Became the highlight of the century. We will be looking at this story of the higher, and faster and farther of aviation, but first i want to talk about the Aerospace Museum overall. It has over 8 million visitors a year between the National Mall building, and so looking at the story of the atmosphere that i am working in, we are looking at 500 aircraft and helicopters. Of those aircraft. 67 are on display in the National Mall building and what is supporting the artifacts is 67,000 small and medium artifacts, but what we will talk about today is the story of higher, faster and farther which is seen as a cliche throughout the history of aviation, but it has a real meaning to it. And in which we look at the people who made the quest of flying in the third dimension a reality. And so, the idea of flying the highest altitude and the fastest speed and the longest distances tells us a lot about the Technical Development of the airplane, and also the invention of the Wright Brothers and what they do, and that what i want to talk to you about and in terms of the airplanes and the people that you can only see in the smithsonian that tells the story, and so behind us, you can see the wright flyer, the worlds first airplane, on the mo morning of december 1923, and that is the first time that a man has entered the air in a powered machine. At the end of the flight, orvil orville and wilbur alternate to go 880 feet at an altitude of 30 feet. And they usher in the age of aviation, and how they came to create that moment is important, because not only do the Wright Brothers invent the airplane, but they invent aeronautical engineering, and the processes to create the machine. The beginning of 1889, wilbur and orville right, and they are unmarry and own a bicycle shop and own a printing business and yankee mechanics. They know tools and mechanical devices and take that interest to apply noit tit to the printi presses and the ability to solve the flying machine. So they write to the Smithsonian Institute and ask for all of the literature on flight. They learn about the predeces r predecesso predecessors, like george kayleigh, and Nathaniel Samuel who will be a competitive and they learn about the conduit of the knowledge between the experimenters of the United States. And what is different about the Wright Brothers is that they break it down. They look at a system of a system. They look at propulsion, structures and aerodynamics and the mechanics of flying. So between 1909 and 1922, they start to fly the gliders. They start with the kites and then the gliders and by 1902, they have a controllable glider in which they have a fundamental new contribution called wing warping and rather than using weight to shift the balance of the actual glider, they have a mechanical system to twist the wing. And where they come to the conclusion is that the brothers complement each other as intellectuals and they argued how to control the airplane and move it in the air and keep it from flying in a Straight Line and it is one day in the bicycle shop that wilbur is talking to the customer and he has an intertube box for the bicycle tire, and he is twisting it as he is talking to individual, and he is able to see in the minds eye, and the Wright Brothers are not about speaking, but in the minds eye and developing the threedimensional thinking, and if we can twist the wing, and we can control it. If you lift one up, it will go down on the other side and turn. That is how they come up with the ideas. They create the worlds first working wind tunnel to do the math of the previous experimenters like john and they realize that he was wrong about the wings. So they design wings that are capable of lift. So by 1902 they have a workable glider to fly for almost 30 seconds of the dunes of kitty hawk, north carolina, in the dunes and they have traveled there because it is the one spot of america that has consistent winds and isolation to be working in peace without distraction. Through 1902 and 1903, they add the last big part of the airplane. So they have done the wings, the aerodynamics and the structure which has been influenced by octave and the others. And then you are looking at the wing warping, and the last ingredient is the propulsion system, and they acknowledge it is a reciprocating piston engine, and wilbur and charles create the thurst that is enough to propel the propellers and it is a specific choice that the Wright Brothers have is to have propellers on the flying machine. How do the propellers work . They feel they can go to existing data on the ship propellers and this is not going to give them any answers, and the same sort of intellectual give and take, and the brothers are gnashing at each other and going at it, and they realize that a propeller is a rotating wing in a hel lio path. So they then develop the thurst of the 12 horsepower engine. You can see the back wings and those are the pushers. They wanted the propel plers toe turning in counter rotating directions. So to take the knowledge going into the workshop, they took the knowledge of the belt to change the propeller and you can see the change system there of the flier of what they called the hour flyer. So that is going to enable them to go to kitty hawk in the late fall and early winter of 1903 and they start readying the flying program. They have a crash. They are down for a couple of days, but it is december 17th, 1903 that they actually fly this airplane that you can see behind me. It is that moment, that reaching of the actual getting into the air under the power and looking at all of the technology here in terms of having the aluminum engine, and spruce members and metal fittings and fabric