Wings Questions #2

In your opinion, did the Wright Brothers’ patent suits affect the progress of aviation? Yes. The patent suits forbade any new aviators from using the designs made by the Wright Brothers. This meant that other aviators all over the world had to make their own completely new designs, which meant making new methods of achieving effective flight. This pushed aviators of the time to be creative and inventive, and this forced the progress of flight forward. However, the patent suits also completely consumed the Wright brothers. In their attempts to create an aviation monopoly, they put all of their time and energy into dealing with legal manners. This meant that almost no time was being put into improving their own models or making flight mechanics discoveries. Perhaps if it hadn’t been for the patent suits, the Wrights would have ended up contributing even more to aviation. Did flight have any influence outside of aviation? If so, how? Yes. The introduction of flight resulted in mass amounts of flight-related memorabilia. This included children’s toys, such as toy airplanes, themed games, and even dolls styled after aviators. It also included any number of common household items or keepsakes that began to be made or printed with pictures of planes and/or aviators. Flight also influenced certain artists of the time. Cubist painter Pablo Picasso, after attempting to build smaller model airplanes, created a piece which showed the contribution of aviation to national defense. After a similar experience, painter Braque made several sculptures inspired by the papery wings of aircraft at the time. The futurist poet Kazimir Malevich adapted aviation themes in his artwork for over twenty years. In addition, aviation influenced literature and songs of the time. Multiple Tin Pan Alley songs, such as “My Little Loving Aero Man” and “Take Me Down to Squantum, I Want to See Them Fly” featured airplane themes. Sinclair Lewis’s first novel, Hike and the Airplane, featured aviation in the title. Even comics and fiction novels featured heroes that were masters of flight. Who took the lead in establishing aviation as a business and what effect did it have on the rest of the world? France took the lead in aviation business. Specifically, Louis Bleriot lead the way. Previously an exhibitionist pilot, Bleriot received several orders for a popular make of a plane he had designed. The entrepreneur started small, making planes out of a shed, but then eventually expanded and even had a factory that employed over one hundred workers and engineers. Aside from the production of airplanes, flight instruction was also a large part of Bleriot’s business. The program taught aspiring pilots from over seventeen countries and more than seventy military officers of varying origin. Eventually Bleriot’s success inspired other French businesses. The trend of turning aviation into business was also spreading to the U.S. with Glenn Curtis as well as businesses such as Bristol, Aviatik, Etrich, Nieuport, Hanriot, and Morane.