For Release: Dec. 11, 1997
Janice Johnson
(757) 864-6123
RELEASE NO. 97-131
MAKING THE DREAM OF FLIGHT A REALITY
Ninety-four years ago, near Kitty Hawk, N.C., Wilbur and Orville
Wright achieved the first controlled and sustained flight in a
heavier-than-air flying machine. On Wednesday, Dec. 17, Dr. Tom D.
Crouch, Chairman of the Division of Aeronautics at the National Air
and Space Museum, will discuss the unique combination of talents
and qualities that enabled the Wright Brothers to become the first
people to successfully complete the quest for flight.
Crouch will examine this historic flight from personal,
professional and engineering perspectives to reveal how the Wrights
found themselves on the doorstep of history in 1903.
Crouch has won a number of major writing awards, including the
1989 Christopher Award, a literary prize recognizing "significant
artistic achievement in support of the highest values of the human
spirit," for The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville
Wright.
A media briefing will be held at 12:15 p.m. in the Wythe Room of
the NASA Langley H.J.E. Reid Conference Center, 14 Langley
Boulevard in Hampton. Media who wish to attend this briefing should
contact Janice Johnson (757) 864-6123. Crouch's talk begins at 1
p.m.
A similar presentation will be given by Crouch at 7:30 p.m. at
the Virginia Air and Space Center
(VASC) in Hampton.
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