and that is underneath the system of the airplane they create. After the four flight, a big wind comes up at kitty hawk. The flyer tumbles, and it is demolished and they claim success. So they called their father and said it is success, and they said in a quiet way that the aerial age has improved. In 1905 an improved flyer and wilbur and orville are flying up to half an hour for Long Distances, and figure eights over huffman prairie just outside of dayton, ohio. So they have put what they have in crates, and there is a flood. And then orville is trying to reassemble the airplane to put it on display, and then in 1926, it is going to england where it is in the science museum, and in world war two, it is stored west of london with the tax on englaen with the attacks on england. And then orville and wilbur donate it for the Smithsonian Institution, and whether it is on display in the classic tin shed that existed for many years and the opening of the National Aerospace engineering museum, the wright flyer went on display. And then in 2003, the centennial of the first flight, this gallery was open to tell the story of the making of the first plane and with it, aeronautical engineering. What you can see here is the original airplane, the wright flyer, but it is restored and things have been changed over the years. So the fabric that you can see there is not the original fabric of 1903, but it has been applied in the same sewing methods and construction as the 1903 airplane. So orville removed the fabric and they made the airplane look better for when it went to england, but in the 1980s and this airplane underwent a restoration. So the spruce structural and then the engine, and over in the corner is one of the original propellers that you will see, because when the airplane took a tumble, it cracked and split the propeller. We just left the Wright Brothers age of the gallery, and now in the legend gallery, and the airplane behind me is the thad13 and this is the configuration of the french and the rest of the aeronautical Community Take what the Wright Brothers have invented and take it and make it their own. This is 1917 design and the highest performance french fighter of world war i. What that means is that, it can go 130 Miles Per Hour. So 100 miles an hour faster than the wright flyer. It is also just a large strut and wire braced flyer like the wright flyer, but it is now in the contractor configuration with the propeller in the front, and then the french word fuselage, and then the empalage and then you have the wings and more french influence. So after the creation of the airplane, the Wright Brothers bring it for the world that there are other french and other experimenters who are building airplanes, and they take on the strut and the wire configuration that the Wright Brothers created, but it is improved and enhanced. Now, with the thad13, there is a designer named louie beshereaux, and so this is very important in terms of the air combat over france and the western front in world war i, but it is the thad that made the appearance that reflects the epitome of the french high designer fighter design. And it is like the wright flyer which is designed to go very fast. But it is the engine the spanos z8 engine that is the core of it. You can see the radiator shutters there, and looks like a round engine, but it is a v8 engine underneath the could iwl and by couwling, i mean a strucker over the engine to allow it to fly more efficiency. And so mack burkett adapts this, and then takes two of the inline. 400 engines and makes it a v8 and instead of separate cylinders attached to the crank case, he sodders them together from aluminum and he has cooling passages between the aluminum in the blocks to allow improved cooling and more power. So instead of the rotary engine doing 110, 120 horsepower, it is 200, 220 horsepower by the time they are introduced in this thad13. There was always a technological pushpull over the western front in world war i in which the germans have an advantage with the thick fuselage like the folker 37, but this is the thad13 is the answer to that airplane. So it does not have the speed, but they will take this speed and develop new fighter tactics in response to the german fighter tactics and this first generation of the significant high flying aces in the french contingency. This is two. 30 caliber fighter guns, and that ability to fly and attack then and fly again gives the french the advantage. One of the great Technological Innovations for flying is the amount of gun synchronization which means you can mount it right in front of the pilot, and you can point it and hit the target. But the problem is that you have a spinning wood propeller in the way. So the linkage set up to the cam on the propeller shaft as the propeller blade crosses in front of the two machine guns or one machine gun, and it turns off the machine gun, and then when the propeller blades pass, the machine gun is turned back on. And now, in the entry of the United States into the war, you have American Air Service pilots coming into the western front, and being equipped with the french aircraft. There is not a front line ready american fighter for the conflict, and this is going to be the particular thad13 that is in American Air Service markings was built by one of the manufacturers contracted to make 84 total, and the 22nd aerosquadron was assigned the airplane, and young pilot named ray brooks painted the fiance o smith deforce, and he is going to go into combat. And he scores one aerial kill, and this particular thad13 and other pilots in the same squadron shoot down five more, and so this thad13 flew with the first generation of the