#241 The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

As the saga early flight becomes more distant It gains rather than loses fascination. Air travel is now so commonplace has been so widely experienced that those who risked their lives every time they took an airplane up. Who flew an open aircraft totally exposed to the elements and without seat restraints. Who took their machines to great heights in freezing cold or in pelting rain?

Who died and watched their friends die. Pushing up against the limits of performance? Have become almost mythical figures. They were that. Of course.

But they were also simply young and eager men and women embracing a new technology with the breathless zeal. Of youth. The fear of death. Would dissuade them no more. Then it did the first climber.

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