Barnstorm,ing and cowriter and director of the law faith as to jail. He is the author of to swing through the sky, and musical theater piece commissioned and produced by George Mason University about the history of jazz empowered flight. He was a longtime member of the right experience team an executive director of the discovery flight foundation. Paul is a graduate of Washington University in st. Louis with a degree in visual arts. In addition to aviation history and documentary filmmaking. His career covers classical drawing, stem in steam education. Exhibit design and photography. With that i would like to turn the stage over to paul, thank you all again so much for coming tonight. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Can everyone see me okay . Hear me okay . Great. Im going to make sure i turn this thing on correctly. Okay, thank you kathy, and to everyone at smithsonian for having me back. I am very happy to be here. Again i am sharing the story with you. I think its really a fun story. In a local kind of way. Its a story of life and death, a story of invention, tragedy, redemption, all those sorts of things. And it happened here, across the river and for my ear. This tremendous milestone in the history of flight happened right here. It was all caught on film. So it we are going to be doing tonight, as i will take you through the back story. How we got to the moment of the sale of the first airplane to the military. And why this was a moment to come back from what ive been a terrible event the year before. And then, we are going to take a bit of a sidestep in to the film that was shot in 1909 of the right brothers together when they came back to fort mayor. And how this film, i reconstructed this film into the sequence it was originally shot to see if there was a story there. And thats really what inspire this whole thing. Is that film. We will be looking at that, film i will narrate a. And then we will talk about what happened after the trials at former. And then after that will have some time for questions. Does that sound like a plan . All right. Sounds like a plan. Its the plan ive, got so we are doing it. Lets begin, right here. This is september 17th 1908. See that on the airplane. Looking down. All right, sitting next to him is thomas. About three to five years salvage was fatally wounded and or vail was very badly injured. This is the moment before they took off so we will come back to that moment it is very important to remember at this stage the right brothers were worldfamous. Only months before they had been obscure guys from day in ohio and at like shop they were known in aeronautical circles, but no one had actually seen them fly in public. A handful of witnesses who over the years had seen airplanes fly. No one really knew if what they had claimed was true. And one Wilbur Wright took off, and Orville Wright took off the world changed they became world famous overnight so that is one thing to know in the story. There are dramatic transformation and especially for two very quiet, introspective, shy, men. They were put on the world stage. By their own actions. And had to cope with quite a lot. I am going to take you very briefly through the process of how the airplane came to be. Because, it is important to realize that the Wright Brothers want these guys who woke up one day it invented the airplane. Or they did it in six months. It was a years long process that began with reading. It began with learning about everything that had come before them. It began with a single, a single problem, trying to solve a single, problem control. They read about a great german Fighter Pilot was killed in a crash. Why did he die . Why did he lose control . It was that problem that got them going on this process. You can see my point or, right here, they are very first glider that they thought was going to be very good to carry them with hours of practice. It was too small. They did not get hours and hours and hours of practice. Its 1900. 19 oh when they come back with a much bigger fire. They based on the data. They fly it like a clog, it doesnt know lift nearly as much. They do get it to fly but when they turn it right, it goes, left and vice versa. Control is backwards. That is no good. That is not what they wanted. Number two, they come back with a glider based on their own data that they drive from wind tunnel tests. And actually learning what the shape of a wing does. For really the first time. They come back, instead of getting the glider. Thats struggling to get in the air it should go right over their heads. They have a rider now, they incorporate the rudder. They have Access Control. They have been flying the control ever since 1902. It was only once that was solved but they moved to having building a powered airplane. So it is a very iterative process, very deliberate, very stepbystep. One of the things that is really important to realize is that they accepted risk. They knew they could get hurt at any time. There it is, this is the moment, i love showing this picture, you can download a 200 megabyte pick from the library of congress. It is so clear, it so in focus, you can see the nails on the souls of orvilles shoes. This picture im sorry. inaudible . I cant. A request for the lights to come down a little bit. So, where was i . This picture is so in focus. It was taken by a man who had never taken a picture before. Or will preaimed and pretty focus the picture. The minute it took off they got a shot. Orville the first flight that only flew a few times, this is the end of the last flight, 852 feet, nearly one, front came off, this was the second time they broke this airplane they broke the 19 o2 glider several times they broke every flying machine they had ever built again accepted risk. 1904. They built an airplane almost identical to 1903. But they keep it in ohio this time. This is the first airplane that gets them in a complete circle. So, stepbystep, Getting Better all the time, still a lot of stability to fly like this, in fact this is, if you can see, there is the airplane, on its nose you can get very paralyzed and a crash like that there is Nothing Holding you in on the airplane it stops you keep going it is extremely dangerous but this is a risk they accepted they can fly high they were simply going as well as they could teaching them how to fly but in 1905 they had solved it, they put together three Access Control they have improved the propeller they improve the stability of the airplane that would stay in the air as long as they had gas and the tank, it stays in the air for 23 miles extraordinary achievement and actually two days ago i was preparing my film at the air force museum over the weekend. How many of you have ever been there . Oh quite a few. The National Park service maintains that it is unchanged from how it was when the right brothers where there. I was there with the retired general from the air force. And he said, you just feel it. You just feel. It and you know, its really quite extraordinary. So, whats interesting about what happens here in 1905. After those plays. And i asked this question whenever i give a presentation at an elementary school, i asked the kids, you have invented the airplane, youve invented this great plane, what do you do next . What do you do next . You sell it. That is right. And that is what their Wright Brothers did. They inventive face and in 1905. They carry on with research and development but the primary purpose is no longer inventing but business. Its a very clear decision that they made. So, the airplane goes away. And they dont do anything with the airplane were showing it or anything for three years. What they want to do is get the business set up and they go after two things, customers, and pat. The patent was incredibly important. This is actually the jon page from their famous pad. Im turning it so you can see it a little better. What it is based on is not the airplane. Its based on their control system. And the principles of their control system, because what they realized is that they had cracked the problem of Access Control. Does everybody know that isnt an airplane . A bicycle is to Access Control. The bicycle leans and you turn it with the handlebars. Airplane has one more access hitch, so you are diving, turning, and rolling. And you need all three in order to fly in control. To balance the airplane in the air. That is what they patented. Was the principal the mechanical solution they came up with. When i was back in a day in, a retired superintendent of parks said this back patton was bulletproof. There were a lot of lawsuits against the right brothers, a lot of people tried