The risk takes: aviation pioneers helped mold a fledging air force

Airman, Feb, 2003 by Louis A. Arana-Barradas

There are few people who've doubted the might of American military aviation. Those who did felt its global reach and devastating knockout punch.

American aviation helped speed up the surrender of Germany and Japan in World War II. Kept the people of Berlin from starving. Turned the tide in Korea. And forced North Vietnam back to the Paris Peace talks.

It ended Iraq's quest for Middle East domination. Helped stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. And forced the Taliban to let go its tyrannical grip on the long-suffering people of Afghanistan.

Not exactly what the fathers of powered flight, Orville and Wilbur Wright, had in mind for aviation when they flew the first heavier-than-air aircraft nearly 100 years ago.

"When my brother and I built the first man-carrying flying machine, we thought that we were introducing into the world an invention which would make further wars practically impossible," Orville said in 1917.

He was wrong, of course. Because by then World War I had been going on for almost four years. It was just a decade after the Wright's historic flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., and aircraft were proving they were formidable war machines. They changed the art of war.

But U.S. military leaders were slow to recognize the airplane's full potential. And by the time the United States joined the fight in 1917, their European allies and foes were way ahead in the development of aviation. American aviation was not up to snuff. It faced a trial by fire.

But it wasn't because American aviators lacked imagination. Many had seen the aircraft's military potential as soon as the Wrights flew at Kitty Hawk. But they weren't in charge. These "upstarts" had to get the Army--which still had horse-mounted cavalry--to recognize the potential.

It wasn't until 1909 that the Army Signal Corps bought its first "air machine." It chose an improved version of the Wright Flyer, and the U.S. military was in the aviation business.

But it was still rough going at first. The infant service had to count on its own people--mostly young infantry and cavalry officers and enlisted men--for direction. They had to learn by doing. Invent as they progressed. Brainstorm and try ideas they thought would work. And they also had to keep convincing their leaders that their fledging force would one day make a difference in the way the U.S. military would fight.

To do all of that, they had to take risks.

"Any organization that wants to grow has to take risks," said retired Gen. Chuck Homer, the air boss of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. "And the more you stick your neck out, the greater the opportunity for failure."

But Homer, whose own Persian Gulf War staff had many risk takers, said, "That's what happens when people use their own judgment and try new ways of doing things." The risks they take, he said, "involve reward and punishment, depending on if you're right or wrong in your judgment."

That was certainly true for the early pioneers of U.S. military aviation. They had to be idea men, risk takers and aviators. They made mistakes, but they also made great strides in developing what is today the world's premier Air Force. Still, each time they did what they loved most--fly--the chances of a crash, or crash landing were real.

In the book 'Hap Arnold, Architect of American Air Power," Flint DuPre writes of Arnold's first flight. The Wright brothers were teaching military airmen to fly, and the future Air Force leader was their fourth pupil. His instructor was Al Welsh. Arnold, a second lieutenant, flew from a cow pasture at Simms Station, N.C., on May 3, 1911. Before taking off, he asked Welsh about the man with the black derby sitting on the wagon at the edge of the field.

"That's the local undertaker," Welch replied. "He comes out every day and drives back empty. Let's keep it that way."

After 28 flights and three hours and 48 minutes in the air--an average of eight minutes per flight--Arnold was an aviator. Most of the early aviators received similar training. It was crude and dangerous. But for those early pioneers, it was their ticket to the clouds.

Other early pioneers

Modem aviation owes its success to pioneers willing to take risks during the wild and woolly days of aviation. The list of pioneers is long.

It includes the World War I aces Capt. Eddie Ricken-backer, 1st Lt. George Vaughn and 2nd Lt. Frank Luke. Transatlantic flier Capt. Charles Lindbergh, Glenn Curtiss, Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart and countless daredevil speed racers, barnstormers, industrialists and politicians.

They romanticized aviation and grabbed the headlines with their daring exploits. They were important, of course, in helping further the cause of aviation. But it was another group of aviation pioneers who emerged and gave the fledging air corps a course--its wings. Their vision shaped aviation. And some of them would be the founding fathers of the future Air Force.

They weren't the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of adventurers. They were visionaries--just as adventurous and willing to take risks--but with different goals. They wanted to give America its own Air Force.