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Here is Episode 3 of Retro News.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00The Eagle has landed.
00:07Aye, Clinton, Delano, Western.
00:09Hello, Keston, pass.
00:17Retro News. It's a blast from the past.
00:22I'm Mark.
00:23And I'm Kendall.
00:24And this is Retro News,
00:25the show that digs through the archives of news history
00:28to bring you the important and not-so-important stories.
00:33Today, our cameras are focused on the history of flight.
00:37We'll see some of the craziest flying machines ever invented,
00:40daring air stunts, and a walk on the moon.
00:42But first, let's see how it all started.
00:46On a cold December morning in 1903,
00:48Oroville and Wilbur Wright took off near Kill Devil Hill
00:51in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and flew into history.
00:54Their handmade airplane traveled only 120 feet
00:58and stayed aloft only 12 seconds.
01:01But it was 12 seconds that changed the world.
01:04The Wright brothers were the first to really fly,
01:06that is, control an airplane.
01:09Before this, man could leave the earth in hot air balloons and gliders,
01:13but their speed, distance, and destination depended on the wind.
01:17Oroville Wright explained the difference in his diary.
01:19This flight lasted only 12 seconds,
01:23but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world
01:26in which a machine carrying a man
01:29had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight
01:33and sailed forward without reduction of speed,
01:37and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it had started.
01:42The Wright brothers, seen here flying a later version of their plane,
01:46made several more flights on December 17th.
01:49The final flight of the day lasted 59 seconds.
01:53That legendary flight launched the aviation age.
01:56For more innovations in the air, let's go to Rachel and Brennan.
01:59At first, airplanes were just for daredevils.
02:03Aviators knew airplanes would never catch on
02:06until people saw them as useful.
02:08The government was the first to see a use for them.
02:10In 1908, the Wright brothers began building airplanes for the Army.
02:15In 1918, the post office began a special airmail service
02:19that delivered letters quickly.
02:22Eventually, they figured out a way to make it even faster.
02:26Roger Wolfe Kahn was the first pilot to successfully pick up mail
02:30without landing the plane.
02:32A mailbag was loaded into a catapult on top of a building.
02:35Han swooped down just a few feet above the building
02:43and snagged the postal pouch just as it was flung from the rooftop.
02:48Delivering the mail was a lot easier.
02:50The first helicopter took off in 1907 from Lisieux, France.
02:55It was a pretty short flight.
02:57Seven seconds.
02:59Then, on May 13, 1940,
03:02Igor Sikorsky flew his VS-300 helicopter.
03:07Inspired by the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci,
03:10Sikorsky began to dream of building helicopters as a child.
03:14Many years of trial and error came before this successful flight.
03:21Sikorsky set the standard with this helicopter design,
03:25which is still in use today.
03:37This little number is called the Bumblebee.
03:40Designers hoped they'd put small planes like these in everyone's driveway.
03:46The idea was to make an airplane small enough and cheap enough
03:49to replace the family car.
03:52How'd you like to be dropped off at school in this?
03:55Looks like a flying egg.
03:57If you don't like eggs, how about a pancake?
04:01This plane's called the Arup,
04:03another attempt to make a plane everyone could own.
04:06The unusual wings curve all the way back to the tail.
04:10Making it look like a flying pancake.
04:13Inventors say piloting this was as easy as driving a car.
04:18Look at that thing climb.
04:20Can't do this in a minivan.
04:23Park's easier, too.
04:29Flying pancake looks pretty funny,
04:32but it sparked an important idea that really took off later.
04:35The flying wing.
04:36That concept is still used in the Air Force today.
04:41We know it as a stealth bomber.
04:43The Navy also uses airplanes, sometimes in out-of-the-way places.
04:48In 1957, they came up with a way to land cargo planes on snow with skis.
04:53As air frontiers moved ever north,
04:58members of Task Force Slide in Minnesota equipped a huge cargo troop carrier
05:03with skis mounted outside the wheels.
05:06Weighing 62 tons,
05:08it carried a 20-ton cargo at 350 miles an hour.
05:12Its four turbo prop engines lifted it into the air after an incredibly short run.
05:18The skis would retract with the wheels.
05:20The wheels can be substituted at the flick of a switch.
05:23It landed like a feather as the huge skis took up the shock.
05:27A real Arctic adventure, this Hercules.
