Comments on: “Absolute Daredevils”

By: The Flight Deck » The Big Day

The Flight Deck » The Big Day — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:13:06 +0000

[...] I wrote about earlier, in October, 1907, Alexander Graham Bell invited three men (one British subject, one Canadian and [...]

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:31:17 +0000

Only 900 years in the future??
Cuz I’m good, that’s how. And an honourary Cape Bretoner, that helps too.

“…I mean, how many people, when they stopped to think about it, would willingly strap themselves down tighter than a straitjacket on top of what was essentially tonnes and tonnes of incendiary material designed to blow up?”

Hmm… I dunno. It doesn’t sound all that much different from Lex’s work a few years back.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:44:53 +0000

I would like to know exactly how you managed to get your hands on a piece of historical information more than 900 years from now, towards the future!

Typos aside, it is owing to such madmen that we have the kinds of technologies we do today. I mean, how many people, when they stopped to think about it, would willingly strap themselves down tighter than a straitjacket on top of what was essentially tonnes and tonnes of incendiary material designed to blow up? And yet these guys managed to reach the moon.

Of course, there are those guys who strap a few kees of incendiary material to themselves, also designed to blow up and enable these guys to reach the heavens. Them, I can do without.

By: craig mclaughlin

craig mclaughlin — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:49:21 +0000

Thanks for posting that, Michelle. The AEA is a subject near and dear to my heart. One of the men Bell recruited was a fellow named Glenn Hammond Curtiss, a name that is familiar– or should be– to all Naval Aviators. In my view, he did more for early aviation than any other single man, or pair of brothers, for that matter. And Bell gave him his start. Bill Trimble, a professor at my alma mater, Auburn University, is working on a biography of Curtiss that is due out soon. ( Another Auburn history professor, James R. Hansen, wrote the authorized biography of Neil Armstrong. I didn’t know until I read that book that Armstrong was a Navcad–just like Nose!) One book that I have read about Curtiss– and which talks a fair bit about the AEA and Alexander Graham Bell– is called Unlocking The Sky, by Seth Shulman.

You’ll have to provide more gouge on Cape Breton Island, though. I’ve always wanted to go there.