The importance of Maryland College Park Airport, a

Only one airport can claim the title of "world's oldest continuously operating" one. This title is part of the College Park Airport, located in Maryland, about 25 miles from the state large investment, Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

College Park's origins can be traced directly to the Wright brothers. Although their sustainability, controlled, powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, as is well documented, occurred in 1903, it was only 1908 when you try to create interests of European citizens had sufficient interest in their design, their your country. The Wright Model A Flyer military, one of three aircraft delivered to St. U. Army Aeronautical Division to the requirements for an engine that was heavier than air flying machine and the training of two pilots, "meet the first sprint from near Ft brought Myer, Va., later this year, but his fate dangerous the violation of Orville Wright and the death of his passenger.

The aircraft had proven its rebuilt during a one hour flight, all data: capacity of a two 40 mph speed and a range-125 miles and the design were observed 2nd Army in August passed, 1909. What remained, however, was still vacant after two agents claiming to train on the fly.

The site shown Ft Myer, the location of all flight tests to date, had been forced and was often surrounded by curious spectators, and had a larger area is clearly needed. His replacement, 160 hectares of flat land in nearby Maryland, was then as a flying field for Army Signal Corps Lieutenant Frank Lahm was chartered discovered by a balloon. The package, which is located near the new Maryland Agricultural College had, train and tram access, but enough to get a significant number of spectators to take public. College Park Airport was.

After several trees in October a small hangar and a track off the wheel to facilitate free-flyer was released military were built, while the air carrier was transported in a disassembled state, the new location.

Formation Flight Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm And Frederic Humphreys, begins on October 8, is only successfully run in just over three hours, but the latter, obtaining the company before, was the first officer, both the world and be the first pilot an airplane to fly Government in the process. Both were subsequently allocated within the army.

Two other "firsts" occurred fly this year: Mrs. Ralph H. Van Daman, the first woman in the United States as a passenger, Lt. George Sweet became the first Navy officer to fly when it did so with Lahm at 3. November.

A storage hangar recruited by the Wright brothers and ten men, had served as housing in the battle call.

Rex Smith, inventor and patent attorney may, with sparks of Civil Aviation College Park will be credited when the Rex Smith Aeroplane Company and the National Aviation Airline and Aircraft Services Washington had subsequently established and support was made available.

Wright Model B, the successor to the original version of "A in 1910 and part of this operation was an open cockpit design of two people from West Virginia, where white spruce coating aluminum powder had a metallic look was built. The dual-wing, like the original 1903 Wright Flyer Kitty Hawk fame, fabric was and is not bank-induced aileron developed by later standards, but the method of Wright-wing-warping. Powered by an 30-35 hp, four-cylinder, water cooled engine, the Twin Wright drove min 8.6 meter propeller in front of 428 rpm, 950-pound aircraft could be in a steady 27 hours and is almost been able to get air miles, a maximum speed of 40 km / h with its long span of 38.6 meters. A double rudder and elevator also moved its tail included.

was an initial lack of which only a single wing-warping and rudder control stick between the pilots, two cars right elevator actuator, two years after the installation of a second wing-warping and rudder control, that laws earlier, and left pilot seat phenomenon. The nature of the training and test flights took place. Together with a Wright-Burgess and two Curtiss Pusher, had a flight school to fly the fleet formed early.

All in all, had 55 flights of Wilbur Wright College Park in 1909, the fastest of which was a record 46 mph.

Although Wright had left College Park in November 1909 after his contract had been respected and had moved their training at the School of Ft Sam Houston had planted the seeds of the first two pilots Signal body center real military training aircraft in 1911, flourished when the army, an army had received funding from Congress for aviation leased another 100 acres of land to build additional hangars and ordered more aircraft, the introduction of the first Army Aviation School. Indeed, the original hangar Wright had increased in seven, with a headquarters building and a medical tent and a table at this time.

