First Flight

The dedication of Baltimore's new Friendship International Airport on June 24, 1950, coincided with Baltimore Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr.'s first airplane ride. Scheduled to fly to Baltimore from Washington, D.C. with President Harry S. Truman and his official party, the mayor made no attempt to hide his nervousness about being airborne. A week earlier, D'Alesandro told reporters that flying was "strictly for the birds" and he was making the flight only because the president had asked him to. With temperatures soaring into the high 80s by mid-morning, the expected crowd for the dedication of 150,000 was whittled down to some 10,000 because of heat and fears of massive traffic tie-ups.

A melia Earhart's name is back in the news these days with the recent release of the Hollywood biopic "Amelia," starring Hilary Swank as the ill-fated flier, and Richard Gere as George Putnam, her husband, publisher and public relations executive. Critics have not exactly given soaring reviews to this film treatment of the pioneering aviator's life and accomplishments. "The filmmakers spend so much time turning her into a dopey romantic figure that they never give her the animating, vital will or even much of a personality that might explain how a Kansas tomboy turned Boston social worker took to the skies and then, through her deeds and words, encouraged other women to chart their own courses," Manohla Dargis wrote last month in The New York Times.

ATLANTA - On Delta Flight 731 to Atlanta - the first passenger plane out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport since Tuesday's terrorist attacks - pilots and flight attendants carefully avoided mentioning what was on everyone's mind. But the rows of empty blue seats said it all. This flight, according to Delta, had been overbooked with reservations from people marooned in Maryland since the Federal Aviation Administration shut down the nation's airports Tuesday. Yet when the Boeing 757 took off at 4:22 p.m., only 35 people were on board a plane that seats 186. And their mood was somber.

SYDNEY, Australia -- They started lining up at 4:15 a.m. at deserted Singapore Changi Airport, 45 minutes before the ticket counters opened and four hours before the hulking jet would glide into the morning sky. They came from all around the world, all walks of life, drawn by the chance to be the first paying passengers to fly on the first all-new jumbo jet to be developed in decades - and maybe the last. They splurged, from Julian Hayward, who ponied up $100,380 to win the first suite auctioned on the flight, to Artemis Shamari, who paid nearly $4,000 to claim a seat made available by a late cancellation.

SYDNEY, Australia -- They started lining up at 4:15 a.m. at deserted Singapore Changi Airport, 45 minutes before the ticket counters opened and four hours before the hulking jet would glide into the morning sky. They came from all around the world, all walks of life, drawn by the chance to be the first paying passengers to fly on the first all-new jumbo jet to be developed in decades - and maybe the last. They splurged, from Julian Hayward, who ponied up $100,380 to win the first suite auctioned on the flight, to Artemis Shamari, who paid nearly $4,000 to claim a seat made available by a late cancellation.

Is there an airplane trip in your summer plans? If so, check out these books:* "Big Bird Flies Alone," a Sesame Street book* "Going on an Airplane," by Mr. Rogers* "First Flight," by David McPhail* "Flight," by Robert Burleigh* "Little Red Plane," by Ken Wilson-MaxPub Date: 5/13/98

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Up close, the space shuttle Columbia's body shows every one of its 20 years and nearly 111 million miles of flying: pockmarked tiles, rust-colored blemishes and other stains that look like liver spots. But inside, Columbia flaunts its renewed youth. Gone are its old-fashioned gauges and dials, replaced by a control panel that uses full-color computer graphics to show what's going on. The shuttle has shed a few hundred pounds. Most of its wiring is new. The engines are the world's most advanced.

North Carolina wanted to celebrate being "First in Flight" in grand style. And not with just a single day of hoopla, but with a year's worth of parades, flyovers and tributes. The main attraction would be an elaborate aeronautics gala on the Outer Banks, where Wilbur and Orville Wright first defied gravity on Dec. 17, 1903. An aerial program would feature historic aircraft from around the world. An aircraft carrier would be stationed offshore. With the right marketing, talk was, perhaps as many as 1 million people would make pilgrimages to see where the world's first powered flight took place.

TACOMA, Wash. -- Boeing announced yesterday what outside experts have been saying for weeks: The company's 787 Dreamliner is encountering so many problems that deliveries will be delayed. The company said the first commercially operational Dreamliner will be delivered to All Nippon Airways in November or December next year instead of May. "We are disappointed over the schedule changes that we are announcing today," said Boeing chief executive W. James McNerney Jr. "Notwithstanding the challenges that we are experiencing in bringing forward this game-changing product, we remain confident in the design of the 787 and in the fundamental innovation and technologies that underpin it."

Bob Lentz, backed by a four-stroke cushion, birdied the first hole and went on to a relaxed five-shot victory in the annual Fall Publinx Championship at Forest Park Golf Course yesterday. Lentz, the 1998 champion, finished with a 1-over-par 72 and a 36-hole total of 139. In a playoff for second place, Towson University freshman Chris Baloga hit a sand wedge shot to 18 inches and the ensuing birdie at the first extra hole to thwart defending champion Charlie Narciso. Each shot 71. "I knew I could not get off to a bad start," Lentz, 36, said.

