OBJECTIVES:

• I will continue to prepare for next Tuesday's Airplane ID quiz

• I will review the requirements for our "Significant Aircraft" presentation

CALENDAR:

• March 2nd, 2021: 20th Century Aircraft Quiz
• March 9th, Most Significant Aircraft Presentation

WORK O' THE DAY:

List of 20th Century Aircraft for our first Quiz is HERE

• HERE is a Google Slides Version of 20th Century Airplane JEOPARDY (Be sure and make a copy!

Most Significant Aircraft Presentation description and requirements are HERE

Most Significant Aircraft SignUp Sheet is HERE

 

Let's start by reviewing our 20th Century TimeLine of MAJOR EVENTS

Let's take a look at how it all started:

NAME: Wright Flyer     TYPE: Experimental

YEAR/DECADE: 1903 / (1900's)

SIGNIFICANCE: First Human Controlled Powered Flight

Let's take a quick gander HERE

Why do you suppose they flew in Kittyhawk on the outer banks of North Carolina?

There is a common myth that the Wright Brothers were very secretive and wouldn't allow people to watch them fly.

The reality was substantially different... in fact the Wright's sent telegrams far and wide practically BEGGING officials in Washington DC and the eastern newspapers to come watch them fly their aircraft around Dayton...

Oddly enough, those folks didn't believe them.

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World War I (1914 - 1918) started just over 10 years later... see how many changes to the aircraft design you can sport between the Wright Flyer and the "Sopweth Camel", a British WWI fighter.

Although advanced for its time, it only had a range (the distance it could fly on one tank of fuel) of just over 200 miles and a top speed of just over 110 mph).

Aircraft design changed so fast that by 1920 it was already obsolete

NAME: Sopweth Camel    TYPE: WWI Fighter

YEAR/DECADE: 1917 (1910's)

SIGNIFICANCE: Popular Example of WWI Aircraft

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Just about 10 years later aircraft designers had stretched the speed and range of aircraft by an incredible degree.

Consider the "Spirit of St Louis". It was designed and built for Charles Lindbergh to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean without stopping.

He succeeded in April of 1927 flying from New York to Paris, France. A distance of 3600 miles -- which was a range of about 18 times that of the 1917 Sopweth Camel and hew as in the air for over 33 hours!

He was competing for and claimed a cash prize of $25,000 (worth almost $350,000 today!)

NAME: Spirit of St Louis    TYPE: Experimental

YEAR/DECADE: 1927 (1920's)

SIGNIFICANCE: First Solo Flight Across the Atlantic Ocean

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I'm going to send you off into your breakout groups to consider the following:

1) What personal challenges would a pilot face in each of those 3 planes

2) Given the opportunity, which plane would you prefer to fly AT THAT TIME?

3) Why?

Please have a thoughtful conversation...which is to say please do make sure each person has the opportunity to share their thoughts. Ask thoughtful questions of each other and give your colleagues an opportunity to share their thoughts.

Avoid answers that shut down conversation such as "I dunno"

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Due Date: September 28th 2020

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Let's jump another 10 years or so and take notice of the remarkable DC-3. Designed in the middle of the "Great Depression" in the 1930's and built by the Douglas Aircraft Corp (That's the D and the C in the name btw) , this remarkable plane is STILL flying today, 80 years later and many experts suggest it will be the worlds' FIRST "100 year plane"

NAME: DC 3   TYPE: Transport

YEAR/DECADE: 1937 (1930's)

SIGNIFICANCE: 80 Years old and STILL Flying!

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Do you remember one of the opening scenes in "Raiders of The Lost Ark" (Jump to timestamp 1:45) when Indian Jones hopps on a "Flying Boat" and flies across the Pacific Ocean on his way to Nepal?

Welcome to the (Short Lived) elegant world of the "Flying Boats"

Flying Boats were first flown commercially by Pan American Airlines in the early 1930's on "Island Hopping" routes through the Caribbean and then along the coast of South America.

By the late 1930's Pan Am was pioneering routes across the Pacific where passengers could journey from San Francisco to Manila in the Philippine Islands in *only* 1 week (Passenger Ships routinely took 3 or 4 weeks to make the same trip!)

It didn't come cheap though, the cost of a round-trip ticket was more than most American's made in a year! Remember, this was also during the Great Depression when something like 20% of the workforce was unemployed!

NAME: Boeing 314   TYPE: Transport

YEAR/DECADE: Late 1930's

SIGNIFICANCE: First Trans-Pacific Passenger Service

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