Pioneers Celebrate Centennial of Flight

Leaders in American aviation, including former astronauts Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, swapped stories Friday as part of a celebration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight.

Glenn, who was among 21 people honored in the National Aviation Hall of Fame to attend a reception and dinner, said he and the others don’t consider themselves heroes. He said many were simply in aviation, flight testing or combat when opportunity presented itself.

“These are all people who did their duty, were proud of it, and they’re being honored for it,” said Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.

Former test pilot Scott Crossfield was the first person to fly twice the speed of sound, doing it in 1953 in a swept-winged Skyhawk over Edwards Air Force Base in California.

“The airplane I did it in really had no right to be that fast,” Crossfield recalled.

The group was being honored in the hometown of Wilbur and Orville Wright, who made the first powered flight in 1903 near Kitty Hawk, N.C.

“The Wright brothers gave me the best vocation a man ever had,” Crossfield said.

Crossfield said every hole in his aircraft was taped over to increase speed in his 1953 flight, and the fuel was chilled to squeeze more in.

“It was a good, cold day, and the winds were right in the direction I was going,” he said.

Crossfield, now 82, barely hit Mach 2 and said he didn’t feel anything when he did. But he said it was a thrill nonetheless.