Also on May 14th 1908…first passenger flight in history:

On 14 May, on the first flight of the day, Wilbur Wright and Charles Furnas, an employee of the Wrights, flew together very briefly on the first airplane passenger flight in history. Then Furnas flew with Orville for nearly three minutes. The last flight of the day, made by Wilbur Wright, ended in an accident after he inadvertently pulled the wrong lever. Since repairs to the machine would have taken a week and since the brothers could spare no more time, the flights were ended for the time being.

As the Wrights were the only bidders known to have flown successfully, their flights in May 1908 were covered by the still doubtful press. D. B. Salley, a free lance reporter, from Norfolk, Virginia, was the first to arrive, and his wires to several papers brought more correspondents to the scene. The New York Herald sent its star reporter Byron R. Newton, who predicted, after seeing the flights, that Congress would erect a monument to the Wrights at Kitty Hawk.* The New York American had William Hoster there, and the London Daily Mail sent P. H. McGowan. Among the last to arrive were Arthur Ruhl and J. H. Hare, photographer, both from Collier’s Weekly magazine. The reporters, thinking the Wrights preferred privacy, hid in the pine woods near the Wright camp and watched the flying through field glasses. At first their stories were doubted by the editors of the various newspapers and it was thought best by some of them to print the information on some obscure inner page. The Collier’s article appeared with pictures, and Ruhl told how the correspondents had informed the world that man could fly. Despite the publicity, the public was still not entirely convinced.

ganeshpuri89 on May 15, 2008 at 5:37 PM