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A Dedication to Fifty Fabulous Years of Aviation

To the Men Who Pioneered the Air Age From Its Modest Beginning to Its Challenging Future, THE AIR LINE PILOT Dedicates This Issue on Aviation's Golden Jubilee.

From Adam to the atom, there has been no greater saga of progress than the first fifty years of powered heavier-than-air flight.

Only a handful of men witnessed the modern 20th Century miracle of Kill Devil Hill, Kittyhawk, N.C.—the beginning of man's conquest of the air when he first raised himself into the air under his own power on December 17, 1903.

The forerunner of today's great planes was built in a rickety bicycle shop. A skeptical world failed to cheer because it felt it was being hoaxed. The Wright brothers themselves, while flushed with the realization they had made history, failed to see the impact it would have on the world.

Orville modestly reported the feat:

"This first flight lasted only 12 seconds, but it was nevertheless the first flight in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started."

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On The Cover

The past and the present, bridging the gap of a half century of air history, meet. In the upper photo, the "Flyer" is airborne at Kitty Hawk, December 17, 1903; Orville Wright piloting, Wilbur running alongside. Some statistics on powered flights birth and first day of life: 1st flight, 120 ft., 12 sec.; 2nd trial, 195 ft., 11 sec.; 3rd flight, over 200 ft., 15 sec.; 4th run, 852 ft., 59 sec. In lower photo, the harbinger of Commercial jet age, the Comet, first in-service jet transport, makes a test flight.
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From this inauspicious beginning, man has utilized his God-given ability to build to transform aviation into the virile giant it has become.

We have only to glance around to see the strides aviation has made in these first fifty fabulous years.

It has shrunk the globe, by time measurement, into a matter of hours.

It has opened up backward and impossible areas of the world to civilization.

It has provided new bonds of friendship between peaceful nations through new routes of commerce for world industry.

It has, through military aviation combined with a strong air line system and well-trained pilot reserves, provided the backbone of our National Defense.

It has leaped from an original investment of a few thousand dollars into a multi-million dollar industry—one of the nation's largest, employing, in all its aspects, by conservative estimate, a minimum of a million.

Yet, it is only on the threshold of its possibilities; still young when measured by the yardstick of its full and ultimate potential.

The record written from Kittyhawk to the present is history. Vast as the past 50 years have been, the future is as boundless as man's imagination, ingenuity, and daring.

To every person who has pioneered this great era and laid the foundation on which tomorrow's progress will be built, THE AIR LINE PILOT proudly dedicates this issue in tribute to the Golden Jubilee of Powered Flight.


Vol. 22, No. 12
The Air Line Pilot
December, 1953

Entered as Second Class Matter at the Post Office at Chicago, Ill. Copyright; 1953, by Air Line Pilot's Association, International. 

Clarence N. Sayen
President

Jerome E. Wood
First Vice-President

F. A. Spencer
Secretary

Roger Don Rae
Treasurer

Regional Vice Presidents
W. M. Masland ------ Region I
W. T. Babbitt ------ Region II
M. E. Swanson ------ Region III
L. R. Williams ----- Region IV
C. A. Peternell ---- Region V

Larry Cates
Legislative Representative 

Published Monthly by The Air Line Pilots Association, International, Affiliated with A. F. of L. Publication offices: 55th Street and Cicero Avenue, Chicago 38, Illinois.

Advertising appearing in this magazine cannot be construed as being an endorsement by The Air Line Pilots Association or the Air Line Pilots.
Annual Subscription, $2.50

Ed Modes, Editor 
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