FAMILY OF BURRELL CANNON SEEKING CREDIT FOR ANCESTOR'S CONTRIBUTION TO HUMAN FLIGHT
SHOW: NBC Nightly News (6:30 PM ET) - NBC
November 30, 2002 Saturday
Now to a flight of fancy. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the first powered airpane--airplane flight. But for the folks in one town in Texas, there should be another name in the history books alongside Wilbur and Orville's. Here's NBC's Jim Cummins. JIM CUMMINS reporting:
It's an odd looking machine with fabric covered wings and four sets of wooden paddles, mounted on wheels and held together by steel tubes. It was powered by a lightweight four-cylinder gas engine, and now a replica of this airship hangs from the ceiling of a museum in Pittsburgh, Texas.
The inventor, Baptist preacher, Burrell Cannon, was convinced it could fly. So one spring morning in 1902, more than a year before the Wright brothers flew the Kitty Hawk, Cannon brought his airship to this field and launched it.
There are at least five people who witnessed the airship's flight. They say it lifted off, got about 12 feet off the ground, then traveled approximately 160 feet before making a hard landing.
Mr. JOHN HOLMAN (Author): It flew like a combination of a helicopter and an airplane. It would take off like an airplane and land like a helicopter.
CUMMINS: John Holman has authored a book about Beryl Cannon's airship.
Mr. HOLMAN: The ability to vary the angle of the paddles to control the motion of the thing up and down, to one side or the other, and it could actually hover.
CUMMINS: Cannon raised $20,000 through a stock offering to finance his invention. He called it the Ezekiel Air Ship, because he was inspired to build it from the writings of the Biblical prophet, Ezekiel.
The air ship flew only that one time, was destroyed in a wind storm, and there is no documented evidence of the flight, such as a photograph.
Mr. GLENN GORDON: Well, we all learned it through my mother.
CUMMINS: Cannon's grandson, Glenn Gordon, says everybody in town heard about the flight through word of mouth, beginning with his mother.
Mr. GORDON: Well, she told me all about how he had invented the airplane, which she called it an airplane at the time. You know, when he invented it, the airplane, there wasn't no such word as an airplane.
CUMMINS: But aviation historian, Jay Miller, says Cannon's invention was just one of many flying machines being built in the late 1800's.
Mr. JAY MILLER: And this is strictly my opinion, that the aircraft never actually flew. It did some hop, skipping and jumping possibly, but in terms of actual flight, controlled flight, the answer is probably not.
CUMMINS: Glenn Gordon says his family is not saying Grandpa Cannon beat the Wright brothers to the punch.
Mr. GORDON: Nothing like we're trying to say he was the first to ever fly. We just want him to have recognition somewhere in history.
CUMMINS: And historian Miller agrees.
Mr. MILLER: It was pioneers like Burrell Cannon who really laid the foundation for aviation as we know it today.
CUMMINS: So next year the Wright brothers will be honored for the 100th anniversary of their incredible achievement and some of those 19th Century inventors, like the Reverend Burrell Cannon, might win a little recognition, too. JIM CUMMINS, NBC News, Pittsburgh, Texas.
by Editor on December 3, 2002 at 8:22 PM