TACOMA, Wash. -- Boeing announced yesterday what outside experts have been saying for weeks: The company's 787 Dreamliner is encountering so many problems that deliveries will be delayed. The company said the first commercially operational Dreamliner will be delivered to All Nippon Airways in November or December next year instead of May. "We are disappointed over the schedule changes that we are announcing today," said Boeing chief executive W. James McNerney Jr. "Notwithstanding the challenges that we are experiencing in bringing forward this game-changing product, we remain confident in the design of the 787 and in the fundamental innovation and technologies that underpin it."

Boeing said yesterday that it would delay the first test flight of the 787 Dreamliner by about three months, the first significant setback to the development of the fastest-selling commercial aircraft in history. The company said that it did not expect the delay to postpone delivery of the first plane to All Nippon Airways of Japan in May. But it will be a significant compression of the program for testing and safety certification, Boeing said. "This adds pressure and some increased risk," Mike Bair, general manager of the 787 program, acknowledged during a conference call from Seattle.

NEWARK, Del. -- Delaware senior faceoff specialist Alex Smith was sorting through his euphoric thoughts Sunday night, hours after the Blue Hens eliminated UMBC to keep this crazy journey going. It still didn't seem real to the Boys' Latin graduate or his teammates. Delaware, which six weeks earlier was in the throes of a losing streak and on postseason life-support, suddenly had turned the Division I men's lacrosse world on its ear. Next stop, an unprecedented trip to the NCAA final four at M&T Bank Stadium, where about 60,000 fans are expected Saturday to watch the Blue Hens try to do the unthinkable again, this time against Johns Hopkins.

FORT WORTH, Texas --Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 Lightning II jet fighter, the largest U.S. weapons program ever, successfully completed its first test flight yesterday, which may help pave the way for foreign sales of the aircraft. After a five-year development effort, Lockheed chief pilot Jon S. Beesley took the F-35 on a maiden flight that lasted 35 minutes, said Thomas Jurkowsky, a Lockheed spokesman. The plane was once known as the Joint Strike Fighter to reflect its many international partners.

ABOARD SOUTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT 2444 -- The first flight from Kitty Hawk it wasn't. But to many regular air travelers, it was a milestone of near proportions. Southwest Airlines chose the flight from San Diego to Phoenix yesterday morning to assign seats to all 116 passengers - a first for an airline that has long rewarded those who arrive early with their choice of seats. So when Donald Cloo checked in and learned that he was seated in 19C, the Phoenix truck driver became the first test subject in a trial that could change the 35-year-old company's cultural identity.

KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. - Clad in plastic ponchos and clutching cups of coffee, the thousands who gathered on the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk yesterday had hoped to see history repeat itself on the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight. But it was just as they feared: Nature hogged the spotlight. Organizers of the First Flight Centennial Celebration had planned to culminate the six-day affair with a re-enactment - 100 years to the minute later - at 10:35 a.m. yesterday. But sporadic downpours and insufficient wind interfered with two attempts to re-create the 120-foot, 12-second flight of Dec. 17, 1903, and transformed the place where Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew into puddle-ridden terrain.

The battle between America's top corporate defense giants over a $200 billion-plus jet fighter contract officially evolved into an air war yesterday, as Lockheed Martin Corp. flew its proposed Joint Strike Fighter for the first time. Lockheed Martin's X-35 test aircraft flew a brief, subsonic flight from the company facility in Palmdale, Calif., to nearby Edwards Air Force Base, marking the design competition's transition from a battle of concepts into a contest between real, flying aircraft.

FORT WORTH, Texas --Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 Lightning II jet fighter, the largest U.S. weapons program ever, successfully completed its first test flight yesterday, which may help pave the way for foreign sales of the aircraft. After a five-year development effort, Lockheed chief pilot Jon S. Beesley took the F-35 on a maiden flight that lasted 35 minutes, said Thomas Jurkowsky, a Lockheed spokesman. The plane was once known as the Joint Strike Fighter to reflect its many international partners.

KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. - No one knows exactly what the world's first successful airplane - the Wright brothers' 1903 Flyer - looked like when it lifted off a wooden launching rail at Kitty Hawk, N.C., and into history a century ago today. Orville and Wilbur Wright made no detailed drawings of it. Damage caused by a mischievous wind that day has forever obscured its true design. And though the original Flyer is enshrined at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, it is only 60 percent to 70 percent authentic.

KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. - The pilot who will step onto the sands near Kitty Hawk tomorrow to re-enact the Wright brothers' first flight 100 years ago will share the centennial spotlight with an unpredictable member of the team: Mother Nature. Besides worrying about rain, those involved are concerned about the wind. If there's not enough of it, the 35,000 spectators expected to gather at the Wright memorial will learn what the brothers found out: If there's no wind, there's no way. They need the Wright weather.