05:30In 1947, test pilot Chuck Yeager set a record when he flew a plane faster than the speed of sound.
05:40Moments later, people below heard the first man-made sonic boom.
05:45Designers and pilots continued to push the envelope
05:47to travel at higher and higher speeds throughout the 20th century.
05:50Marine pilot John Glenn was one of them.
05:52On a flight he called Project Bullet, he flew coast to coast in record time.
05:569 a.m., Marine Airman Major John Glenn begins an attempt at a supersonic transcontinental flight.
06:04His Crusader jet camera plane leaves Los Alamitos, California,
06:08headed non-stop for New York, three refuelings en route.
06:14Each one slowed Glenn's jet from its better-than-1,000-mile-an-hour top speed.
06:20Shortly after noon, he reached Floyd Bennett Field.
06:23He had come 2,466 miles in 3 hours and 23 minutes.
06:33Glenn's wife and children watched proudly as he taxied in,
06:36holder of a new record that shaved more than 21 minutes off the best previous time.
06:41Average speed was nearly 727 miles an hour.
06:46That flight earned Glenn his fifth Distinguished Flying Cross.
06:49This is an airship.
06:52It floats because it's full of gas that is lighter than air.
06:55The gas they used was hydrogen right up until the 1940s.
06:59After that, they used helium because it was safer.
07:02These things were huge.
07:04Some measured over 750 feet.
07:07That's as long as five passenger jets lined up end-to-end.
07:11For more details, let's go to Brandy Mitchell.
07:13Airships were used by the German military in World War I as bombers.
07:18Later, the United States military used them for scouting.
07:22In peacetime, they simply carried passengers and mail.
07:25The most famous of the airship pioneers was Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
07:29He built the biggest and fastest of them all.
07:33Here's the Graf Zeppelin, the largest airship of its time.
07:36In August 1929, it broke all globe-circling records when it flew around the world in 21 days.
07:44The Graf carried 53 people and made only three stops during the historic three-week journey.
07:49The commander of the Graf Zeppelin, Hugo Ekener, was celebrated as the modern Columbus of the Air.
07:56Even President Herbert Hoover turned out to congratulate him.
07:59The Graf flew for 10 years in all, crossing over the ocean 144 times, logging over a million miles.
08:08The German company, Zeppelin, joined with the American Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company to build airships for the Navy, like this one.
08:17This is the USS Macon, an airborne aircraft carrier.
08:21This giant airship could carry 100 people in five Sparrowhawk fighter planes.
08:26These planes could take off from and return to the Macon while in flight.
08:31It was a good idea, but it didn't last.
08:33Both the Macon and her sister ship, the Akron, crashed after only two years in service.
08:39Another famous airship constructed by the Zeppelin company was the Hindenburg.
08:44It was the largest and most luxurious ever built.
08:47It even had a lounge with a baby grand piano where passengers could watch the scenery go by through giant windows.
08:53Along with the Graf Zeppelin, the Hindenburg carried passengers to and from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean.
08:59But on the evening of May 6, 1937, that service ended forever.
09:05This is the historic news story that ran across the country.
09:08The German Zeppelin Hindenburg, Queen of the Skies, seen here from a universal newsreel camera plane
09:19as it sped over New York to its tragic end at Lakehurst, New Jersey,
09:23now lies at the Naval Air Station a twisted mass of metal.
09:27Shortly after these pictures were taken,
09:29showing the great Skyliner saluting the millions watching it from below on its first trip of the season,
09:34The huge craft exploded while docking and blazed to a fiery end,
09:39taking the lives of almost half its 99 passengers and crew.
09:44Hours late on its trip from Hamburg because of headwinds,
09:48the Zeppelin had to ride out a thunderstorm along the Jersey coast
09:51before heading for the air station and nosing its way to the mooring mast.
09:55The wind is bad and the docking is a ticklish one,
09:58but it's all a thrill for the crowd of happy passengers eager to land after their trans-oceanic trip.
10:05Slowly the big ship warps in, and the ground crews rush for the mooring lines.
10:10In another ten minutes or so, the great aircraft would have been snugly docked,
10:14but as the passengers crowded the windows to watch,
10:17a roar and a burst of flame near the big tail fins turned the ship into a flaming inferno.
10:28Passengers and crew, the fortunate among them, fell or jumped
10:49and were dragged to safety before the fiery furnace took their lives.
