Today, our first airplane ride. The University of
Houston's College of Engineering presents this
series about the machines that make our
civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity
created them.
Back from a flight to the
east coast, my ears ringing, my back stiff. And I
find a listener has sent me two Ford Motor Company
ads from the 1928 and 1931 issues of The
American Boy. One bears the banner First
Time Up! Ford offers us our first
airplane ride.
During the late 1920s, flight matured. Airplane
builders began shifting away from racing,
barnstorming, and record-setting. Airplanes were
about to begin serving the public. As flight left
its rowdy childhood behind, one of the first great
commercial airliners was the Dutch Fokker
Trimotor. It carried eight passengers and had
a range of 1600 miles.
Henry Ford took an interest in the Trimotor. He
bought one for Admiral Byrd to make the first
flight over the North Pole. In 1926, Ford acquired
the Stout Metal Airplane company. He hired a
designer to make a new version and began producing
Ford
Trimotors. They carried ten to fourteen
passengers. Their range was much less than
Fokker's, but Ford meant to serve a growing network
of American airports, placed only a few hundred
miles from one another.
Now he promotes his airplane with a lyrical account
of the texture of commercial flight. That First
Time Up! line reminds us that most people had
yet to fly. Over its eight-year history, Ford made
fewer than two hundred Trimotors. Compare that with
almost eleven thousand of the
DC-3s that followed it. The superior DC-3 was
needed to make flight become commonplace. But, in
1928, Ford says:
You settle back in your wicker chair a little
nervously as the engines roar. Then a burst of
speed across the flying-field! Forty miles an hour
... fifty-five! Someone shouts, 'Watch the
wheels!'
(The landing gear didn't retract. The undercarriage
was fixed for all to see, below the two flanking
engines.)
We're told that, far above the ground, the fear of
heights won't touch us, because we lose touch with
Earth's lines of perspective. We are told that
we're now transcending human nature.
The earlier ad shows ten moveable wicker chairs,
like a cozy living room. In 1931, they're replaced
with the first generation of today's passenger airplane
seats. But, in each case, a liveried steward
serves passengers wearing fancy dresses and formal
suits. No seat belts, of course; this, after all,
is safe transportation.
Indeed, we're told that if one engine fails the
airplane can still fly. If two fail, it can still
find safety in a region the size of Delaware. If
all three go -- well, the plane can glide for
miles.
That's off-putting stuff to put in advertising
copy, the first ad also includes lines like this:
"You may dismiss the tireless beat of the
propellers [and gaze down at] rivers the color of
green onyx." Only three years later that begins
shifting: we're told that airplanes can get us to the
next city ahead of business competitors.
Wouldn't it be a glorious thing to forget what we
now know -- to go back to experience all that for
the first time -- to see it, once more,
with no idea of how it would all play out.
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds
work.
(Theme music)
"First Time Up!" and "Your Place ..." two versions of
a Ford Motor advertisement in The American
Boy magazine: September, 1928, pg. 31, and April
1931, pg. 49.
I am grateful to Jim Coffeen for providing these
fascinating old windows into early commercial
flight.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity is
Copyright © 1988-2003 by John H.
Lienhard.
