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!