10:53Heroic work by Navy and Army men
10:55risking their lives around the white-hot skeleton
10:58snatched more than one dazed and half-burned passenger from the blazing wreckage.
11:03But for the most of those trapped in the incandescent tangle, there was no hope.
11:09It's the greatest of miracles that anyone came out of the disaster alive.
11:18Seven million cubic feet of inflammable hydrogen gas blazed up in less than a minute.
11:24The hundreds of tons of fuel oil burns for an hour or more
11:29with its dense black smoke making a pall over the tragic scene.
11:38In all the history of air disasters, this is the worst, the most terrible.
11:43Hailed as the luxury liner of the air,
11:45the Hindenburg's horrible end has shocked the entire world.
11:48The pride of the skies reaches its journey's end.
11:57At first, people thought a spark had ignited the hydrogen gas inside the Hindenburg.
12:02Today, scientists think it may have been the aluminum paint
12:05on the outside of the Hindenburg that caught fire.
12:08Even though most of the passengers and crew escaped the disaster with minor injuries,
12:13interest in traveling on airships died.
12:15May 20th, 1932, the world's most famous female aviator, Amelia Earhart,
12:25climbed aboard her small plane and became the first one to fly by herself across the Atlantic Ocean.
12:31At that time, Charles Lindbergh was the only other pilot to make the solo trip successfully.
12:36She was honored for the milestone with the Distinguished Flying Cross.
12:39The history of flight is full of dashing, daring adventurers,
12:44but maybe none as famous as Charles Lindbergh, who became an international hero at 25.
12:51In New York, on May 20th, 1927, Lindbergh climbed into the spirit of St. Louis
12:57with sandwiches, water, and maps.
13:00He set a course for Paris, France, an ocean away.
13:02He flew nonstop, fighting fog, ice, and drowsiness.
13:08He opened the windows of the plane, hoping the freezing air would keep him awake.
13:12After 33 and a half long hours, the exhausted pilot touched down in France to a hero's welcome.
13:18Lucky Lindy was the first pilot to fly solo, nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean.
13:23When he arrived back home, the United States government awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor
13:28and the very first Distinguished Flying Cross.
13:35John Flynn was an Australian Presbyterian minister who worked in many remote areas of the huge country of Australia.
13:42Flynn realized that there was a great need for medical care for the people who lived in the Australian outback.
13:47He established several small hospitals throughout the country.
13:51Then, in 1917, John Flynn saw how new technology like radios and airplanes could help him expand his medical services.
13:57He contacted World War I pilot Clifford Peel, who helped Flynn establish the first flying medical service.
14:05In 1928, the first air ambulance took flight, bringing much-needed medical help to the remote areas of Australia.
14:12Reverend John Flynn, founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, is today's spiritual hero.
14:17In the early days, people used planes for more than just getting from here to there.
14:35Sometimes they were used for entertainment.
14:38Exhibition flyers, or barnstormers as they were called, would perform death-defying stunts in front of huge crowds.
14:45Adriana and Michael have the hair-raising pictures.
14:48Men weren't the only daredevils.
14:50There were lots of women stunt flyers as well.
14:53These pilots thrilled the California crowd in 1935.
15:01The nation's feminine aces put on a breathtaking exhibition of fancy flying,
15:05showing their perfect control over all types of planes and all kinds of stunts.
15:20There's a biplane.
15:21They call it that because it has two sets of planes, one below the other.
15:26Here are a couple of guys who can decide if they want to ride or fly.
15:30As if motorcycle riding wasn't exciting enough, this thrill-seeker decides to catch a ride on a speeding sailplane.
15:39Simple enough.
15:40Just grab a strut and pull yourself up.
15:43Uh-oh.
15:44No back seat.
15:47Plenty of room up here.
15:51A job well done.
15:54Look, Mom.
15:54No hands.
15:55I wonder what happened to that motorcycle.
15:59Some people say getting married is taking a big leap.
16:01Well, this couple took the biggest leap ever.
16:05We're gathered here today for the wedding of Marjorie Klinger and Donald Babcock.
16:10Justice of the Peace Flanagan will do the honors.
16:13But not in a church.
16:14As you can see, the wedding party is boarding a plane.
16:18Once the i-dos are over, they'll really take the plunge.
16:21Babcock is a professional, but his 18-year-old bride is making her first parachute drop.
