The first airplane fatality | Hacker News Reader

The first airplane fatality

amusingplanet.com

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After the crash, the Wright's built a new plane, the 1909 Military Flyer. It came back the next year to Ft. Myer and became the first plane, anywhere in the world, to be bought by a government (1). Orville Wright taught three Army officers to fly on that plane, and then, the Army being what it is, a fourth guy got a letter from Wright explaining how to fly and told "take this plane to San Antonio and teach yourself to fly at Fort Sam Houston." After he had done about 40 more flights, only some of which ended in crashes, the 1909 Military Flyer was retired in 1911. It was given to the Smithsonian. While the other Wright airplanes (2) in the Smithsonian collection have been cleaned up and restored, made to look more like they did when brand new, the Military Flyer has been kept in its 1910 parts: there is a stain on the bottom wing (right below the engine) that is from the use of this airplane more than 115 years ago.

1: The contract was for a plane to fly for an hour, at 30mph out and back, carrying two people (pilot and observer). There was a 10% penalty on the 25,000 for every mph by which the plane was slower than 30mph, and a 10% bonus for every mph by which the plane was above 30mph. The Military Flyer averaged 32 mph on the loop it did, so the Army paid the Wright's $30,000.

2: There are 8 surviving original Wright Airplanes left in the world, the Smithsonian owns three of them: the 1903 Wright Flyer, the 1909 Military Flyer, and the Model Ex Vin Fizz.

#1 sounds like a dangerous incentive. But different times!

War sometimes involves a degree of danger.

And a flying field was established at College Park, MD where Orville Wright began teaching Army officers to fly in 1909.

That airport is still operating and is the oldest continuously operating airport in the world.

https://www.nps.gov/articles/college-park-airport.htm

FWIW, I think there are 5 surviving original Wright bicycles, so they are outnumbered by the airplanes.

Bah, there's a report of an earlier one in Ovid's Metamorphoses from 8 CE.

http://messybeast.com/dragonqueen/icarus-accident.htm

Article title says plane but in the text it says powered flight.

But not "non human-powered" flight? If Icarus flapped a little, that counts.

If you can’t maintain altitude without losing significant airspeed, you’re just falling.

Even if you maintain both you can still be falling (orbits!)

Gravitational orbits lose energy over time. Not really relevant on human timescales but interesting trivia if nothing else.

Due to friction? Or is it other physics?

Gravitational waves, though in the vast majority of case they are extremely weak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave

> The crash had fractured his skull. At the time, neither man wore head protection, as aviation helmets were not yet standard equipment.

It’s kinda wild to me how reliable we are at having to learn the hard way to wear a helmet for each new sport or endeavour.

In fairness, quite a few failure modes for aircraft do not matter much if you are wearing a helmet or not.

You’d be surprised. Small aircraft crashes, if control is not lost before hitting the ground, are much more similar to car crashes than to large airliner crashes. For example, a recent “innovation” that saved a lot of lives was making shoulder belts (as opposed to lap only belts) standard.

Next up: airbags..!

So I looked up and discovered that bicycle helmets became a common thing in the 1970s. Perhaps motorcycles were earlier. But either way I have to ask - what did people wear helmets for in 1909? Im thinking that most helmet usage came later.

I think they were fairly common for things like gladiatorial games, jousting, etc.

Helmet usage, as in protective headware for general melee war and one on one fighting, dates back to the bronze age.

Hard hats, of assorted kinds for general protection while working, date back to the 1890s and became more commonplace ~1920 (ish) onwards in construction, mining, and ship building industries.

* Helmets: https://www.battlemerchant.com/en/blog/the-evolution-of-hist...

* Hard Hats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_hat

I suspect there are more early European hard hat examples to be found than are cited in the wikipedia article.

You'd be surprised to learn how many people fell out of airplanes because of lack of seat belts.

Surprisingly, the article does not mention that Selfridge field in Michigan is named after Lieutenant Selfridge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfridge_Air_National_Guard_B....

