Scoops by AW&ST

Our Favorite Scoops

May 6, 2016

Aviation Week & Space Technology

COMMENTS 1

• 

  Next

  Prev
  • Share Image
   
  • fullscreen

  1 of 17

  1919: Orville Wright’s Call for Runways

  
  

  Fifteen years after he and his brother Wilbur first took to the air at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville Wright believed development of the aviation industry still had a long way to go. In a Viewpoint written for Aviation Week—then known as Aviation and Aeronautical Engineering—Wright called for “distinctly marked and carefully prepared landing places.” To make flying safe, those runways “should be spaced every 10-12 miles,” he wrote. Wright argued that while upkeep for a plane cost more than an automobile, it was “very much less than that of a yacht.” He also envisioned airplanes being used more for commercial purposes, noting that they could make the trip from his hometown of Dayton, Ohio, to Washington in just 3 hr. compared with 16 hr. for a rail trip. “The airplane has already been made abundantly safe for flight,” Wright wrote. “The problem before the engineer today is that of providing for safe landing.”

   

  Read Orville Wright’s Viewpoint from Jan. 1, 1919, at:  archive.aviationweek.com

   

  
  

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

When the U.S. Air Force tried to limit the view of reporters during the rollout of the stealthy B-2 bomber, an enterprising Aviation Week editor rented a Cessna 172 and took photographs from above. From its unveiling of the B-52 bomber and Boeing 707 jet to the classified RQ-180 unmanned aircraft and China’s anti-satellite weapon, Aviation Week has produced some legendary scoops over the past 100 years. Here are some of our favorites.