Название: Kept Alive by the Postman: The Wright Brothers and 1st Lt. Benjamin D. Foulois at Fort Sam Houston in 1910
Автор: Roger G. Miller
Издательство: The Air Force Historical Foundation
Страниц: 14
Формат: PDF
Размер: 15 Мб
Качество: Хорошее
Язык: английский
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Wilbur and Orville Wright were not physically at Fort Sam Houston in 1910, of course. But if the Wrights were absent in body from that venerable army post located on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, they were certainly present in spirit as 1st Lt. Benjamin D. Foulois experimented with the U.S. Army's first airplane. And thereby hangs a tale, for Benny Foulois always claimed that he was a "mall-order pilot" who had learned to fly through his correspondence with the Wright brothers. His 1968 autobiography, From the Wright Brothers to the Astronauts, suggests a continuous stream of letters between south central Texas and Dayton, Ohio:
Much of my time at San Antonio's storied Fort Sam Houston that spring was spent writing to Orville Wright, asking him how to execute basic maneuvers, how to avoid basic disasters--in short, how to fly an airplane. (1).... The advice [I received] on several occasions probably saved my life and the airplane as well. I profited by their mistakes and incorporated their design improvements on old No. 1. Thus, I was the first, and only, pilot in history to learn to fly by mail. From some of the near misses I had, I guess I was the first person who was literally kept alive by the postman.
