advances in aviation technology and pilot training during the war. this is the first of a two-part series. any time there is about 60 air praens here, we have restorations coming and going. i'm standing in front of now is probably one of the oldest airplanes we have at the museum. this is a 1911 wright brothers flyer. it is not very far removed from the first flyer they flew at kitty hawk. there is no forward elevator on this one. the engines offset, and as a chain drive driving through

propeller. the wright brothers were agagen because they came up with many developments that are now standard all the way through. for the pitch of the airplane they moved the control and the elevator moved down in the back. they did develop a rutter on the thing which controls yaw on the airplane. in order to turn the air plan you have to roll the airplane. they took a box structure and twist it and the differential in the wings wall it -- it is called wing warping. you can see as i move it that the whole wing structure moves and changes the angle it is at and that is the wing warp. again, very early stages. in a few minutes we will go up to the other hanger where we have a curtis pusher that was

built the same year as this airplane was and you will see the big differences. the wright brothers were fairly rigid in what they could do with their designs after they manufactured them. they did not like many changes being made and they were involved with patent suits claiming it infrainged on their patents. they took an airplane to europe and demonstrated there. and all of a sudden the europeans were amazed at the controllability and how well the airplanes did. however, as world war i began and started up on the thing, the u.s. looked around and says our development has been very quiet and very light compared to what's been going on in europe recently and one of the reasons is the wright brothers patented flights in the courts and they are slowing things down. the solution was unique. the u.s. government bought the wright patent for a flying

machine for $1. and after that the patent went away. and this is the airplane that began it from there on in. this particular air plan is famous for another reason. this is a replica. there is a big contest with a lot of money for an air plan that could make it in 30 days or less. they didn't make it. they were sponsored by the meat packing company that developed a fizzy grape product and had a big advertising. they provided the pilot with a railroad car, spare parts, mechanics and his mother and wife to travel across the united states. flying was very difficult and rough. you were subject to weather, any sort of wind or precipitation was very bad and of course there was always the crash landings.

there was a few of those. you didn't make it in the 30 days. he said keep ongoing. we will continue to pay your expenses. he got to santa monica, california, landed on the beach and taxied this airplane into the pacific ocean to say he had been all the way across the country. the other original parts of the air plan were two of the wing struts, the oil pan to the engine and the elevator. the rest had been completely replaced in the time it took him to fly across the united states. now that we have taken a look at the wright flier, let's go back, the museum is in the hangers on either side of us, we should see in a later show are the world war ii section. we will go back in the world war i section where we have our curtis flier. let's go up there and take a look at aviation as it develops throughout the end of world war i. now we're into the world war i hanger of the virginia beach

military museum, continuing our sequence as we're going through. we came out here to look at this curtis bupusher airplane. we looked into the wright brothers airplane. this particular air plan is significant. it is the first to land and take off from a ship at sea. it became very exciting in 1911. it's rather on as you can see. the pilot sat in a simple seat in front of it. you had a control wheel in front of them and the aircraft actually had two elevators on it. the first is called a kinard and the other is well behind us, all the way back and it pitched up like a normal elevator. the problem is they are very unstable and very difficult to fly, so you have that.

the wing warping twisted it and made it worth the same principal. he didn't know a whole lot. none of us did in those days and he was learning as we went along. one of the things that's inefficient was putting them between the wings, but he did do it so it worked out pretty well. the air plan was fun to fly. it was exhausting, but a lot of these early airplanes were. they did not understand control harmonization. if you are flying this air plan you are doing this constantly in pitch. you can see how open structure was. they did develop fuse lodges and things go on from here. and this is the way many, many airplanes were up until world war i began. let's go over and take a look at the beginnings of the world war i period.

this is one of the few combat air plans that still used the wing warping principal. the french had a training that was a bellario as well. they're starting to enclose it. the car being along the side is very realistic. the on ser vabserver in the bac fire at other air plans in the air and it is possible to rig a big machine gunfired over the propeller. they hadn't invented firing through the propeller. it has a tail skid on it, nonsteerable. all world war i airplanes used a skid. some of our replicas put a tail wheel on it. but the originals all started with tail skids on it. the big thing to watch on this is this is what wing warping looked like. you can see the wing on the other side is going up at the same time i'm pulling this one

down. fairly ineffective. this is the state of the war in 1915. let's take a look at another curtis and compare that to the curtis push we looked at before. we're going to look at the famous jennie, which became a standard all the way through. our particular jennie is defendant a true jennie, one of the only airplanes we have in the world war i collection, which is a restoration rather than a replica or reproduction of the thing. the painting on this one, by the way, we try to stay local, this is the first air plan that landed in this big abandoned aircraft that became langley air force base. the jennie as you can see has gone to a better buy plane structure, a little more rigid. the cockpit is enclosed and cuts down on some of the drags.

