware for general melee war and one on one fighting, dates back to the bronze age.
Hard hats, of assorted kinds for general protection while working, date back to the 1890s and became more commonplace ~1920 (ish) onwards in construction, mining, and ship building industries.
* Helmets: https://www.battlemerchant.com/en/blog/the-evolution-of-hist...
* Hard Hats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_hat
I suspect there are more early European hard hat examples to be found than are cited in the wikipedia article.
I think they were fairly common for things like gladiatorial games, jousting, etc.
In fairness, quite a few failure modes for aircraft do not matter much if you are wearing a helmet or not.
You’d be surprised. Small aircraft crashes, if control is not lost before hitting the ground, are much more similar to car crashes than to large airliner crashes. For example, a recent “innovation” that saved a lot of lives was making shoulder belts (as opposed to lap only belts) standard.
Next up: airbags..!
Surprisingly, the article does not mention that Selfridge field in Michigan is named after Lieutenant Selfridge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfridge_Air_National_Guard_B....
More historical photos of Selfridge
https://digitalcollections.museumofflight.org/nodes/search?k...
When KLM started flying Amsterdam-Batavia in the 1930s it was dangerous but people preferred it to spending weeks on a ship.
Preferred like people today prefer their private jet? It cost more than your typical annual salary at the time.
I just read that the trip was still a 5 day journey, involving 20+ stops and spinning that takeoff and landing roulette wheel quite a bit..
The novelty factor might have been just as big a deal as time savings. It was something cool to try as an ultra wealthy globe trotter.
This page (1) reports 9 stops (between start and destination):
> The plane took off – for the 1st leg of the flight from Amsterdam to Batavia – on 30 April. The schedule: Budapest 30 April, Athens 1 May, Cairo 2 May, Baghdad 3 May, Jask 4 May, Jodhpur 5 May, Calcutta 6 May, Tavoy 7 May, Medan 8 May and arriving in Batavia on 9 May.
This page(2) claims a max speed of 190km/h. Budapest to Athens is 1130 km apart, so if the plane was flying around 150km/h, it's a 7 hour trip for that segment. Ouch. At least the passengers probably had a nice dinner and slept every night in a nice hotel...
(1) https://dutchaustralianculturalcentre.com.au/archive/dutch-a...
(2) https://aircraftinvestigation.info/airplanes/Fokker_F.VIIa.h...
I read that it is statistically more dangerous to fly on a private jet than a commercial one.
Definitely, you can’t get much safer mode of travel than a modern airline. There are some humorous statistics that hour for hour taking a shower is more dangerous.
Accidents generally go up as you move down the scale of regularly scheduled airlines -> charter -> private with professional crew -> private flying.
100 Americans can drive a car their whole life, and statistically one will die.
There is zero chance 100 people could fly private airplanes everyday for their whole life and only one dies. I suppose if you look at 100 skilled pilots flying private aircraft for 50 years daily.. still would be a lot worse
Crafted by Rajat
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