Aviation history

Change the world

November 29, 2022 By Ian J. Twombly

January marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the death of Orville Wright, who died in Dayton, Ohio, as the result of a heart attack on January 30, 1948.

Photography by David Tulis, inset National Park Service

Orville lived decades longer than Wilbur, who succumbed at only 45 to typhoid fever in 1912. And while he spent all the rest of his life in aviation, Orville’s last flight as a pilot was in 1918, and he sold the Wright Company in 1915. The rest of his years were spent as a statesman, serving on boards, and helping to solidify the legacy of the brothers’ achievements.

Orville’s life is an incredible lens by which to view the technological advancement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born only six years after the end of the Civil War and 15 years before the car was invented, Orville helped invent and fly the first airplane and saw two world wars. He also saw his invention progress from flights of roughly 100 feet long and 10 feet of altitude to those that soared to more than 56,000 feet and nearly circled the globe. He saw the beginning of the jet age, and speeds beyond Mach 1.

Among his many legacies is the allure of self-taught, self-funded success that can change the world. Although his older brother Wilbur often gets credit for being the driving force behind the invention, Orville was integral to their success, and the world’s massive changes he saw were in part his own doing.

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History

‘Thank you for our freedom’

Resolution inspired by Blue Angel

Years after his death in 2005, words of the original U.S. Navy Blue Angel have become a proposed resolution before the U.S. House of Representatives.

U.S. Reps. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) and Lou Correa (D-Calif.) introduced a resolution in support of replacing the commonly used phrase “Thank you for your service” with the more specific “Thank you for our freedom.” This bipartisan effort to focus attention on what exactly veterans have done for their country was based on the words of Navy Capt. Roy M. “Butch” Voris, who shot down eight Japanese aircraft during World War II.

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz tapped Voris to assemble a team of pilots to inspire new recruits, as well as ongoing support for the military in a nation demobilizing from the largest war in its history. Voris handpicked the first Blue Angels, and they flew Grumman Hellcats over the Florida Everglades, developing the show. “My goal was to beat the Army Air Corps,” Voris said. And he did, fielding the Navy team first among military aerial demonstrators.

Years later, over lunch with a fellow Navy aviator returned from another war, the words “Thank you for your service” did not sound right to Voris, who inquired of his companion whether the speaker had mistaken the decorated war hero wearing his “1st Blue” ballcap for a restaurant employee. Voris did not think much of condensing his years of fighting, training fellow aviators, and forming a team that remains one of the most recognizable and thrilling units in the military into the same word applied to delivering food and cleaning tables. “He should thank us for his freedom.” — Jim Moore

Ian J. Twombly

Ian J. Twombly is senior content producer for AOPA Media.

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