Aviation Foundation continues to define this year. The first bomb test sites in a plane, occurs, for example, was in College Park became the origin of the first cross-country flight and military runways first, a 42-mile sector Frederick, Maryland, with a Burgess-Wright airplane. The first member of Congress was covered by S. U. Army and the first aerial photographs of the airfield had been removed from 600 -, 1,500 - and 2,000 feet altitude.

The Blériot XI, a single engine, fabric monoplane designed and built in France and named after the architect Louis Bleriot and Curtiss Wright aircraft College Park's National Aeroplane Company had entered in 1911. Powered by a 70 hp Gnome rotary engine, the 661-pound, design pilot alone, with a 25.7-meter "rotated" were the first wing aircraft heavier than air under the English Channel from Calais to Dover crossing were more a century ago, July 25, 1909 and had as its basic configuration, where all the current day aircraft was served. (Then) novel, leaf arrangement had, however, the reason for the refusal of the army of the type above the default configuration after biplane pilots from the New York School Moisant had shown them in Maryland in College Park, however, the National Aeroplane Company type Agent for distribution in the Washington area.

Aviation "firsts" was notched in 1912. An evaluation of "military Aviator Pilot was introduced, for example, and the first aircraft gun was installed tested; Lt. Hap Arnold had high first-mile flight, and, unfortunately, took a soldier before death, Corporal Frank P . ON Scott Army occurred.

Civil aviation has always usurped his military counterpart to it at all, it had replaced in 1913, when Army of the North Iceland in San Diego as a result of its lease expires in June moved. The Rex Smith Aeroplane Company, who had already established their presence there, he designed his personal plane, and the National Aviation Company has been repaired and the flight training in Bleriot, Curtiss Wright and drawings. The Washington Aeroplane Company had built the Columbia mono-and bi-planes during this time.

College Park Airport has entered a new chapter in 1918, when the U. S. Post Office was chosen as the site of its first airmail service, three months after a process of Potomac Park in Washington and Philadelphia to Belmont Park on Long Island , New York. Powered by a Curtiss JN-4H Jenny on August 12 and piloted by Max Miller, had run a successful e-mail to New York.

Jenny, the workhorse of the fleet air mail U.S., had a 27.4 meters long and 43.8 meters span. The two-seater biplane, OX-5 engine with liquid cooling, an empty weight of 1,430 pounds, it had a payload of 490 pounds, the pilot must include, in the back seat and the same at the front. The maximum speed was 75 km / h was.

An airmail hangar and Wind Rose was built in 1919 and had a 12-aircraft fleet in the first airmail service was the transcontinental route from New York was transferred in 1921.

Another chapter in the history of College Park was written in 1924, when the father-son team of Henry and Emile Berliner, the seat of Washington sponsors Aeroplane Company, had conducted the first controlled helicopter in the world, on 24 February the first vertical media officials of the U. S. Marina. The helicopter had to use a Berliner Nieuport fuselage length of 18 meters 23, a span of 38 feet in triple-deck configuration, advanced to the front and rear trigger as horizontal blades had, and on top of two 13-foot rotor diameter counter-rotating powered by a 220-item PS-2 BR Bentley Motors has been installed. The car, 641 kilos of design was based on a quad wheel chassis.

The increase to 15 meters, had maintained the helicopter, a speed of 40 mph and maneuvering of a radius of 150 feet, traveling at about 200 meters, even if the flight test had revealed a lack of power and lack of lateral control . However, it was the progress that had until later in the design of its vertical Igor Sikorsky in 1940, led.

College Park Airport was not only instrumental in vertical flight, but blindly. Between 1927 and 1934, National Bureau of Standards (NBS) to facilitate the development, testing and radio navigation aids to zero visibility flying biplane with Caps. Jimmy Doolittle, for which the first blind landing at Mitchell Field on Long Island, September 24, 1929, had paved the way for the first such operation on the College Park, September 5, 1931, during the first instrument flight from origin to destination, was in 1934 was between College Park and Newark executed. The Institute of Technology in Washington, taking over the program for the development of the situation were the foundation for the current instrument landing system (ILS) was.