to get around the patent. It went on for years, that is a whole other lecture. Suffice to say, they never lost a case. And, what they created, has been, the underpinning of how airplanes are controlled. It is based on their 1902 plan. This is how they learned how to master a machine in the air. Over 1200 glides in this position. But, by 1908, they are not alone. Getting into the air. Some of what they have done has leaked out. They tried to keep a tight lid on it, but word has gotten out they have also been to europe, trying to sell the airplane, they wrote donations all over the world, all over europe, japan, russia, because in their own country, the United States kept turning them down. Saying they would write to the army, and the army would say you are not turning money loose for flying machines. I am not spending money on aerial experimentation. They kept fighting back saying, we are done with that, we have it. Here is what it does and they went back and forth and they kind of gave up, and like i said people started getting to the, air this is january 1908 in france. Thats henry winning the cup if im running right. First kilometer in a circle. Wright brothers had flown many many times that already. But none public. Glenn curtis, one kilometer in a Straight Line. With the Scientific American cup. Wright brothers much further along than that. But nobody had seen what they have done. The New York Times even published a piece called are they flyers are liars. Thanks to impart, a young Army Lieutenant had a lot of foresight he met wilbur and france when will what it was trying to sell the airport there and they leave the right brothers he was one of the ones who helped advocate with the military back here in washington, they put up this famous notification. Number four 86. An rfp. It was for the specifications of a flying machine to buy one if it meets these requirements, one guy was actually in prison and a only accepted three proposals. One guy never showed up, the other guy had worked with the smithsonian others. He showed up with parts in a suitcase. And not really what they are looking for. And of course the right brothers had but they had, it was based in large part on what they had done. But it was again a different thing than what the right brothers had ever down. The army wanted to people sitting upright, they had never done that before. Just one person sitting lying down. They wanted to be able defy 40 miles an, hour stay in the air for an hour, they it was more than they had actually done. So they got up the 1905 machine. They had not flown it in three years. They take it back to north carolina, they put seats on, it it has a bigger engine, it has better propellers, and they go to practice. They do practice, they take up one of their mechanics, at surfers passenger. It happens on a north carolina. There are very few pictures of the airplane. This is the best one. And they start practicing with this new control system, before they had a hip, cradle you move your hips towards the wings, they completely changed that because now they are setting. Up they have to move these lovers. And or valdez im the control system, wilbur got confused well flying. The airplane one in. And he crunched, it he was fine, the airplane was total. So practice, done. Now more practice, and they didnt have that much practice, so wilbur goes off to france with an airplane he built in 1907 orville comes to former with an airplane almost identical to him. They go to or unveil the airplane. This is a picture of wilbur and france. They were kind of amazed by him, because he did not want to stay in fancy hotels or anything like. That he actually slept in the hanger what the airplane. He got himself a bike. He was very modest, self effacing. It is kind of hard to overstate the impact that will reverse flights had in 1908. Because no one had seen what they could do. People were getting in the air and flying in a circle. But one wilbur took off and swept into these terms. And just flew for a couple of minutes and came down, they just could not believe the control that he had. And the man we will see this. They must have had nerves of steel. Because they had not flown these actual airplanes ever. And they are doing a full test in front of everybody who is saying, i dont believe you for a second. And then they do it. And we are fortunate to have some footage so you can see what that looks like. That is wilbur, getting into his airplane. And the thing is, when he got to france, he change the controls. Because orville how do you moving the lever left, forward to the, left and backwards to the, right and then down was forward, and oppose backwards. So you need to remember. Well there didnt like that he changed its a left was left and right was right. So the irony was orville comply wilburs plane and wilbur couldnt fly orville a plane. He puts the nose down its philip, this is very typical of what you would have seen wilbur doing that summer. Flying graceful circles, low to the ground, but he is demonstrating over and over again is. Complete control. Thats not what he was as a person, or a, pilot it certainly was and who he was as a businessman. That is why they did. It was not because they want to just off the airplane and make big names for themselves. They want to go into the business, they patented the control system, anybody whats going to build an airplane was going to pay them a royalty, they wanted to make money, that is why they did, a perfectly fine. Its okay. I dare say i would do that if i invented the airplane. This is great because you actually see the airplane land. You dont often get to see. Quite amazing. So, wilbur blows everybodys mind orville comes to fort meyer and late august. They are already world famous before he has done anything, his brother had set a very high bar. His expectations were zero now theyre really high. One of the requirements was that the airplane had to be transported all. So this is where they are bringing it. And this is right where britain gate is. How many of you are familiar with mayor henderson . Or bill did not have the advantage that wilbur had. Of solitude and peace and quiet while he got ready. He was world famous. A lot of people came to see him. He was not with his brother. Hes perfectly capable of doing this by himself. But he was in a very different circumstance than wilbur was. So this is the airplane, thats orville, standing there. And thats the airplane while its being assembled. And what is called the balloon shed. I will get to that in a minute. There was a photographer who is there, by the name of see it claudio. Its as if we had hired a photographer after the time to go back and take beautifully Crystal Clear close up shots of this airplane, to see exactly how it went together. This is one of my favorite pictures that he shot. I love the airplane in the foreground and the soldier on horseback. There was a transition from one century to the other. This is also a picture of orville control system. At this time anyone who was building an airplane came up with their own control system. So when you learned to fly epithet that kind of airplane, that is that, you didnt fly any other kind of airplane, you just did not know how to make the levers work. What you see here are actually three leathers. These two or vote would hold in one hand. That holds both of them, it is wing warping and rather, but the split string a split so you get your middle little bit. If you can imagine how you would with one hand split two sticks apart four and a half. Kind of crazy. And then thats the elevator control. You can tell why wilbur wanted to redesign. It so or hill had to do to trials for the army. One was an endurance test. Five with a passenger for an hour. Another was a distance and speed test, crosscountry, you had to fly at least 40 miles per hour. Or vote was nowhere near ready to do this when they put the airplane together. They did a lot of practice flights, a lot of training flights, they didnt have quite the effect that wilbur dead, but it proved that what they had done was real, i want to look at the difference, it was a big deal, look at the crowd this is just to see him practice look at the difference look where he is, lying down, on a deserted strip of sand, his brother and six other people, they probably didnt get more than ten feet off the ground, look worry is five years later, what i difference, and all for a part of a very different process that they put together and they stop to it this is a headline from the washington post, it was hugely covered in the press and their fame only grew so as or evil got more and more familiar with the airplane he took