that's one of the things they had to do in the old days to keep the structure rigid. an old joke was you took a pig gone with you and inserted it somewhere inside the wing and let the piggen go. they are actually located up into the wing. you can see them up there. the same principal but again a much more modern variation on the thing. it gets its name from its designation which is jn-4, very, very popular airplane. during the war it was a trainer and afterwards it became a trainer not only for the military but for civilian pilots as well. when you go back and read the history throughout the roaring '20s, this is one of their favorite airplanes. many were able as surplus aircraft and flying all over the place. lind burg had one he flew around

trying to earn a few dollars. fully dual controlled, so the instruct chur could sit in one cockpit and they both could fly the airplane. initially you had to holler over the wind at the person in front of you. the cockpits are close enough together that the guy could lean forward and tap the shoulders or get the attention of the guy up in front. there was a device invented which lasts well into warld war 2 which was nothing more than a garden hose, the funnel on one end for the instructor to talk to and a set of earphones in the back for the student. it was a perfect arrangement because the student couldn't talk back, but it was a better method of communication than none. if your student wasn't paying attention, old instructors used to take that funnel and stipit out like that and it got your ataengs. this is the way they trained all

the way from the '20s and into the '30s. that wasn't the only way. we have a smaller one tucked over the thing. i have got to mention the americans that went over to learn to fly in france. later on the early american air service guys that went over and trained with the french. they put you in a little with the wings cut down and let you run up and down the airport for a while. one end of the runway like that and the guys would turn you around and learn to handle on the ground. your second training flight they give you more wing and you would hop up and down the field. you take off, try a couple gentle turns and land on the final side. they turn you around and do a couple more of those. when you are ready for the big day, you talk to your instructor and giving you the thing, he'd pat you on the shoulder and

you'd get in the airplane and make your first solo flight by yourself. you can see why they considered it the dual control method. let's get back to the war, though. this air plan was never really a war plane. it trained a lot of americans. then became popular through the '20s and '30s. take a quick look as we go passed here at the e-1, the first war plane. ours doesn't look very war like right now. but this is the first air plan to put a machine gun on the propellers, a revolutionary idea at the time. instead of trying to aim a gun in the wind and stream and doing it that way they point the whole airplane at the enemy. how do they do it? it was a relatively simple

thing. it was a cam going around and around connected through a series of rods. basically it was saying, shoot, don't shoot, shoot, don't shoot. and that's how they managed to avoid shooting their own propellers off. that's how the siynchronized propeller work. it wasn't until then the air war started getting hot. it was so deadly at the time and it wasn't until the french and the british came up with the new port fighters that anywhere near effective. you can see the progression going through. we're now going to look at one of the ultimate fighters of world war i. big magnificent thing. some of them had bmw engines. many of them were manufactured. this air plan was specified in

the ver say treaty that specified the germans would give all theirs over. marvelous airplane. very rigidly built, strong structure on the thing. it was a fast airplane. reasonably maneuver rabble. not as focussed as the plane was for maneuverability. but it could maneuver. it was an easy airplane to fly. i mention how hard some were to fly. if you are trying to keep an airplane in the air, keep it upright and spinning, it is hard to keep attention to where the enemy is. this airplane could do all that. it was even famous because you could go up and hang on the prop. it could stay there for a minute. whereas most others would fall off into a horrible spin. it made a mediocre pilot into a good one. there is a lot of discussion on the age of some of the pilots.

they all started out fairly wrong. there was a famous thing about the life expectancy on the western front. that was kind of exaggerated during some of the campaigns. staying around for a long time was very rare. most were in their late teens. there were actually squadrons 19 and 20 years old. open cockpit flying is a different world also. being in combat would be different. one of the problems you have is you've always got wednesday coming over. some had small wind screens, some didn't. this one may have between the machine guns. they are mustn'ted up in front of your face. you got to eat the gunpowder. and of course the other problem is there is in heaters and no air-conditioning in the airplane. in other words, you are out there in the elements. when you go for -- if you ever come out and see us, we give rides, by the way. one of the experiments to try is

stick your hand out in the breeze like you are holding a gun or a rifle and see how bad the wind buff fitting is. of course summertime wasn't too bad. think about it in the wintertime and how cold it was up there. you were in sub zero temperatures and it really got nasty. this air plan was capable of sustained flight above 20,000 feet. the problem up there of course is there is not enough air to breathe. there is a lot of speculation that some of the losses were not so much that they did something that some enemy out smarted them. the guys would normally carry the warm suit and almost everybody flew in uniform in those days. you will see them in these baggy suits and baggy cover alls allot. but that keeps you warm and keeps the oil off of you. they all wore goggles.

