>> the concept is this recently. the whole black nation have to be put together as a black army. we are going to walk on this nation, we are want to walk on this racist power structure, and say to the whole government, up, this is a holed up. we have come for what is ours." >> ♪ >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. 1970 nine, c-span was created

as a public service by america's cable service companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >>, each week, american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn about history. museum is home to the largest collection of all one and world war ii aircraft. the airplane hanger with robert powell to learn about training during the war. this is the far of a them -- this is the of a two-part first series. robert powell: welcome to the virginia beach aviation museum. i am boom powell. i am lucky enough to be one of and will explain a few things we have. the museum has a complete collection, and it is about 60

airplanes here. we have restorations coming and going and others being maintained as time goes on. i am standing in front of one of the oldest airplanes here at the museum. this is a 1911 wright brothers b.er, the wright model it is not the same as the kitty hawk airplane. there is an aft elevator. the engine is offset. there is a chain drive changing to propellers. the wright brothers were geniuses with coming up with the secret to flight was not be able to be stable and not do anything but to be able to maneuver and have a little bit of an -- instability in the airplane. they came up with many developments that are now standard. with the pitch of the airplane, the elevator moved up and down.

they did develop a rudder. you have to roll the airplane to turn it. their solution was simple, take a box structure and twisted. the differential in the wings is called wingwarp. you can see the whole wing structure moves and changes the angle. liquid cooled fuel tank up on top, very early stages. in a few minutes, we will go up up to the world war i hangar where we have a curtiss pusher built the same year as this airplane was. you will see the big differences especially when we talk about , the ailerangs. the wright brothers were very exact. they were involved with the patent against curtiss for his invention, claiming it infringed on their patent. they had taken airplay over to

europe in 1908 and demonstrated it. europeans who had flown before were amazed. as the war, as world war i began, the startup of the thing, the u.s. looked upon it as their development, very quiet to what had been going on in europe recently. one of the reasons is the wright brothers patent fights in the courts slowing things down. the solution is rather unique. theu.s. government bought patent for the flying machine for one dollar, and after that, the patent fights for wing warping or whatever went away. and then it began from there on in. this particular airplane was famous for another reason. it was a type like this. this is a replica. they could fly coast-to-coast. there was a big contest with a lot money involved for the first

airplane that could make it in 30 days or less. it didn't make 30 days by the way. ur was sponsored by the armo meat company. they were provided with spare parts and his mother and wife went across the united states as he went through. flying in these days was very difficult and rough. you could not go very far. you were subject to weather and wind. and of course there was always , the crash landings. there were a few of those things. he didn't make it in 30 days. they say, keep on going, we will continue to pay your expenses. he got to santa monica california, landed on the beach and literally taxied his airplane into the pacific ocean. when he finally got there, the only original parts of the airplane were two wing struts and the elevator. the rest of the airplane had

been completely replaced in the time it took to fly across the united states. now that we have taken a look at the wright flyer, let's go back. the hangers are on either side of us. we will probably see those in a later show the world war ii , section. we will go back to the world war i section where we have a curtiss flyer from 1911. let's look at aviation as it develops throughout the end of world war i. now we are in the world war i hangar in virginia beach military aviation museum. kind of continuing the sequence as we go through the development of aviation. we came out here to look at the curtiss pusher airplane. curtiss invented the ailerons, a big difference between the wing warp on the wright brothers airplane. show you how it works. the difference is significant,

and it is the first to land and take off of a ship. it is rather open, the pilot has a simple seat in front of it. there was a control wheel in front of him. it had two elevators. the first is the canard, up in front, and the other is well behind and it picks up like a normal elevator. the problem with the canard is they are very difficult to fly. the real point that counts is the fact that has the curtiss aileron on it. they were the same principle in between. curtiss did not know a whole lot. none of them did. he was learning as he went along. one of the things he did was putting the ailerons between the wings. he did do it, and it worked out. the airplane was a lot of fun to fly. a little exhausting.