it for longer flights, took up more passengers. It was during this time that he prepared to get these trial flights finished and complete my first memory of aviation im just going to back this up. We are going to see a little video clip here of somebody who is just a kid at four admire. A young man who wanted to design and be unable architect instead he saw Orville Wright fly and it changed his life. My first memory of things and aviation was seeing the first airplane demonstrated in 19 oh waited for to meyer. This batting around. Off she went. That is donald douglas. Yes. Honey. So it blew his mind. There is a little boy who saw or will fly. Paul barber start of the national era. Museum i remember when i was a little boy i was at the right Brothers National memorial. I was seven, listening to this short round man talk and talk and talk i thought it was cool that his name was paul as well, but what caught my attention was when he said, and i saw him. I was fascinated by that you saw oval and i saw you for me this moment where history came alive for me and it never let go. At the same time just before orville flew his flight. There were others going on in fort meyer. Captain tom had committed candidates army to do the same thing with the Wright Brothers but with the dirigible. He had been a showman, he had made his money with parachute jumps. Dirigible flights. And his dirigible works really well because of its engine, a little motorcycle engine made by a guy named glen cordes. That is why glen curtis got into aviation. Full baldwin used his engines on his dirigibles. Its one of those opportunities, what if that had happened. It didnt but curtis was there. Baldwin was there and Alexandra Graham bell who lived in washington was there and the thing is bell and curtis were right there that a va experimental. This is something they put together to investigate flight and they did. They built some airplanes that flew up in canada. Full in nova scotia and it was those airplanes that led to the june bud. So overall knows all of this. And industrial espionage was a thing. They painted all the exposed wooden parts of the airplane with paint. And one of the guys in the uae a, right there, is an lieutenant thomas cell fridge heres a letter that orville wrote to wilbur talking about what is going on in fort meyer this portion of the letter talking about this he was working with someone named Benjamin Floyd. At the top of the letter he said, i like him very well. But i would like to have this out of the way. I dont trust him. And he goes on to talk about how self ridge is always trying to hit him up for dinners. He is keenly interested in what makes the right airplane successful. But or vail knows this is a threat to what we are trying to do. They sold the airplane. So, his guard was very up with him. The irony is full Tom Selfridge was sitting on the plane with. Them orville made out of trust him. But he certainly didnt want to hit hurt him. The fact that they accepted the risk that they could get hurt flying the airplane. They accepted that. They certainly did not want either of them killed. They absolutely didnt want anyone else getting hurt. But they knew those people had to accept the risk as well. And this is the moment right before they take off, we will explain on if you look right here you see his hands down next to the wing. What he has is in his hand on a metal clipper. And the structure is going to release a wire thats attached the airplane. It will launch off a rail. Airplane runs down the rail. And it has a catapult to help it get off the ground in three seconds. His job is to hang on during the flight and be balanced and pull the trigger to get the flight started. So you can see him looking at that and, are you ready to go . As soon as he pops that thing. There you go. That was taken about three or four minutes later. The airplane went up. Made a couple of circles, whole orville study here to light tapping noise the airplane gave a tremendous shutter. And then pitched itself, and then it went to a big bangs. Nothing like this had ever happened. He really had no idea what was going on in the airplane full what happened was the airplane was made out of four pieces of wood that were eliminated together. The glue failed and the lemon it kind. Partly the airplane was fragile but superbly designed and balanced. Something starts to go, everything gets out of whack. One propeller that broke started to wobble. That propeller clip to the control. Or the lost control. It went straight down. He said he probably couldve pulled it out and they probably sort of crashed. But it wouldve gone straight. Down but they didnt. Selfridge sitting next to the engine, this is absolutely destroyed airplane. Orville is unconscious, selfridge is unconscious. Hes lying on the ground. You can see, they have tried to cushion his head. He had a fractured skull. Orville a broken leg, broken limbs, he was badly banged, up he carried the injuries with him for the rest of his life. One of his legs are shorter than the other after that. But selfridge died here in the hospital. About five hours later. That building is still there. That is the headquarters. And i have been there, many many times, for a variety of reasons. And i always ask, maybe somebody knows. Its been changed over so many times. I have never found out somebody who says us. This was taken a few months later, the sister catherine came and stayed with orville while he recovered. Alexander graham foul went into the tent. And he measured it. I am not making any of this up. Im the Wright Brothers had a reason to be suspicious and have their guard up. As you can see orville as a cain and they were going over to be with wilbur while he was continuing to fly. Over there. And wilbur blamed himself, i should have been there, i should have kept everybody away from orville it, was something they couldve not foreseen happening. It had perform so well. Wilbur had done so well. The conference one of them back the next year. So the Wright Brothers being loud Wright Brothers. They have an airplane that works perfectly well, the design is very good. They had a failure with the propeller but not with the structure of the airplane. So, they should just come back with another one. Wilbur is doing great. But the Army Contract has Something Different in it. It has an incentive. It has to fly 40 miles an hour. But for every mile per hour over 40. They get an additional 25. So, after 1905 everything forward is a priority, its business, they want to make as much money off this airplane as they can. The sale prices 25,000 dollars. So what they do is between a crash in september, and when they come back in june of the next year. They redesign the airplaneit does not look much different. But these are scaled drawings, there is 1908. 1909. 1908 1909 the big difference look at the size of the wings, smaller, look at the distance between the bottom playing and the bottom landing here this one is oh eight this is higher they can put propellers on it the only thing they can use is the actual engine that sits on it to this day, we are going to look at that later, so the whole idea is to speed squeeze as much speed as they can out of that cell here is the thing orville is going to do all the flying at fort meyer they are already done nothing where they do the followup test, brandnew airplane and never flown it before and they are demonstrating further customers he hasnt flown since the crash. This time wilbur came weather, and Charlie Taylor, right, here he built in 1903 engine. He went on to stay with them for a long time. So they got a core team to go with orville back to forth meyer. But you can see there. Its really, by this point, it is just a huge event. Everybody and washington wants to come out and see this thing. They saw these tickets. You have to have one of these things in order to come. It was a massive event, there were, this is a crowd outside the rogue line of the hanger. So theres a hanger move few people are allowed in there. It is a Premium Ticket the public is way out there and that is actually the border between the post and Burlington Cemetery its the same border today. Press covering this thing like crazy. Photographers everywhere. The president coming out to watch theres a famous story right now im blanking on whether it happened in oh eight or oh nine or Congress Actually shut down for the day and came up to watch or will fly. But for year do it. They said no. The weather is not okay. Were congress, whatever i am Orville Wright, and they drew back. Now there is this. I didnt want you to see that yet. There are a lot of stories. Huge social event. And one