16:31Mrs. Babcock courageously jumped right out, but her parachute didn't open for 300 feet.
16:38Her husband quickly caught up with her, and they both floated down to the big field.
16:46Now the jumpy couple is ready for anything.
16:48Once man could fly, the sky was no longer the limit.
16:52In the 1950s, outer space became the next frontier.
16:55But who would be the pioneers?
16:57And what would they find there?
16:59Could man survive in space?
17:01To find the answers to these questions,
17:03scientists designed satellites that could travel safely into space without pilots
17:07and send information back to Earth.
17:09The Russian satellite Sputnik was the first to orbit the Earth in 1957.
17:13Then in 1958, America launched the Explorer 1.
17:18January 1958, a Jupiter-C rocket is ready to launch a space satellite.
17:23The rocket carries the Explorer 1, a six-foot bullet-shaped container only inches across,
17:28crammed with electronic gear.
17:30Total weight?
17:3030 pounds.
17:31The scientists who created Explorer 1 show it to the world at a press conference
17:38with leaders of the scientific team, Dr. Werner von Braun, James Van Allen, and Dr. William Pickering,
17:44a three-way collaboration between private industry, academic science, and the military.
17:49The rocket stands waiting on its launching pad for hours.
17:54The countdown finally approaches zero.
17:58It was a moment of enormous tension because in 1958, every missile launch was an experiment.
18:04Any one of tens of thousands of things could go wrong with catastrophic results.
18:08The scientists had done their best.
18:09The moment was at hand.
18:11The countdown reached zero.
18:12Some three minutes later, Explorer was in orbit, broadcasting to the world its coded scientific data.
18:22The Explorer 1 provided lots of information about space,
18:25including that the Earth is surrounded by bands of radiation.
18:28This was the first important discovery of the space age.
18:31Another milestone was passed in 1961,
18:33when astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
18:36Ed Hurley, he filed this report.
18:38Five hours before he is destined to take a giant stride into history,
18:44Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr. squeezes into his space suit.
18:48His smiling face belies the ten postponements of his flight that have kept him grounded.
18:52This morning, the weather over Cape Canaveral and in the pickup areas is better,
18:56and there's an air of optimism as the colonel walks to the gantry elevator.
19:00Carrying his now familiar portable air conditioner,
19:03Glenn prepares to go to the 11th deck as clocks point to 6 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
19:09The skies are beginning to lighten,
19:11and a cool north wind rustles across the Cape.
19:14The colonel's date with destiny comes ten months
19:29after the Russians claimed an orbital flight by Yuri Gagarin,
19:32and less than a year after Alan Shepard blazed a suborbital trail for the U.S.
19:37This is the climax of three years of training.
19:39This is the moment when the eyes of the world turn to Cape Canaveral.
19:43The Russian orbits were in a thick fog of secrecy.
19:46The United States stands or falls in the white-hot glare of worldwide publicity.
19:51In the capsule atop the Atlas missile, the colonel will be strapped to a contoured couch.
19:57Once in flight, the mercury will be tilted so that the astronaut will ride backwards.
20:02The seconds tick off as his rendezvous with space approaches.
20:05The hatch cover causes a slight delay when a defective bolt is discovered.
20:09Then, millions are moved to silent prayer.
20:13Everything is gold.
20:29The take-off of the Atlas, blasted off by 360,000 pounds of thrust,
20:35carries the mercury gracefully skyward.
20:37The Friendship 7, climbing rapidly out of the Earth's atmosphere,
20:40exerts a pressure of six times the force of gravity on the astronaut.
20:44Loud and clear, he reports back to Mercury Control,
20:47reading off his instruments, commenting on his reactions,
20:50all as coolly and calmly as if he was commuting on the 827.
20:55Glenn is able to control the yaw and pitch of the vehicle himself.
20:59Now comes the moment when the mercury is turned
21:01so that Glenn will be seated facing backwards.
21:03He checks with ground control.
21:06Roger, zero-g, and I feel fine.
21:09Capsule is turning around.
21:11Oh, that view is tremendous.
21:14Roger, turnaround has started.
21:16Capsule turning around, and I could see the booster during turnaround
21:20just a couple of hundred yards behind me.
21:22It was beautiful.
21:24Now, Roger, seven.
21:25You have a go.
21:27At least seven orbits.
21:29Roger, understand go for at least seven orbits.
