JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas –
The legacy of aviation pioneer Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois was remembered with a wreath-laying ceremony March 2, just a few hundred feet from where the man who helped usher in the dawn of military flight made his historic journey 102 years ago.
Foulois, an Army lieutenant at the time, piloted the first military airplane, Signal Corps Aircraft Number One, into the air over the now Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston parade fields at 9:30 a.m. March 2, 1910.
Signal Corps Aircraft Number One was a 30-horsepower two-propeller pusher-type biplane made by Orville and Wilbur Wright for the Army Signal Corps. Its wingspan was 36 feet 5 inches and its length was 30 feet 8 inches.
Each year, the Stinsons Flight No. 2 Order of Daedalians and the Jack Dibrell/Alamo Chapter of the Army Aviation Association of America hold a wreath-laying ceremony at the JBSA-Fort Sam Houston Flagpole.
At that spot, there is a marker commemorating that time in history when Foulois, who taught himself to fly via correspondence with the Wright Brothers, piloted the fragile aircraft a total of seven and a half minutes.
The flight ended at 9:37 a.m., with Foulois attaining the height of 200 feet and circling the area at a speed of 30 mph. This was the first flight in the first government-owned airplane by the first military-trained pilot.
He made three other flights that day in the Type A Wright Flyer. For a short time, Foulois was a one-man air force.
On his fourth flight of the day, Foulois barely avoided disaster by nudging his "monster bird," as one reporter called it, just out of the way of a passing car as he prepared to land. He still ended up crashing the aircraft on that final flight.
"With the exception of the incident at the end of the last flight in which I had a narrow escape from colliding with an auto, the tests given the machine this morning were satisfactory, and I am pleased with the outcome," Foulois told the San Antonio Light.
In his memoirs, Foulois jokingly stated that he was chosen on the basis of intellectual and technical ability, but he realized later that it was his 5-foot-6-inch stature, 126-pound weight, and map-reading ability that qualified him for the flight.
Foulois had just 54 minutes of instruction from Wilbur Wright at College Park, Md., when Army Brig. Gen. James Allen, chief of the Signal Corps, dispatched him and the airplane to Fort Sam Houston with orders to "teach yourself to fly," according to Foulois' memoir, "From the Wright Brothers to the Astronauts."
At this year's ceremony, the guest speaker was retired Army Col. Daniel W. Gower, executive director of the Dustoff Association. Gower talked of how Foulois' innovative spirit and determination made him a hero.
"I don't think Foulois was ever really aware of his place in history, Gower said. "The great leaders usually aren't. They just do their jobs."