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C.
M. Sax ©1909 Honoring the WrightsA 1909 postcard depicts Orville and Wilbur Wright. The highly stylized design of the Art Deco era is clearly evidenced in this piece of art. |
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Albert
W. Starkweather
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Cosmic
Celebration
of the Wrights
The Cosmic Muffin will host an open house on Wednesday, December 17, from 5 to 10 p.m. at Las Olas Riverfront in honor of the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers. The event is free and open to the public, and is the only Wright anniversary event planned in Fort Lauderdale so far.
Featured will be exhibits from the grand opening of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum (NASM) newest facility — the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center — near Washington Dulles International Airport. Cosmic Muffin owner David Drimmer will be a special guest of Boeing for the December 11 event.
A special philatelic cachet honoring the Wright brothers will be available at the open house, as well as after the event. The cover will be canceled on Dec. 17,2003 — the 100th anniversary. The cachet was designed by Albert W. Starkweather o
Guest of honor at the plane–boat commemoration of the Wright brothers’ flight will be Julius Horowitz, 82, of Fort Lauderdale, who piloted a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress during World War II.
Horowitz, of Pompano Beach, flew 50 sorties on the B-17 from July 1943 to February 1944 over much of Europe, including Germany.
Horowitz’ crew, the 99th Bomb Group, shot down six Nazi fighters. The B-17 played a huge part in defeating the Axis powers in World War II. “If it weren’t for us, you’d probably be speaking German,” Horowitz says.
About the Udvar-Hazy Center
The Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, will provide much needed space for the objects that tell the history of aviation and space flight. The new museum, which augments the NASM on The Mall in Washington, DC, opens to the public on Monday, December 15. House are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The Udvar-Hazy
Center will be south of the main terminal at Dulles Airport in northern
Virginia, near the intersection of Routes 28 and 50. The 70,611-square-meter
(760,057-square-foot) building will be situated on 176.5 acres. The design
calls for exhibit hangars, an observation tower from which visitors can
watch air traffic at Dulles Airport, collections storage, classrooms,
archives, a large-format theater, restaurants, gift shops, and more.
NASM Has the Wright Stuff
The NASM opened The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age on October 11 at the museum on The Mall. The exhibition celebrates the centennial of the first powered flight, examining the Wright brothers’ technical breakthrough and its cultural impact in the decade following the December 17, 1903 milestone. The exhibit will run for at least two years and is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
This exhibit shows how two seemingly ordinary people accomplished a feat that had eluded others for so long. The brothers’ creative process and inventive method receives comprehensive examination, as will their personality traits and formative years growing up in the close family of an Ohio clergyman. The exhibition refutes the notion that the Wrights were simply two bicycle makers who got lucky, instead presenting Wilbur and Orville as the disciplined and undeterred founders of a new field of engineering.
Centerpiece of the new gallery is the original 1903 Wright Flyer, displayed at eye level for the first time since the Smithsonian acquired it in 1948. Visitors will have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to study up close the intricate workings of the world’s first airplane, which flew only four times — all within a few hours at Kitty Hawk.
For more information, contact:
David R. Drimmer
Plane Boats, Inc.
P.O. Box 7245
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33338
drimmer@planeboats.com
954/462-8676
