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TROUT: (CONT'D) For 12 speeding seconds their crude plane soared 120 feet as a few shivering spectators cheered the unbelievable. But what dazzling future lay so near at hand behind the veil of time for this new achievement - this conquest of a world above the earth - none dared dream.

In fact, for three years after the birth of modern aviation the world slept peacefully on, and the small recognition given the determined Wrights was like the muttering of a restless sleeper. Then, in 1906, some thirty years ago, the world stirs, rubs its eyes, sits up in amazement. Excitement runs high and in many countries pioneers rush ahead. In the next four short years, the records of flight are inscribed with the names of such famed trail-breakers of the air as Curtiss, Farman, Bleriot. The English Channel is conquered by man-made wings and motors, a woman makes a successful flight, and the distance between New York and Albany is flown in something less than three hours. 

Those headlines which startled the world short years ago seem like the quaint footnotes in an ancient musty volume to a world which now takes for granted airliner and small private plane alike - 
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