story that i heard was that Alice Roosevelt long worth invented the tailgate at fort meyer watching Orville Wright fly. Is everybody familiar with Teddy Roosevelts daughter. Famously said. I could manage the affairs of the state are economic imagine the affairs of alice. I cant do both. I have heard that an ally she had an electric car, this picture emerged. Its all true. That man is a man named philanderer knocks. Hes a secretary of state. Thats alex and her electric car with her box and thermos. At this point im going to show you a little bit of the footage that i became familiar with. We will detour into the footage and what its all about. This is the footage that a foresaw club of at the national archive. Its not like i discovered it or, anything its very wellknown. Its been used in a lot of different shows. Different documentaries. Im seeing all these strange things happen. This airplane went on the rail. Twice that assad. And i notice a bunch of other weird things here. In the footage. So we will take a look at a couple of those, this got me very curious. Heres the airplane. Again its going down the track, you see it from the front now and now it is back where it started. It goes down again. It looks like two different take off that were spice together. But badly, so lets take a look at that. So, there is the airplane at the end of the rail. This is wilbur standing right there orville is a lot on the airplane. Here it is, heres the shot from the reverse. He is wearing a white shirt. In the other shot he is wearing a dark suit. So it is two different things. Thats weird. So on airplane starts to go down on the track, i went through this thing frame by frame over a period of five years. This will not take five years. A photograph happened to be taken of wilbur running with it at this moment. So that i could see it was definitely him in a white shirt. And then the airplane comes down and right at, when it comes down to the end of the rail, i can see that it has these two semicircular surfaces and between the high plains. In the shot from the back it has only one. So, there was an idea that you couldve to cameras shooting. Here there was clearly not, i felt i reacted the thing so that its just one shot as it was uncut. And then the one from the front. And this is how i started this process. Little bits of film, thank you for the video writing, cut the whole thing apart and started mixing and matching. To see what. Fifth i found several instances like this, we are bits that had been taken and put in different places in the film, just sticking them back together and wondering, what happens if i actually put them all together . We are going to tell us a story when we see something. Could i figure out how to do it in the sequence it was originally shot . And like i said, there had been this idea that maybe there were two cameras. I had clearly proved that there was not. I was very smog about that. I was in day in, a bright state university. A great archive. I wonder asked the wonderful artist and they had footage of fort myers, they said they have the same thing is the National Archives and she gave me a va chess tape and i took it home. And i put it in, the very first thing i saw was this. Its the same shot, the same moment from two different angles. The but age was completely different from what the National Archives at. It was the second camera. So i was wrong, i was dead wrong, and i said now we have to start all over. Again i called don and i said, what is this . And she said i will email you the contract. What contract . I realize it never occurred to me. Why was the film shot . People were not doing this. Filming everything to shoot footage not everybody could do that. Its a very deliberate thing to do. So, what is up with that . This is the contract. Between or ville and will where wright, dayton ohio, and medicine manufacturing company. They hired at the same. Edison got an exclusive right to shoot pictures. Orville and will work out a royalty on the amount of footage per foot. A per foot royalty of the amount that addison showed in the movie theaters. There was a carve out the military, the u. S. Government could act also film. That now explains the two cameras. One is the military shooting, the other is the camera crew that the Wright Brothers hired. He word, right there, marketing. Marketing the pictures. In this case selling the motion pictures. This is also going to make the Wright Brothers money. It is strictly business. In order to piece this thing together, by recreating the calendar from july of 1909. To figure out what was what. This is when orville started flying on the 20th of june. He had a crash again. But after that they changed the airplane, thats when it went from the two little semicircular things. Just to. So if its got one that means its from here. He only ever flew with two people in 1909 and here in here. If its one guy on the airplane, it has to be from somewhere before here. Looking at their diaries and notes and everything. These are the days he actually flew. President taft only visited once. From there. He only flew with frank lam once, that is here. And Benjamin Floyd here. Looking at that i was able to, say this sequence comes at the very beginning. The sequence comes at the. And ensure enough, and doing that whole process, the story comes out. That is what we have been watching. So here it is just so you can see, it there is the blinker, that is one, there is to, even they help me figure here is wilbur and a straw boater hat. And that actually really helped. I orville looked like he was the same thing every day. Im going to switch over now to the footage its self. I will narrate this as we go. So i will be more over here. So, that footage that i showed you before, as far as i can, tell thats the earliest footage that was shot, all those guys theyre mostly the Foreign Press who have come to cover what orville is doing if. You look at this. The other thing the tells me this is very early. Apart from the configuration of the airplane. As watch how this airplane takes off. Right now, it is practically flying sideways. Fort meyer is a terrible place to fly. Its very long and skinny. There is the takeoff in turn. And he is still getting used to this airplane, he has not flown since the crash. So, this is not easy for him to do. If you see these two. We will see these two pillars quite often. Thats selfridge gate which is still there at the post. Thats a big parking lot now where hes flying over. That is the wall, that still there between the cemetery and what was then the drill ground. This parking lot. You can see people the propellers didnt turn that slowly that has to do with the framers of the camera. It just looks more slowly than they are. Ive gotten some still photographs that were shot at the same time, just so you can see the gaps in the footage. So you can see what oval is doing. They called it his tuning up flight. Getting used to the airplane, learning how this new airplane actually works. How it is different. You can tell how the command, even, here even though its tentative compared to what we are going to, see he still has quite a command of the airplane. A lot of this is figuring out what was what i would have to study laps a lot, this is very muddy footage, this tall skinny blob, im going to do this, can you see my arrow okay so the tall thing. That is the radiator. And this little complex of shapes is the engine of the gas tank. The blob ahead on it is orville. That way i could see that its just one person. That help me put it in the sequence. Making these lefthand turns and going around and around. I have told you orville had a hard landing. That broken landing, and authority bush. This photographer was taking pictures and wilbur picked up a piece of it and threw it at him. This is the picture just before he threw the piece of. What turns out it was an Army Photographer and wilbur had to do some fancy footwork and apologizing. We have gone to two blinkers upfront after the subtle crash. And this footage is of the number of tuning up flights that orville dead getting ready for the trials. You can see the huge crowd in the background. These are useful to see how they got the airplane. Around it actually rolled on these giant metal back wagon wheels. They were able to push it around. This airplane so finally balanced, at actually seen the reproduction of it as one guy with those heavy wheels pushing at around. Its really quite something to see. So what you are going to see next is something that is so wonderful and horribly frustrating to see, this is the body footage its very interesting because im watching orville get the