american combat pilots. And now ray brooks names this airplane after his fiances school, and most people would name the fiancee after the girlfriends, but he made a conscious decision not to have this airplane damaged and the mechanic saying that ruthie is damage and we have to fix her. So he wanted to keep her out of that situation. So, he names it after a college. Smith iv is in the 19th century camouflage, but you can see on the fuselage and the smith iv the crosses and the squares with the german crosses, and those are representing bullet holes through combat, and that is an indication of being a combat plane and surviving. The squares would have been applied by the ground mechanics in the field, because there is no need to completely recover the airplane, and wu one of the advantages of the strut and airplanes is to restore the patch, and then keep the integrity and keep fighting. In the november 1918, this airplane is set aside by the Army Air Service and brought back to the United States as to display what type of americans the americans were flying, which is a High Performance french fighter and also given to the Smithsonian Institution, and stays in the collection for decades, but it is not until the 1980s that the airplane is fully restored and put on display in the world war i gallery. If you are looking at the panel, you can see the fab frik the original airplane on display. So the fabric here, that is not original, but restored fabric, and nonetheless, this is one of four remaining thads in the world. It tells the story of how the Wright Brothers plane is maximized and essentially the same in terms of the materials and the propulsion system, and the systems that make it up. There is a formidable combat fighter of world war i. So from the thad 13 of 1918 in world war i, we will look at the air racer of the 1920s that pushed further the envelope and especially fastener the story of higher, faster, farther. Behind me now is the curtis rc3 dasher in the Pioneer Hills of the flight gallery. This is an air racer, and what is unique about it is that it is built by a national government, the United States that can beat an International Air racing against the air forces of other countries, Great Britain and italy primarily if they are to win a prize, thehe schneider cu and so this is built in the vein of performance, and what is resulting is the grand spectacle of aviation and military spectacle in which the this is e in which military officers are getting in these races. And youll see that they are in bloodless campaigns against each other. Theyre promoting their own branch of service to see if they can become independent, to see if they can push the technology. So its a twofold, you know, Public Relations and Technical Campaign theyre waging. But what results is an improvement of the airplane in terms of the highspeed technology. United states gets into air inflation 1922 where they show up at the schneider trophy competition. Its an International Event created by a french aviation industrialist to influence and develop and encourage the development of sea plane technology. Because he saw the world was covered by water and he thought sea planes needed to be developed. But what the competition becomes, is it becomes a highstakes, highspeed competition between First International aviation clubs of each country, and then the military governments take over in the early 1920s. So this curtis rc32 is the fastest in the fall of 1985. This racer with a Young Service pilot with Jimmy Doolittle wins the competition just northeast of baltimore, maryland at an average of the 230 Miles Per Hour. The next day, he breaks a world sea plane record of around 240 Miles Per Hour. And just two weeks before this same airplane with wheels and a tail skid installed in the r 3 c configuration wins the pulitzer race. Its a National Race pitting the army, navy, marine pilots against each other. So its an airial football became. And he won the race at 248 Miles Per Hour. So Jimmy Doolittle and cyrus bettis are the worlds fastest men bettis says he was not faster than the wind, he was faster than any wind in history. This real belief in speed and the pushing of the technology and the justification of National Governance to really encourage this Development Results in what we see here, the curse tis rc3. Its a racing system. Look at the gold wings. Its a curtis c80 air foil and its cooling the engine through those. You see minimum struts and wires on the construction of it. You see a tightly fitted cowling over the 600 horsepower v12 engine. You see a metal propeller which is one of the latest innovations in the mid 1980s. Its built and designed by reed, and its transitioning from wood to metal in airplane construction materials. Bu but, probably the most important is its a plywood fuselage that its built like a wooden boat and its built of spruce so there are no longer struts and wires and braces inside the fuselage, its a hollow shell. Than i corporate rates a streamline shape and it allows this airplane to go faster because of the ability to have less things causing drag along the surface of the fuselage itself. And what you have to realize about the curtis rc3 racer and aircraft like it is that it is built for a very highspeed, highturning environment. And so, you know, 20 mile course marked out by three pylons, its a virtual racetrack in the sky. And so that short wing span, the compact nature of the airplane allows it to make these very tight turns as they go around the pylons. Jimmy doolittle actually had a technique where he would start at one pylon, dive toward the base of it, then pull up and turn and go around the other pylon to get that speed.