This is a very good written story by Sean Chase for the Daily Observer. I a long time I really enjoyed reading something like that. Here’s a sneak peak:
On a crisp winter day 100 years ago, a team of aspiring aeronautical pioneers rolled an unusual contraption out onto the ice of Keuka Lake.
Nervously rubbing his hands, Casey Baldwin inhaled a deep breath of frosty air and then climbed into the cockpit of what was then called a "heavier-than-air machine."
The fledgling Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) had come to the ice covered shores off Hammondsport, New York to test its inaugural aircraft, the "Red Wing" -a biplane constructed out of bamboo wood and red silk.
It was not the lake, however, that drew them to upstate New York, but a man named Glenn Curtiss. The American businessman, who became a partner in the Canadian aeronautical research group, manufactured single cylinder internal combustion engines. The association was trying to solve the biggest problem of early flight -the power-to-weight ratio. They believed the Curtiss engine was the answer.
Sitting in the pilot’s seat, an ordinary kitchen chair with the legs sawed off, Mr. Baldwin shouted instructions to the ground crew. As they pushed the Red Wing on its runners, the little engine fired. With the motor at full throttle, the craft lifted off, sailed effortlessly for 319 feet (97 metres) and then landed without incident.
And rest of the story is located here, take a look at it.