some would wipe dirt and oil off their goggles when time came to do that. white scarves are a hollywood invention. they started to relax some of the uniform requirements and neckties and stiff ties weren't necessary. but one of the important things is to keep your head moving. so you're always moving your head around. it is a constant movement. so they did start wearing silk scarves. i understand purple with white polka dots was popular. many is the time a guy would come back from leave in london or paris a lady's silk stocking to wrap around his throat. heavy gloves all the time because they were up there. the subject of parachutes always coming up. they were not used well into the german side of the very end of the war. reasons changed radically all the way through.

there was never really a good explanation. the rational ones said they were too heavy and other ones just were afraid you guys are all cowards and you're going to jump out of the airplane. that turned out to be absolutely bogus. they used to carry a small side arm, a service pistol. useful probably on the ground maybe so fight an enemy off if you landed mind the lines. but if your airplane was on fire, you only had two choices, jump off the side or put yourself out of your own misery. many ask about the cham flaug pattern. the difference is that was painted on just to make a replica. this is the authentic way. the fabric is manufactured with this pattern on it. you can see it. so they just slipped it over the wing. the way all the fabric aircraft were manufactured they'd cover

them with fabric and stitch it down to the ribs and coat it all with dope and the dope shrinks, dries and puts a nice, tight surface on. that's why it has that rather unique sound if you touch them and pat around them. the germans on the other hand, this was their standard and they did cover most of their air plans. but they were also big on individual wallty. we're over. i called because it was an unusual arrangement. but the significance of this airplane, it was the first airplane designed around a forward firing machine gun. what i talked about earlier had a machine gun adapted to an air plan that already existed. typical british airplane at the time, we talked about markings

and the germans and how they glorified individual pilots. the english painted all their airplanes this color. it's a little tougher to see from underneath. when you think about it kind of boring. they final said, okay, we can allow a squadron marking. it is the checker board pattern on the stripe and a straight all british round which lasted all the way into world war ii. the british treated their pilots like almost everybody else. they realized publicity for these individual guys that were doing well was worth putting out in the home front to keep moral up. the whole first war was a rather interesting thing all the way through. we have already gone through the development and the wing warping and the open cockpits and slow moving airplanes, which lasted well into the '30s. when world war i ended, there was a little bit of a stagnation in aviation.

things kind of stopped. everybody looked like this. the engines were a little bigger and faster, but there were no real developments until again combat started. so in 1939 when boris got started there were bigger ones, electrical systems, ordinate systems that could do all sorts of things. that's where the real development came. they were going through the thing. there is a famous german, one of the very early aces and his real genius was an organization in development of tactics. this is a fancy way of saying a bunch of rules for air combat. modern guys in the united states air force still pull out bulky dicta and read some of the basic reals. it is hard to imagine that world war i in the united states started over 100 years ago, and that is the state we're at now and things have changed radically. as they say, though, some things

have changed and some haven't. come to the vv beach museum and see. we have a knowledgeable people to bring you up on history and tell you the thousand and one stories i did not have the chance to cover this time. >> announcer: coming up this weekend on american history tv on c-span 3, saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on real america, the 1947 u.s. war department film don't be a sucker about hate filled speech. >> i'm just an average american. and i'm an american american. and some of the things that i see in this country of ours make my blood boil. i see people with foreign accents, making all of the money. i see negroes holding jobs that belong to me and you. i ask you, if we allow this to

go on, what will become of us real americans. >> on sunday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on american artifacts, we'll tour the presidential vehicles collection at the henry ford museum in dearborn, michigan. then at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the presidency, herbert hoover scholar george nash talks about the relationship between the 31st president and calvin coolidge. >> just four days before the election, coolidge, every the party regular, finally gave hoover an extraordinary effusive public endorsement in a rearranged telegram that invoked headlines. hoover had declared his fitness to be president. hoover said coolidge was able, experienced, trustworthy and safe. >> american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, only on c-span 3. >> announcer: working with our cable partners, the c-span

cities tour takes american history tv on the road. to explore the history of selected american cities. tonight we're featuring visits to 17 state capitols, including texas, california, wisconsin and new york. first up, we visit the virginia state capitol in richmond. we are inside a working public building that has hosted the oldest elected law making legislature active in the western hemisphere today. i think in terms of architecture, since we are the first american state capitol to open after the revolutionary war, and since we are the first monumental roman temple style building in the modern era, its influence on other state capitols, county courthouses and public buildings very famous up in