a lot of these early airplanes were. they did not understand control harmonization when it feels good in all directions. in other words, you are flying this airplane, you are doing it constantly in pitch with your hands around. you can see how open the structure was. this is the way many airplanes were up until world war i began. let's go take a look at the bleriot. bleriot was one of the few airplanes, one of the first combat airplanes, that started the war using the wing warping principle. the french had one as well. the open structure, but they are starting to enclose it. the carpeting along the side is very realistic. the observer in the back, called them observers, would fire in

the air. they had not invented firing through the propeller. it has got a tail skid on it. non-steerable. nearly all world war i airplanes used a skid. some of our replicas have a tail wheel on it for better controllability. a normal type elevator, the big thing to watch is this is what wing warping looking like. you twist the thing and you can see the wing on the other side is going up at the same time i pull this down. that is how they rolled the airplane. but this wasctive, the state of the war in 1915. let's go take a look at another curtiss, compare that to the curtiss pusher we looked at before. we will look at the famous jenny, which became a standard trainer all the way through. they would put two people in the cockpit with dual controls. this is a true jenny.

it is one of the few airplanes we have in the world war i collection which is a restoration rather than a replica or reproduction. the painting on this, we stay local all the way through. this is the first airplane that landed in the big field on the north side of the james in what became an air force base. this is the first army air force plane to land there. the jenny is on a better biplane structure. the cockpit is now enclosed, the fuselage is now enclosed. it cuts down on some of the drag. there is still a lot of wires on these early airplanes. it is one of the things they had to do to keep the structure rigid. an old joke was you took a pigeon with you and insert it in the wing. you would store it somewhere inside the wing and let the pigeon go. if it escaped, you are missing a wire. the same principle put more modern variation on the thing. it gets its name from the

designation jn4, and pilots started calling it jenny. a wonderful name. very popular airplane. during the war, it was a trainer. then afterwards it became a , trainer not only for the military but civilian pilots as well. when you read the history throughout the roaring 1920's and the barnstormers going through, this is one of their favorite planes. after world war i, many were available as surplus aircraft, and they were flying all over the place. lindbergh had one trying to earn a few extra dollars when things were tough. fully controlled. the instructor sits in one cockpit, the student in the other. they both can fly the airplane. a nice way to do it. you had to all her over the wind to the person with you. you can see they are close enough together that the guy in fact to lean forward and tap they

shoulders of the guy in front. there was a device invented that was nothing more than a garden hose with a funnel on one end for the instructor to talk into. instead of earphones, another one for the student, but the student couldn't talk back. it was better than none. if the student was not paying attention, instructors would throw it into the slipstream, that would really get your attention. this is the way they trained into the 1930's using the jennys. i have to mention here that wasn't the only way. we looked at the big bleriot before. we have a smaller bleriot over there. i have got to mention the americans that learned to fight the less -- the americans that learned to fly in france and later on, the early american air service guys trained with the french.

the french method is they put you in a little bleriot with the wings cut down and would let you run up and down. the second training flight, they give you more wing and a bigger engine and you would literally hop up and down the field. take off, get airborne, do some turns, land on the final side. they would turn you around, do more. when you are ready for the big day, you would talk to your instructor who would pat you on the shoulder and goes, bonne chance, you make your real first solo flight. you can see why the early aviators considered the dual control method kind of sissified. back to the war, this is not really a warplane except as a trainer. it trained a lot of americans before they went over and became a popular airplane throughout the 1920's and 1930's.

loops andmagine doing spins with this, but they did. it worked out. let's look at the fokker e1, the first warplane. hours does not look like much of a warplane right now with the teddy bear, but this is the first with a machine gun on the front. a revolutionary idea at the time. instead of trying to aim a gun in the wind, just point the whole airplane at your enemy, fire your gun. how did they do it? it was a relatively simple thing. engineas a cam on the going round and round, going through a series of rods up and into the machine gun. the cam was saying, shoot, don't shoot, shoot, don't shoot, that is how they managed to avoid shooting their own propellers off. that is how the synchronized propeller work. it was revolutionary. the war started in the summer of but it wasn't until the summer 1914.

of 1915 that it was getting hot, and this was one of the reasons. it wasn't until the u.s. -- the french and british came up with the newport fighters that they were anywhere near effective in scourge.the fokker we now look at one of the ultimate fighters of world war i, and that is the fokker d7. some of them had bmw engines in them. many were manufactured. this was specified in the versailles treaty it was such a good airplane. it was specified the germans would give away all of their fokkers to the french and british and even the u.s. very rigidly built, strong structure, fast airplane, reasonably maneuverable, not as famous as the other for maneuverability but it could , maneuver. this airplane's secret to success was it was easy to fly. imagine how hard some of the

early aircraft were to fly. if you want to keep it up right and spinning, it is hard to pay attention to where the enemy is and keep it up at the same time. this could do all of that. you could go up and hang and pull up under the enemy aircraft and stay there for a minute. most other fighters would fall into a horrible spin, they could shoot for a while and then fall down. it made a mediocre pilot into a good one. there was a lot of discussion of the age of the pilots. they all started out fairly young. there was a famous saying about front wastancy on the two weeks. that was exaggerated. some of the campaigns were about that short, but staying around for a long time was rare. most of them were in their late teens. most of them were 19, 20 years old.

