The Wright old days sure look familiar...

They were so tactile. So in-touch and unobstructed. These traits still stand among the many strong appeals of the hang gliders and ultralights that started me off in aviation. These traits help keep me on the look-out for opportunities to still fly some of my old favs...when we can make it work, well, we go flying in something of the Lightest Stuff.

In between those too-infrequent opportunities, unfortunately, great memory jogs -- sights and sounds that send my mind's eye back into the air in one of the Lightest Stuff -- seem few and far between. When they come, they're worth savoring -- half out of nostalgia, half for the inspiration to get aloft again.

So this little film clip, a scant 3:29, seemed worth sharing because it performed the flashback function better and more viscerally than anything I've seen in years -- outside of actual airtime.

Wilbur Wright, 1909, ostensibly the world's first aerial photography work.

When the clip shifted from ground-based footage to the flyers' P.O.V. , it took me back to my earliest flying, the stuff that lasted far too short and stayed close to the ground throughout. As low and slow as you'll see in the clip.

http://www.europafilmtreasures.eu/PY/322/fiche_technique.htm?ID=322

Hope you enjoy this little slice of history...great way to go into the weekend.

-- Dave