airplane ready to fly but this is what it actually looked like. Can you see the difference . That is the muddy. This is what it looked like christine. But the says is paper pot deposits at the library of congress by the edison company. They would do this, send samples of each of their films, on paper to the library of congress so what i was so used to seeing was footage there was multiple generations away from the negative and bad transfers and all that stuff, so to see a first generation print and to see that it was pristine that it was superbly in focus it was beautiful but there is only like 18 frames. But i cut it into the film anyway, that is will warren and Charlie Taylor, this is the good moment from the same time, see we are at the back of the airport, now Charlie Taylor is over there and you can see his arm. What theyre doing as theyre putting the propose into play so that they can prop the airplane, get the airplane going, but wilbur this is strictly business, presentation is everything, watch what he does. He straightens his hat, history insist high, and then he does it. Hat, tie, to. His hat doesnt fly off which is very interesting, here is the footage we saw, a slowdown and i closed over it, thats over there and what hes doing hes leaning over the airplane and hes rotating the that advances the engine theres no throttle as we know it. So here we see the takeoff again and that is where the film cuts, there is nothing more that ive seen of that and you can see now a couple of weeks later how much better he is flying, the airplane is at a higher altitude, the skating turns oregon, he is really coming to, think about it the last time he had flown there he went straight into the ground, killed his passenger, hes flying over that same ground and the thing that is really amazing to me and only dawned on me after a little while is that these guys who are not just the designer builders of the airport, they werent just the test pilots of the airplane or the demonstration pilots, where the sales wraps for that company, they were all those things, they were doing all of it and the pressure that must have been on them, that they put on themselves to succeed but then the confidence they had to go and do that, its setting a very high bar and its remarkable to be able to see it, this is the footage from the president s visit, this is fine because some things never change, there is the president at the balloon changed, there is his assistant from the United States army sadly he lost his life a fears later on the titanic. This is where the at is incamera started shooting, so i know the two cameras are shooting the same thing, well see two pictures on the same screen, that is senator born from oregon who comes out. He wrote there with the president in the First White House car. It is kind of cool. And so only they, the alisters got to go in what the president and what i love in these kinds of things is what you see and what you dont see. One of the things you never see is the right rather shaking hands, steady in front of the airplane, nothing like that when you are seeing they are league, that is it. Its very interesting. They were those kind of guys. But this is you know, the alisters coming to see the members of congress, this gentleman right here is joe cannon the speaker of the house and so the congressional leadership is coming to see the thing and cannon thought the airplane was a waste of money, he didnt have much time for you and as you see he goes in, you dont really know how long he was in there but it doesnt look like it was long because people are still in line when he walks out. Then unfortunately for him major georgia squire who wrote the specification for the airplane, one of the guys grabs him by the elbow and marshes him right back in. This is the, gentleman right here coming in, the frame right here is the postmaster general unease about to walk in front of the president , he quickly has to correct himself and then take his proper place, we see the airplane, there it is and all the Army Personnel bring it out and you can see, so the president is in there with the airplane, and you can see the crowd, the a list crowd or b list crowd rather behind the rope line. Then the general public way out in the back, this was on july the 26th, it was in the evening they wanted to see, all the handshaking and stuff took a lot of time up. It was starting to get dark, so they did all of this just to see him buzz around the field for a little bit. But it is quite needs to see, the president s assistant here is indicating where they are going to go watch the plane, their way out by the Hospital Building to watch the airplane. All right here is the airplane, thats lieutenant speech of the navy, he was there as an official naval observer. You will see Charlie Taylor walking into the frame he was the right brothers mechanic, so this is the guy who has been with them since before 1903 and this is where you see the airplane being turned around to be appointed to do its walk across the field to the launching tower. That is all the footage there is from that, so by this point his confidence, he knows the airplane is going to perform, its times to finally the test and as i said it was to, with passenger an hour, the second was the speed test and the first one was lieutenant, young lieutenant who so believed the brothers at the very beginning and i know this is the endurance test, i dont know who today but someone put a tiny American Flag on top right over there and now is on the airplane when he took the flight, so here they are walking it out and what you see next is the evidence of the crash the only evidence in the film of the crash and as you will see you from right over here it goes by very quickly so watch quickly, you see him walk that way and he is walking with a limp. Its hard to know what he thought about being back there because he was and writing letters to wilbur catherine. You dont have a written record, im not sure he wouldve expressed his private thoughts but its something to think about, whats happening here is there lifting this big weight, heavyweight that catapults the airplane and what he was doing there was keeping it from spinning so it wouldnt get tangled up, now if im the camera man i make films and even when its documentary and stuff you still want to clean shot, theyre not gonna take the Army Personnel to go the way so if there is a good spot, wilbur starting the airplane and watch whats happening, to photographers right right in the middle of it and they just stand there. The cameras huge its on a big tuck tripod so this is just before the test and what youre seeing here is lieutenant on the airplane, this is orville, and Charlie Taylor. So suffrage and long where friends, moms job is to rotate the magnet oh, you know this because he wrote a very extensive letter about her to his father after it happened. What orville shows us here, i actually try to do this, i try to get in it like orville, he wiggles into the thing and i can tell you how difficult that is to do, so lambs looking at his stopwatches, he is looking at the magnate oh, he is actually looking quite nervous, people moving around in front of the airplane you see the propellers spinning in the back. We have this great shot even though its money as can be of the airplane taking off, so they must of place that camera very carefully, so what he did is he flew around and around and around the field and he actually set a record for distance and endurance but this was the first time he had flown this airplane with a passenger and you can see its bouncing like this and i want you to imagine, here is more of that paper footage, we are going to look at this footage twice because its quite curious what it is, but just to tell you what it was actually like to be on the airplane youre sitting next to the engine and ill explain why ive been able to see so many of these airplanes in a minute but i can tell you theyre very loud, very, very loud. But you also have the sound actually, you are so engaged in the flight that you dont really notice it and are actually moving through the air so the sound is all messed up. Its loud, the fumes or just unbearable, it smells terrible and youre doing this for over an hour and ill tell you a lot said in a minute. This footage was curious to me because its people standing there and what are they doing and i want to show it to you twice because i figured out what was actually happening in it. So this was during the test, flying around for an hour, a long time to wait and look at this everyones back is to the camera and what they do, they do this. They washing him fire round whats