When KLM started flying Amsterdam-Batavia in the 1930s it was dangerous but people preferred it to spending weeks on a ship.

Preferred like people today prefer their private jet? It cost more than your typical annual salary at the time.

I just read that the trip was still a 5 day journey, involving 20+ stops and spinning that takeoff and landing roulette wheel quite a bit..

The novelty factor might have been just as big a deal as time savings. It was something cool to try as an ultra wealthy globe trotter.

This page (1) reports 9 stops (between start and destination):

> The plane took off – for the 1st leg of the flight from Amsterdam to Batavia – on 30 April. The schedule: Budapest 30 April, Athens 1 May, Cairo 2 May, Baghdad 3 May, Jask 4 May, Jodhpur 5 May, Calcutta 6 May, Tavoy 7 May, Medan 8 May and arriving in Batavia on 9 May.

This page(2) claims a max speed of 190km/h. Budapest to Athens is 1130 km apart, so if the plane was flying around 150km/h, it's a 7 hour trip for that segment. Ouch. At least the passengers probably had a nice dinner and slept every night in a nice hotel...

(1) https://dutchaustralianculturalcentre.com.au/archive/dutch-a...

(2) https://aircraftinvestigation.info/airplanes/Fokker_F.VIIa.h...

I read that it is statistically more dangerous to fly on a private jet than a commercial one.

Definitely, you can’t get much safer mode of travel than a modern airline. There are some humorous statistics that hour for hour taking a shower is more dangerous.

Accidents generally go up as you move down the scale of regularly scheduled airlines -> charter -> private with professional crew -> private flying.

100 Americans can drive a car their whole life, and statistically one will die.

There is zero chance 100 people could fly private airplanes everyday for their whole life and only one dies. I suppose if you look at 100 skilled pilots flying private aircraft for 50 years daily.. still would be a lot worse

My dad was an AF pilot for a couple decades. There were four non-combat incidents that nearly killed him. And he was a very, very careful man.

1. P-51 engine swallowed a valve and failed completely (the P-51 flies like a rock when the engine isn't turning) but fortunately he was over the airfield at the time

2. a total failure of an F-86 engine (F-86 is a decent glider and he was able to glide in on the airfield)

3. his P-51 rear fuselage crumpled after a turn. The mechanic told him he was amazed it didn't come off completely

4. flew into clear air turbulence that was so violent the wings were bent and were scrapped

Cool stuff. Im actually a decent mechanic and it's what makes me dislike airplanes even more, especially the smaller private stuff. I had a friend invite me over and over into his ultralight running a rotax motor. I never agreed to go because all I think about when I hear Rotax are all the jetskiis I knew in the 90s and early 2000s that would give you problems at least once every few lake outings. No thanks for that in the sky.

An acquaintance of mine was a private pilot. Took off one day, flew into a storm, crashed and died. Another friend took a chance and flew into icing conditions, and nearly crashed. He said he'd never make that mistake again.

My dad flew F-180s in the Korean War. It was the first operational US jet fighter. It had straight wings (not swept) and had a powerful engine.

He related to me that if you exceeded a certain speed, the airplane would suddenly "pitch up" and fold the wings back. You had to be very careful not to overspeed, which (of course) was very difficult to do in a diving attack. (He said he kept one eye on the target, one eye on the altitude, and one eye on the airspeed.) Anyhow, mission one of his buddies had a Mig on his tail and could not shake it. He decided that he'd deliberately induce the pitch up, and hope that would get him out of the jam. He did, pitched up, the Mig couldn't follow it, and miraculously the wings stayed on.

He carefully flew it back to base. The wings were bent up, and the airplane was scrapped.

The first powered aircraft fatality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hermann_W%C3%B6lfert and his mechanic Robert Knabe, 1897

More historical photos of Selfridge

https://digitalcollections.museumofflight.org/nodes/search?k...

Fun fact: The first "Air Force" training occurred at Dayton OH. Pilots were fed by Mother Wright, and bunked in the brothers' own family home.

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