tech flying was also a different world, being in combat would be different. one of the problems, you always have wind coming over. some have small windscreens, others didn't. you see the machine guns are mounted in your face, you get gunpowder in your face. and the other problem, there is no heaters and air-conditioning, and they weren't pressurize. in other words, you were out there in the elements. if you come see us, we give rides in open cockpit biplanes. one experiment to try is to stick your hand out in the breeze and see how bad the wind buffeting is, you are constantly living in the wind. summertime wasn't too bad, but think about wintertime and how cold it was up there. even with the big furry suits , in subzero temperatures and it got nasty. this airplane was capable of sustained flight above 20,000 feet. they could do that, but there

isn't enough air to breathe. there was a lot of speculation some of the losses were not so much that an enemy outsmarted them, but they did something stupid because of lack of oxygen when they were flying up there. the guys would normally carry a warm suit. almost everybody flew in uniform in those days. you see them in the big brown suits, baggy coveralls, but that was something to keep you warm and keep the oil off of you. they all wore goggles. some of them would take the girlfriend' powder puffs and strap it to their hands to the could wipe dirt and oil off of their goggles. white scarves are a hollywood invention. they eventually, as the war went on, they started to relax the uniform requirements and the neckties and stiff collars are not necessary. you need to keep moving. look out for the bad guy. find him before he finds you.

you are always moving your head around. collar, your neck would get chaefed. they did start wearing silk scarves. i understand purple with polka dots was very popular, and there were white ones. many a time a guy would come back from london or paris and he would have a ladies silk stocking. the subject of parachutes always comes up. parachutes were not used well into the german side until the very end of the war. reasons changed radically. there was never a good explanation. the rational once said they were too heavy, adding to the weight of the lightweight airplanes. others said we are afraid you are all cowards and will jump out of the airplane when you are frightened. that turned out to be bogus. one of the other things jen's used to carry was a small sidearm, a service pistol. useful probably on the ground to

off if youenemy landed behind the lines. but more important than that, your airplane is on fire, you could jump over the side or put yourself out of your own misery. many people ask about the crazy camouflage pattern on this fokker d7. this one has the same, this is the authentic way. the other was painted on. the fabric is manufactured with this pattern on it. you can see it. they flipped it over the wing, and the way all the fokker aircraft were manufactured, they covered them in fabric. they stitched it down, and it shrinks and puts a nice surface and good waterproof surface, and that is why it has a unique sound if you touch it. the germans on the other hand, this was their standard and they did cover most of their planes with camouflage, but they were big on individuality.

we are over here. it was an unusual wing structure, but the significance of this airplane, it was the first designed around a forward firing machine gun. the scourge i talked about had a adapted to an airplane that already existed. it began off with camo, from the 1.5 starter -- strutter. we were talking about markings and the germans and how they glorified individual pilots. the u.k. was always drab and difficult to see from underneath. kind of boring. they finally said we will allow a squadron marking, a checkerboard pattern on the stripe and round which lasted into world war ii. the british treated their pilots like almost anybody else. it was late in the war when they

realized the publicity of the individual guys that were doing well was worth putting out on the home front keep morale up, so they started glorifying their pilots more. the first war was interesting. we have gone through development for the war and wing warping and the fokker d7 which lasted into the 1930's. when world war i ended, there was stagnation in aviation. things kind of stopped. everything looks like a fokker d7. engines were bigger and faster, but no real development until combat started. in 1939, all of a sudden there were bigger planes, electrical systems, ordinance systems that would do all sorts of things. that is where real development came. it was the guys in world war i that set the original up.

there was a famous german, early , and the real organization was tactics. there is a bunch of rules for air combat. the modern guys of the u.s. navy and united states air force still pull out his rules. things were established there. it is hard to imagine that world war i for the united states started over 100 years ago. things have changed radically. some things have changed, some have not. come to the virginia beach and see airplanes through history. storiesell you the 1001 and did not have a chance to cover this time. let's you can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at c-span.org/history.

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