cool is the shots that we have from the airplane going around. Its just a little bit of a circle, coming together, it looks like hes flying around like this. But he is really. Not and this gives us a sense of how long it took him to go around in circles because now everybody is watching him. Right in the center here, that is his brother, as you, watch hes looking at a very intently, very intently, theres something, chair there is charlie, all the various official army and navy observers. Thats the navy observer. Its a still of wilbur and Charlie Taylor. Timing and waiting for orville it to come down. Time enough for the camera man to change his position. Poor mom, he said, he wrote to his father that after his flight, he wanted them to bring back the airplanes from the year before. Because it flew a lot smoother than this one and he felt positively csec. And he felt rather embarrassed about this but said the next time i see Mister Wright because im gonna tell him because somebody told me he was csec to. One of the first air second this case says. Then this is the final test. This is set. Lets back up a shot so you can see it a little better. What is cool about this film, is this is the only footage of orville and Booker Wright together. We have their lives, and diaries, documentation of their lives. But to actually see them together, and we will see, them the moment of interaction between them that was caught in the footage is here. So very similar sort of thing, although this time it is a different passage. Lieutenant Benjamin Floyd. Follow i had worked with orville in 1908, he was a scrappy guy who likes to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. Orville and will be reflected in. Lot he had mapped out the route they were going to take. They were going to fly five miles to shooter cell where the George Washington memorial. Was in alexandria, than back. And he mapped it, out he was really interested in the flying machine. He was the kind of guy the Wright Brothers like to work with. But there was another factor of why they picked him to go on this flight. He there was a whole reason he redesigned. This benjamin was barely over five feet tall. He was smaller, he was, lighter they were maybe going to squeeze as much as they cut out of the airplane. Its hard to see but the propeller start spending there. This is a moment of interaction between orville and wilbur. It is kind of neat because they are talking, and wilbur does something with his head but the foam cuts. And what i found was a photograph taken that. Moment it looks like him given his brother a thumbs up. Telling him to stay. Hi but its kind of neat to see them having a moment of interaction together. This critical, crucial point. You see orville just hanging out of the airplane. He looks completely relaxed. And this is a moment where we can actually see the two cameras. They are actually right next to one another so where i could marry the two films up. You can see there at slightly different angles again so you see wilbur back. Theyre having a little trouble to get the airplane to start. Hes fidgeting with his two stopwatches that he carried with him. Orville casually mentioned that if they had any trouble on the way back is going to look for the softest clump of trees that he could find and sliding into the airplane a little more awkwardly this time. Now this is the only moment of interaction between the wright and the camera. And its orville telling the camera man to get out of the way. Move. And the camera man doesnt, we get the shot, very quick, look at this take, remember the first one i showed you. Where he is flying sideways, look at this. Right into that turn. And he spun around the field a couple of times, he got altitude, and then he turned around, and he headed out towards alexandria. And this was why catherine said that she and wilbur, their hearts sank, he was gone, they couldnt see it when, they couldnt hear the airplane, there was a telephone system that had been set up to know that when they got to shooters hail they could say they got here, there on the way back, it failed, the signal went out, they didnt have any bars, but as he was coming back, he climbed the airplane, and when the field was in sight he went. They were trying to see how fast they could get. Make sure you hit the mark but see if they could get it any faster. And what you see here, so its very blurry i know. That is wilbur holding the flag. That is the finish line. And you can see, he comes in really low. And i slowed it down a little bit. But this is at the right its in the footage. Hes moving a little faster. He goes by launching tower. You see those women and right, one of them is catherine right, as far as i know that is the only footage of her. Just that little shot. Orville came around, one by the tower again, and came in and landed. And then there was a shot and, what happened . They did it. Ten miles, successfully, 42 and a half miles per hour. The sale price of the airplane was 30,000 dollars. With that the wright had taught three officers how to fly. One of them was lieutenant humphreys, frank lam, and fall away. And they did not train falloy ill explain that in a minute. Then there was a shot i didnt know what to do with. That is just this panic shot. A very clunky shot of the crowd. I noticed they are all walking away from the camera this might be at the, end one of the end of one of the day, thats what i wouldve said if i was in the audience. If i was watching this as a little kid time to go home, that is the footage from 1909. Bank you. Im going to show you some things that helped me sort out where these things actually happened compared to how it is today. This is a scale map of fort meyer that was john in 19 oh. Waited shows where this was. Thats a rogue. Line thats the flying. Here is the cemetery. And the road. This is where the little train went by and there was a station there, are a car station, that is where they had a balloon shed. That was really helpful. So i kind of highlighted those things because, having a scale on it meant this little building. Meant i could buried up to google earth and it matches exactly. Now i know where the balloon chad is, now thats really important because that i know if they are down here in what you can see in the background of the shots of the airplane and its launching tower, you can figure out where the cameras were placed and where everything happened. Compared to where it is now. The other thing was to take, now that i know where the field was. Where the launching tower was. Here is the center of the George Washington muscleman or will. You draw a line between them he had to fly ten miles. I swear i didnt noodle this to be exactly five miles. He did a very good job mapping this. The other thing that this allowed me to do was i could look at it knowing where the balloon shed was and knowing where selfridge gate was so i could figure out where the crash happened. Because there was a very detailed investigation after the crash. Law most part of. At one of the things he did was measure from the bloodshed to the crash and selfridge get to the crash. Thank you google earth, i can do that, each measurement was on the same parking space. Right there, and right there, and i will name drop here. When David Mccullough was writing his book about the Wright Brothers. One of his friends got in touch with me and its a funny story because i got this phone call. This guy said i am a friend of a very famous historian. Thats working on the Wright Brothers. And we understand you know exactly where Orville Wright crashed and we would like to know that. And i said, i be sure id be happy to do. It but didnt tell me who it was. And i hung up the phone and i walked upstairs to my wife and i said i got the weirdest phone call. And wouldnt it be funny if it was David Mccullough. And it was David Mccullough. So i took him there, it was great, i showed him the film. And he wanted to just go. Be in that spot. And then just take it in, this is where it all happened. Because he was really familiar rising himself with that. I thought that was. Neither gave me a measure of why you do what he does. So what happened to the airplane after . This success. They sold the airplane to the army. The First Military airplane in the world. They had to furnish pilots to go with it. And of course, there were not any. And they selected a field. Actually lamb founded, a field out of college park maryland. And that is where the airplane went. This is wilbur, changed over the controls. And he went and he did the training of these pilots. And it was lieutenant lamb, lieutenant unfreeze and lieutenant falloy. Falloy