There's History in the Air

 

Armchair Adventures

Charley Kulp, left, and Ken Hyde

for March 18, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

Friends with Wings

            It was an exciting moment; a historical moment-and nobody had to tell

me to take pictures of it.

            There were two legends of aviation-old friends, at that-and they were standing in front of a legendary flying machine spinning tales of things that happened sixty years ago.

            The setting was the hangar at Ken Hyde's, near Warrenton. He had a small Christmas gathering for old friends. Among them was Charley Kulp, a cornerstone of general aviation, Virginia hall-of-famer and maestro of aerial antics.

            Ken Hyde is likewise known the world around, but as a Wrights Brothers authority and the constructor of Wright reproduction aircraft so perfect Wilbur and Orville would claim ownership.

            The two had known one another since at least since the old Manassas Airport in 1950 and were telling stories, their arms waving in animation, as old friends will do.

            Neither is a youngster but their skills as both aircraft builders and flyers is the stuff of legend. How many living pilots have performed for the Queen? How many on this Earth have flown an authentic Wright-powered reproduction airplane? The answers are, in order, Precious Few and None.

            But what added the sizzle to this scene was the Fiz or, to be precise, the Vin Fiz the two men stood in front of as they talked.

            Last year Hyde's company, The Wright Experience, crafted two one-of-a-kind flying machines that Orville and Wilbur had built exactly a century earlier.

            The first attracted scant public notice but marked a key milestone in the history of flight. It was a glider, and it incorporated everything the Brothers had learned since their history-changing first flights of December, 1903. Eight years later Orville returned to the Kitty Hawk dunes to make dozens of glides with it, one of which lasted nearly 10 minutes and set a world record that stood for a decade for motorless aircraft.

            The second craft they constructed in 1911, flew into the history books as the first airplane to cross the continent.

            The pilot was one Calbraith Rodgers, and although the Wrights had designated it a Wright EX, the flamboyant Rodgers had gotten sponsorship from the bottlers of Vin Fiz, a popular grape soda. Forever since, it has been known by that name.

            Rodgers, hoped to pocket a $50,000 prize offered to the first person to fly across the country within a 30 day time span. He took off from Sheepshead Bay, New York, Sept. 17, 1911.

            Rodgers' incredible journey, reported in breathtaking detail by the media of the day, took far longer than the required minimum, involving dozens of landings, five crashes, and many major repairs plus a hospital stay its pilot for injuries in one mishap.

            But Rodgers would not be deterred, and on Dec. 10 he touched down on the sands of Long Beach.

            The original Vin Fiz hangs in the National Air and Space Museum.

            Hyde and his Warrenton team researched the reproduction for several years before beginning construction.

            There is a postscript to the Cal Rodgers story. It is both tragic and funny, in an odd sort of way.

            The following April, Rodgers made an exhibition flight over the ocean. Cavorting with seagulls, he struck one. The collision damaged the frail machine, causing Rodgers to lose control. He crashed, fatally, on the beach, as a crowd of thousands looked on.

            Flash forward to the 1950s.

            A car appears at the airport in Manassas. A woman remains in the car but a man emerges, asking if there is a pilot who will disperse the ashes of human remains over the waters of Long Island.

            Charley Kulp, who coincidentally had to make a flight to New England anyway, offers to perform the service.

            At the prescribed place, he opens the urn and ashes scatter into the 75-mile-an-hour slipstream.

            Fortunately, Kulp is not alone in the two-seat open-cockpit biplane, for a swirl of ashes goes everywhere, including all over the inside of the plane's cockpit.

            Kulp is momentarily blinded and his late wife, Joan, takes the controls.

            There are ashes everywhere, as Kulp tells the story, but he manages to continue

on to his destination-an antique airplane event in New England.

            Later, he learns that the ashes are the remains of Charles Wiggin, mechanic for Cal Rodgers' history-making 1911 flight. And the woman who had asked for the unusual flight was the former Mabel Rodgers, widow of Cal Rodgers. Following her husband's death, she had married his mechanic, Charles Wiggin.

            And for those planning a visit to the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Annex of the National Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport, here's a little tip. Ask someone to point out the little Kreider-Riesner KR-34 biplane. I think it's hanging from the ceiling.

            That's the plane Charley and Joan Kulp flew to Connecticut that day long ago. And somewhere deep down inside the cockpit of that airplane there are likely a few tiny specks that once belonged to Charles Wiggin, who played a role in the remarkable story of Cal Rodgers.