21:32Actual pictures of Glenn in the capsule
21:36will give scientists the opportunity to study his reactions
21:39as he passes over the Canary Islands, Africa, the Indian Ocean, Australia,
21:44back across the Pacific and over the United States.
21:47He speeds at 17,500 miles an hour,
21:50reaching a high point of 160 miles and a low altitude of 99 miles.
21:55Each of the three orbits takes about 90 minutes.
21:58Three times the colonel sees the sun rise within a period of four hours and 56 minutes.
22:03Three times around the globe for a trip of 81,000 miles
22:07before he re-enters the Earth's atmosphere,
22:10a shield protecting the astronaut from the intense heat.
22:13The carrier Randolph is the command ship in the pickup area.
22:23But Glenn, instructed not to jettison his retro rockets,
22:27lands short of the carrier.
22:28Ground instruments indicated his heat shield was loose,
22:31and he was instructed to hold onto his rocket bank
22:34to help hold the shield in place.
22:36Right at hand, however, is the destroyer Noah,
22:38and she speeds to the capsule to take the vehicle and pilot aboard.
22:46The end of a saga.
22:49The now famous Friendship Seven is safely lashed to the deck of the destroyer,
22:53and the crew prepares to help Glenn from the capsule.
22:56First glimpse of the conquering hero, Colonel John H. Glenn.
23:00He left his footprints among the stars.
23:03He has a grin as wide as the path he blazed
23:05as he rests briefly before being flown to the carrier Randolph by helicopter.
23:10The helicopter takes him to the Randolph
23:12for a debriefing and examinations by medical men.
23:16The copter no sooner touches down on deck,
23:18than Glenn gets a preview of the congratulations that are still to come.
23:22On every hand there is jubilation.
23:24On every side smiles and cheers.
23:27He signs over his precious log and instruments
23:29to the National Space Administration.
23:31From here he goes to Grand Turk Island for further rest before the deluge.
23:36A deluge of honors.
23:37A proud country waits to bestow on a brave man.
23:50May 5th, 1961.
23:52Alan Shepard blasted Skyward aboard a Mercury rocket
23:55to become the first American in space.
23:57The heroic astronaut was also one of only a few men to ever walk on the moon.
24:05President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon.
24:10On July 20th of 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 met that challenge.
24:16Listen, uh, Tranquility Base here.
24:18The angle has landed.
24:20Those words, spoken by astronaut Neil Armstrong,
24:23announced to the world that for the first time, men had landed on the moon.
24:27Today, we see that event as one of the defining moments of the 20th century.
24:32Armstrong and fellow crew member Buzz Aldrin spent less than a day
24:35walking the dusty surface before returning safely to Earth.
24:39In all, 12 men had explored the desolate lunar terrain
24:43before the Apollo program ended in 1972.
24:45Here's the answer to today's retro quiz.
24:53Which president created NASA?
24:55The answer is Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 29th, 1958.
25:00The very next month, he assigned the task of manned space flight
25:03to the new space agency.
25:08Ever wish you could fly?
25:10Yeah, sure.
25:12Well, so did this guy.
25:13Take a look.
25:38What happens when you cross an air mattress with a go-kart?
25:47The Balloon-O-Plane.
25:48Here's something different from Great Britain.
25:51The Flying Mattress, or Balloon-O-Plane, as the inventor called it.
25:55Powered by a small motor, it got its lid from a wing-shaped gas bag.
25:59Cheap to produce, its inventor saw it as a family plane, something everyone could afford
26:04to fly.
26:05He thought it was just about foolproof.
26:07On the ground, the wings could be deflated and the contraption shoved into the garage.
26:12Seems like it might have worked, but if you spring a leak at 4,000 feet, what do you do
26:17then?
26:18Some pilots would almost do anything to entertain a crowd.
26:22Take a look at this high-flying circus clown.
26:25Tommy Walker, one of the four original Flying Tigers, still alive in 1948, keeps everyone
26:31looking up as he indulges in a few daring feats.
26:35Tommy's act is one of the highlights of the Flying Tigers Air Circus.
26:40We'll let you guess what he's up to, or down to.
26:46That was no accident.
26:48Walker finds it an excellent method for getting rid of old planes.
26:54Tommy hurt?
26:55Yeah.
26:56He scratched his knee.
26:57That's our Retro News Report for this week.
27:01Now, here's the last laugh.
27:07We'll see you in the next one another.
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