in the meantime has made comments about ballooning dirigibles and so on. So instead of sending him to college park to get trained. They sent him to france for an aeronautical conference, and wilbur went to college park with lamb in humphreys and instructed them. And they got there too late. And they only had a few hours in the airplane with wilbur. Humphreys was the first solo. This is a great picture of them at college park. How many of you have been to the College Park Aviation Museum . Wonderful place. Its really neat that site is still active. Diminished, but still active. The army in its wisdom. They now have an airplane, to train pilots, sent the airplane to fort houston and sent benjamin falloy with them. He had not finished his training. Thats why they decided to do. Long want to cavalry thing. Humphrey went to an engineering. Thank law move until he made it back. This is the airplane in texas with its crew and its hard to see the wheel here. He made a bunch of changes to the airplane. Really rebuilt it several times, he crashed at several times. One of the things i will play for you now is his voice talking about it. December 1999, to march 1911, 13 months, the United States air force once in airplane the government in that time was not keen about turning money loose. The great appropriation of 150 dollars allotted to me to take care of the airplane. After each crash i sat down and trying to figure out what would happen in that i would write to the Wright Brothers and tell them what happened. They would right back and tell me what i ought to have done. In other words i expect him the only man living today who learned learn to fly by correspondents. Whats neat about those letters is thats the closest thing that exists to the right brothers flight manual because they never wrote one otherwise. This is the falloy letters. Wilbur wrote them and gave him instructions how to land, how to take, off and everything very well thought through. So the airplane was bought in 1909. Falloy in 1910 in a 1911 it was given to the smithsonian. Thats how rapidly aviation advanced. In two years it was a museum piece. Literally. And it went back to the david right Company First and they reassemble the airplane to be as close as it could be to how it was at fort meyer. So they took the wheels off, but whats great about this airplane in this current state, it has never been restored a sense if, it is the most intact of the six originals that exist, sows on their 1911 and i was extraordinarily fortunate for many years, for about 15 years to work with the experienced team and ohio. And washington virginia, hide in his team kind of took me under their way, i had this fascination about the right brothers and i got myself folded into what they were doing with research and i discovered that i really had an affinity for it and they were so good at it and looking at primary sources rivers engineering these airplanes and recreating the engines, recreating everything exactly as the right brothers did it because they leave drawings, that part of their record is very sketchy. So they have been methodically filling in and to see these airplanes come back to life. To see that being read created using the exact same materials and everything it was an extraordinary privilege to be working with them and one of the great opportunities we had was when they were doing a 1909 airplane the smithsonian allowed them to build a scaffold under the airplane or was highend displayed and go up to it because that is the action though sitting next to that was the same engine they used in 1909, theres only one in the world, its a special engine because the engines they bills after that. The productions changed and they want to know what was inside. You know how, its the fore runner of their production and they actually had several and ran them so this moment, this was the first time the engine had been opened and we dont know if there was just gonna be sawdust in there are roy but it was pristine and so law thats there, we were able to make a photographic record of the airplane and made complete set up. noise craig who really created the engine from scratch said standing there, and they do the same thing the right brothers did, the only thing those holding the airplane backwards the trigger and wire and greg just standing there in front of this thing. They were gonna fly it this is just running up the engine no money touch that trigger. So this is the airplane they reconfigured it wilbur took the top off and put controls on what it was amazing i went up on the scaffold and having studied this footage for so law, that is where he orville sat, and that seems to be that close to it was an amazing experience and one of the fun things about this, a manicure thats in the airplane is Benjamin Floyd and there is a lot of footage of floyd later in life talking about his life and career that went on for many years. Yet it know he states out this pipe. If you look very carefully, somebody i dont know who was her when i was has paid business and, you can just see it sticking out so thats the story behind with the right brothers did. What happened to orville, and how they came back to this milestone and the precedent that they set with it in so many ways, the way the airplane was designed. The way was solicited. The way they presented it. The way they documented it and its embryonic form its very common to us today, the really is a Straight Line from that where we are right now. With that thank you very much applause i would be happy to take any questions you there in the back. inaudible in the southeastern corner the chapel there. Yes, yes, thats the chapel. Its not theyve close the gallery. The oh nine is now, a really, okay i did not know that, thank you very much. Oh okay great thank you, yes sir. Director of the smithsonian and giving this at the time. The question was was in the director giving patterns to curtis. No langley died in 1906 and i was one of the reasons the u. S. Government was very skeptical about the right brothers and turned them away is that they had invested a lot of money into latelys efforts to turn his successful Steam Powered models into an airplane that could carry a human being and that project did not succeed and its a very interesting contrast because the right brothers were private. They funded off their bike shop in they could keep it private. Legalese was public, his government money and he had somebody to answer to and if you go out to the tip of hands point and look out towards alexandria that is where the second crash happened its hovered straight in the air and went into the water and almost killed a pilot. I am a huge fan of langley, i think they had an extraordinary thing going on. If the right brothers hadnt done it and lately hadnt been engaged this is one of the stupid games of history but if lately had more time and money and, i think they wouldve eventually made it work and what happened was that in the patent lawsuits law the smithsonian i was very interested in making sure that lately got the credit for being the first capable, his machine was the first capable and in a really odd judgment they decided to send the airplane to glenn curtis who is engaged in a lawsuit with the right brothers, so the smithsonian has a dispute with the Wright Brothers, curtis had along fights with them about control systems and they had curtis do it, curtis modify the airplane a lot, put it on floats and it did get off the ground so that is the lately curtis collection but lately himself died its a very sad story, one of the greatest scientists of the time and im man, the failure of that project rwanda and many died in 1906, yes sir. inaudible law yes the right brothers did have some success in europe interesting lee they launched a french right company and they had the Short Brothers making airplanes under a license. Wilbur its initial flights were very successful and they sold that airplane and these other companies did go into business and produce airplanes but they had to lawsuits with some of the french and german aviators and because people felt like you cant hold this thing back, the right brothers and said they risked their necks for patent the control system, it did win every lawsuit but those Companies Set aside the internal problems and orville and wilbur incorporated in the United States. They had a very top shelf board they had an office there but their data or traveling in france they were split up a lot and or evil, they have factory buildings going up, they have a flying school an Exhibition Team they have a German Company they have to watch, them a French Company they have to, watch the