Q: Once Byrd entered the new world in aviation didn't he kind of put his
finger on the pulse of the future and saw transatlantic flights and polar
exploration. Wasn't he kind of a visionary about seeing the potential of
aviation?
LR: Well, there were a lot of visionaries in the '20s and Byrd was certainly
one of the leading visionaries. A lot of people who went into aviation at this
time were kind of narrow in the sense that they were pushing aviation for the
army or pushing it for the navy in very specific ways. But there were a
handful of people who went into aviation basically to see how far they could
push the technology, how fast. And Byrd was one of those. He saw from the
beginning that aviation could be used to, extend, not just polar exploration
but polar geography. There were so many more things you could see. An
airplane after all, is kind of like a moving balcony, you know. And you can,
you can see the world in ways and from perspectives that you've never seen it
from before. And Byrd was certainly one of the leading lights. And as a
matter of fact, you can, I think you can argue in some ways he was the leading
light. Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic alone, among other things to make
some money and to prove that it could be done. Byrd flew across the Atlantic
in a much larger plane with other people to prove basically that commercial
aviation would in the near future have a future and there would be a future, a
commercial future in long distance flight. So he was a visionary in a much
broader sense I think than, than Lindbergh was. Lindbergh later, of course,
developed all of the basic routes for Pan Am and so on. But it was Byrd who
first saw the commercial possibilities of aviation. Beyond that it was Byrd
who of course, saw the physical and the scientific benefits of aviation. You
want to be careful here too, what you're talking about. When we talk about
aviation we want to be very careful that you talk about heavier than air craft.
Because in the '20s there was a real struggle between whether or not the future
belonged to dirigibles, lighter than air craft, which of course finally went
down with the Hindenberg, that kind of future, or whether it belonged with
heavier than air craft. And Byrd and Lindbergh and a handful of others really
pushed the notion of a fast moving, long range airplane to be used in a variety
of ways. And to that extent Byrd was a real, and a very substantial
contributor to the history of aviation.
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