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[[Portrait, presumably of James H. Doolittle]]

FIFTY YEARS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

JAMES H. DOOLITTLE
CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO OBSERVE THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF POWERED FLIGHT

     At about 10:45 a.m. on the morning of December 17, 1903, Orville Wright left the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in his tiny stick and wire byplane. His was man's first successful controlled flight in an engine-driven heavier-than-air craft.
     As we look at it today, that flight at Kitty Hawk ushered in what has proved to be the most momentous 50-year period in modern history. During no other half century have such vast changes taken place in the world.
     In terms of travel time, the globe has been shrunk to a fraction of the size the Wright brothers knew. They flew at a speed of 31 miles per hour in that first plane. An American has flown more than 40 times that fast–1238 miles per hour. With the development of the jet airliner we are at the threshold of clock-stopping speeds that will allow commercial air travelers to beat the sun. Even the idea of space travel no longer is considered mere science fiction. It is today scientifically possible.
     In 1903 the aircraft industry in the united States consisted, you might say, of a Dayton bicycle shop which employed two men, Orville and Wilbur Wright. Today aircraft manufacturing has become our second largest industry. During the second World War it was the largest. 
     The National Aircraft SHow honors the tremendous achievement of this great industry during the last 50 years. In so doing it honors the many courageous men and women who carried on the work started by Dayton's most famous sons, Orville and Wilbur Wright.
     That cold December day at Kitty Hawk one man was carried aloft for 12 seconds. This year, according to preliminary estimates, the scheduled airlines of the United States will carry 32 million passengers approximately 18 1/2 billion miles. Today American business firms alone own an estimated 9,500 planes, of which some 1700 are multi-engined.
     That first engine back in 1903 developed about 16 horse-power and sustained a flight of only a few seconds. The modern jet engine of today develops the equivalent of over 10,000 horsepower and one U.S. manufacturer reports that to date his jet engines alone have logged more than 600 million miles.
     The airplane has opened up backward areas. Many countries once isolated by terrain or travel time have been brought within easy visiting range. of the rest of the world. Only a few years–before commercial aviation–central Arabia was one of the least known parts of the world. Less well-known than the polar regions. Today every part of the world can be readily reached by airplane or helicopter. 
     From its frail beginning the airplane has become the predominant instrument of national policy. Its military and naval function has grown in importance from that of an experimental scouting arm, through the "long range artillery" phase to the first line of defense and offense. Today relative air power is the yardstick by which national security is gauged and Air supremacy has become the principal deterrent to aggression. 
     From the start aviation has advanced in a manner to confound the skeptics and even the experts. Some of the milestones, after the first flights of the Wright Brothers as I recall them were the flight of the Brazilian Santos-Dumont in 1906, Bleriot's flight the English Channel in 1909, Glen Curtiss' seaplane, the Navy's trans-atlantic flight in 1919 the Army's round-the-world flight in 1926, Lindberghs flight in 1927, the record flights of the 20's and 30's, Whittle's jet, and then Chuck Yeager's breaking the so-called sonic barrier–flying faster than the speed of sound.
     The future that aviation holds for man is as limitless as the space surrounding this planet of ours. Sometimes I hear intelligent people suggest that the practical limits have already been reached. They point up the problems of noise, high landing speeds and power requirements for supersonic flight. Whenever a friend inclines to get too conservative I remind him of the statement attributed to the eminent scientist, Thomas A. Edison, in the scientific American of November, 1902. He said and I quote:
     "I believe that within thirty years nearly all railways will discard steam locomotives and adopt electric motors, and that the electric automobile will displace the horse almost entirely. /in the present state of science, there are no known facts by which one could predict any commercial future for aerial navigation/."
     The airplane has been a great boom to mankind in drawing all the people of the world closer together and leading to better understanding. Unfortunately, 
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NATIONAL AIRCRAFT SHOW
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