Short Brothers are doing this by letters and telegram and the occasional phone call, they are the last word on everything, how is that going to work . So imagine how that worked out, youre right it didnt. I saw this gentlemans hand first that ill ask you thats a good question and i dont know, they sold a lot they sold the right model be that came out in the end of 1910 into 1911 it was used for Exhibition Teams, used for a lot of people bought this airplane as their personal airplane i was a really beautiful airplane and i think they manufactured over 120 of those, now how many of those were sold . They were kind of their own best customer because they had an Exhibition Team out all over the country crashing airplanes and they are just replace them so they had sold more airplanes to the military and the navy, yeah, so their business was not, there was successful up to a point. There was no way to keep the genie in the bottle and improvements happened so rapidly that the right brothers actually found themselves by 1910, 11, in the middle of the pack you know and struggling to keep up, and wilbur to tide in 1912. This airplane was the very first, gentleman in the balcony. The question i ask or the experts of your field is there something that you have done the research on that scratches your head, why did they do what they did and what would you asked that from what youve seen if youre trying to figure out what theyre trying to do and you cant figure it out what question would you asked someone in your research . Youve done all this marvelous research and so that doesnt make sense to, what question would you ask and who would you ask it of . Its kind of like why would i ask orville if i could. Where all of the drawings, that is the question i would ask, they talk about dryings all the time in their letters, they make little sketches and their letters and theyre very specific about dimensions and all sorts of things but where are they. We knew that they made drawings, they had a drafting table, they had a factory that were building airplanes, they would stand pattern jeans off to europe to the German Companies and French Companies to work off but where are the dry . The way they did their wind tunnel test was meticulously recorded where did they go how come there is nothing there is what a preview drying of the fire that exists its a sketch and theres a handful of drawings and so they did them but why did that go away did they stick it up a chimney somewhere, did they destroy them . That is a huge missing link id be very curious to know when they were photographing everything so carefully writing things in their diaries where the drawings . Yes sir. I am confused with their creativity and everything what the heck they were doing between 1905 and 1908 that they werent continuing to experiment and develop into the engineering side he said they were doing the business side, i find it hard to believe that their minds werent turning to be creative. Thats a very good question and you are giving me, thank you the privilege of filling something in and what it is is this. The airplanes that they flew in 1908 are actually called the 1907 machine so during that period of oh six and seven they were working up the design because it took a long time to figure out what the customer wanted, it took a long time for the customer to figure out the army had to figure what were gonna do with this thing and thats why 40 miles an hour a day, that is what calgary does and use it for observation and i guess we another person on it so while those suspects were evolving and starting to come into focus the right brothers were working on that as well so its not like they stopped completely and they did think that they would have the deals in 1907 and they shipped the airplane over and its sat there for a year while they finished the negotiations and it took a long time to do and there is a great letter that will ridge road when he finally opened up the 1907 machine and he finally went there and await any rights this to or ville, if you ever get a chance to read the letters between them they really go out it, they are brothers and they dont hold back. Wilbur its like you know, ive never seen such evidence of stupidity in my life, you know did you pack this thing with a scoop shovel, im paraphrasing but you know what happened was. People in france packed things meticulously, he was a very meticulous guy. But he had to rebuild things, so it was a lot of frustrations and a lot of, the perseverance of these guys is something that always just strikes me they just keep going, yes sir. Are there financial backers or someone who allowed them to keep crashing planes and they keep getting money to rebuild them and replace them not through the experimental phase that was completely selffunded and then they didnt sell them, an army airplane till 1909 that was all on them they did get investors and they did grow the company and it did quite well wilbur its died in 1912 very suddenly a fever and he died a wealthy man but by the time the patent suits were resolved or ville was out of business so it didnt last long yes, sir how long was it before someone stopped using the catapult they stopped using it they are nine was the last one after that they put wheels on it and they took off from wheels but wilbur it actually did and launch the oh nine without the catapult yes sir. Wedded edison do with the fell . Thats a great question the answer is i dont know i am not research actually how much the footage of that airplane was actually shown in his theaters. He had quite a monopoly on theaters at the time, said it was a very smart move to get out is it to do it but i simply dont know, i dont know the reach that film actually got, but that wouldve been something worth fighting out. Yes sir. Do i understand that curtis was the one who invented the how did that conflict with the Wright Brothers control of patents. You have another hour and a half, not to be flip, but that was the huge debate that played out in the courts for years is the arguments to simplify it was the right brothers patented and mechanical control system and the right brothers argument was doesnt matter if youre using this the principle is the same and the right brothers one every time so help me out somebody did glad curtis event this i dont think so obvious is over here all the nose over here william claimed that he did he claimed a lot of things so ultimately the a lawyer on obviously one out the thing about the wind war being system is again i get this from the guys the method for turning the airplane for that design was actually very effective and if you see right wing warped all the way especially with the models sitting up and twists it looks like a print goal its very odd looking but walter one of the exhibition pilots could dive the airplane roll it into a 90degree bank and then pull it out in a corkscrew diving and wilbur said the circle was more than 100 feet in diameter they could be very manoeuvrable in the right hands, and other doesnt fully answer your question but it is a long and complicated story but curtis certainly was he had those inter plane era le mans on his aircraft and certainly they were effective although the criticism i dont know if you know you often see it they have a wheel that was just pitched you had a harness around it and you leaned left and right law to move the airplane, yulin left and right anybody else, yes sir i understand the smithsonian recognize the right brothers to fly until later. What transpired to lead the smithsonians say that you are, its another hour and a half story but make it simple they displayed the machine and it had a label and the label said this was the first machine capable of a successful power fight and or evil said as long as the cable is there you dont get my airplane and so he ultimately santa to england and it was england who had it at the Science Music here till after world war ii and it wasnt until so its a very long story but it wasnt until the smithsonian eventually recognize the right brothers and there are a lot of people who claim to be first and thats another story tom has written a whole book about that but the right family eventually sold wearable died and they didnt think that he had changed his well but he had so this sony and got it for a dollar, thank you so much for coming in everyone. applause all right ladies and gentlemen its my true pleasure to introduce the last speaker doctor michael haim cans the assistant president for the graduate professionals of military education where he directs courses on air power history and National Strategy he recently published a argo call namhe