“THE WRIGHT BROTHERS AND THE INVENTION OF AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING” PRESENTATION SET FOR LANCASTER
January 17, 2003
Release: 03-04
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Historian Peter L. Jakab will discuss “The Wright Brothers and the Invention of Aeronautical Engineering” Jan. 29. The third in NASA Dryden Flight Research Center’s Centennial of Flight Colloquium Series will take place at the Park Plaza Hotel, 44916 10th Street West, Lancaster. The event will begin with a reception and book signing at 6 p.m., followed by Jakab’s presentation at 7:30. Cost of the event is $10. Additional information is available by calling (661) 942-9574.
“The Wright achievement encompassed far more than the singular act of getting an airplane off the ground,” Jakab said. “Wilbur and Orville defined and solved all of the essential technical problems of heavier-than-air flight. The Wrights are important not simply because their airplane was the first powered, heavier-than-air craft to leave the ground and maintain sustained flight. They are the watershed figures in aviation history because every successful airplane that has followed is rooted in the Wright Flyer… In short, not only did the brothers invent the airplane, they also pioneered the practice of aeronautical engineering,” said Jakab.
The Centennial of Flight lecture series leads up to the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight Dec. 17, 2003. Lockheed Martin, the Boeing Company, Northrop Grumman, NASA, the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP), the Society of Flight Test Engineers (SFTE), and the American Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) have partnered to bring Jakab’s presentation to the Antelope Valley.
Jakab is the chairman of the aeronautics division, National Air and Space Museum, Washington. He has been the curator of numerous exhibitions and frequently lectured on the history of technology, the history of invention, and the Wright brothers and pioneer aviation. He is the author and co-author of numerous books including Visions of a Flying machine: The Wright Brothers and the Process of Invention, published by the Smithsonian Institution Press in 1990.
NASA is participating in the national Centennial of Flight celebration supported by the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission. The year-long celebration began with a national kick-off ceremony at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on Dec. 17, 2002, and will conclude near the dunes of Kitty Hawk, N.C., where the Wrights first flew, this Dec. 17.
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