doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (04/15/85)
It is well known that Orville Wright made the first successful flight
in a powered plane back in 1903. What isn't so well known is what the
secret of success was. What did they know that everyone else didn't?
Now it can be told. Actually, it was Wilbur who discovered what the
problem was. And it was he who invented the VHF comm radio. Nobody
prior to then had even thought about carrying a radio.
The Wright's first few attempts at flight didn't go too well. Wilbur's
first attempt at a radio was a "coffee grinder", and they had a lot of
trouble locating Kitty Hawk Tower's frequency. But persistence paid
off, and they eventually obtained the previously missing ingredient --
the clearance to take off. Finally, powered flight was a reality.
That first flight wasn't too long. The DME failed right after rotation,
and Orville didn't want to get lost. Later flights were much longer,
especially after they relocated to the Dayton area and installed a
LORAN-C navigation system.
Another little-known story is why there were such high losses among the
World War I fighters. It seems that the machine guns on the Sopwith
Camels caused so much vibration that sometimes the transponder code
would jump by itself. When the "ace" returned to base, his transponder
might be squawking the wrong code. This caused his own home base to
think that they were under attack, and a stage 7 SCATANA alert would be
put into effect. With the navaids shut down, the ace was hopelessly
lost and when his fuel ran out he was often behind enemy lines.
... and now, back to reality ...
This month, one of "Flying" magazine's contributing editors tells of
miraculously surviving a brush with death. He experienced an electrical
problem and had to turn off the master switch. This left him in daytime
CAVU conditions with *no radios*. The column describes how he survived
by invoking lost arts such as using sectionals and following roads.
Okay, I'm overdramatizing it a bit. But he really does say that he
"held his breath" when he shut off the master switch. Sheesh...
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Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug