To celebrate the first anniversary of Tattoos In Flight, I thought it would be fitting to post the first successful powered aircraft, the 1903 Flyer built and first flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright from the dunes at Kitty Hawk, NC on December 17, 1903.  The brothers from Dayton, OH owned a bicycle shop, The Wright Cycle Company, by trade, but were consummate inventors and began experimenting with aeronautics at the turn of the century.

The brothers built and conducted glider experiments at Kitty Hawk from 1900 through 1902 and tested various designs and means of control… including turning control via the concept of wing warping.  These elements were incorporated into the 1903 Flyer along with the ingenious and light four-cylinder inline, gravity-fed engine engineered and constructed by their shop mechanic Charlie Taylor in only six-weeks.

Wilbur Wright was the first to attempt flying the aircraft on December 14th 1903, resulting in a three-second attempt where the aircraft stalled after takeoff and was slightly damaged as it hit the ground.

After the machine was repaired, Orville made the next attempt.  Against a freezing headwind gusting to 27 mph, Orville set down the takeoff rail and made the first controllable flight of a heavier-than-air craft… a 12 second flight covering 120 feet.  Two more flights that day by Wilbur and Orville respectively, covered 175 and 200 feet. The fourth flight of the day by Wilbur covered the longest distance… 852 feet over 59 seconds.  Unfortunately the aircraft was significantly damaged by a gust of wind as it was being taken back from the fourth flight and the aircraft never flew again.

The aircraft was shipped back to Dayton and was eventually restored years later by Orville before it toured to various locations in the U.S. and eventually was placed on display at a British museum – and eventually was displayed at the Smithsonian Institution as of 1948 after a long-standing conflict over the Wright claim as first in flight and a similar claim of Samuel Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian from 1896 to 1906, who unsuccessfully attempted flight in October and December of 1903 using his own craft, the Aerodrome.  For more information on this odd controversy, follow this link.

In honor of this historic aircraft and historic flight, this beautiful black and gray inner arm tattoo was created by tattoo artist Hoffa at Ascension Tattoo in Orlando, FL.  Ironically Hoffa is also from Dayton, OH himself.

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Near the end of World War II, the Flight Test Division of the U.S. Army Air Force teamed with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to research flight in the transonic speed range — or flight past the sound barrier.  The joint partnership contracted with the Bell Aircraft Corporation of Buffalo, NY to build a test aircraft that would be used only for this research and never for mass production.  This contract yielded three XS-1 aircraft, later shortened to X-1.

The Bell X-1 was modeled after the Browning .50 caliber bullet, which was known to be stable in supersonic flight.  This seemingly simple design approach made for a clean looking aircraft, made extremely fast by the ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen fueled rocket engine providing thrust.

The X-1 first flew in a glide on January 25, 1946 over Pinecastle AAF near Orlando, FL by Bell chief pilot Jack Woolams.  After the initial glide tests, the aircraft was taken back to Bell for preparation to conduct powered testing from Muroc Dry Lake in California… now known as Edwards Air Force Base.  Before the flights began, Jack Woolams was killed in a crash while practicing for an air race.  He was replaced by Bell pilot Chalmers “Slick” Goodlin who made 26 successful flights in both the XS-1 and X-1-1 until June 1947.

The Army Air Force became frustrated with the slow pace of the testing under Bell’s watch and took the contract to fly the X-1-2 from Bell and put it in the hands of NACA for testing. 

On October 14th, the X-1-2 #46-062 piloted by Air Force Captain Charles “Chuck” Yeager was dropped from the modified bomb bay of a Boeing B-50 Superfortress over Muroc and began flight #50 in the program.  On that flight, the aircraft became the first manned aircraft to achieve supersonic flight — reaching a recorded speed of Mach 1.06 (807.2 mph).  The aircraft, christened “Glamorous Glennis” after Yeager’s wife, successfully landed after the flight and was recorded in the history books.  The story of the test program was the subject of the hit Hollywood film “The Right Stuff”.

The Bell X-1 #46-062 now hangs in the Milestones of Flight Gallery of the National Air & Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC on permanent display.

This colorful tattooed tribute to the historic aircraft was completed by artist Ant Iannucci of Ascension Tattoo in Orlando, FL.

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In the early days of the 20th Century — in the years right after World War I, the airplane went through a time of “teenage rebellion” when barnstorming and flying circuses swept over the United States.  Barely two decades old, the airplane was still something of a rarity to see in the air.  For people in rural communities, the appearance of an airplane could be the biggest occurrence for months.  Because of this, pilots from WWI with an entrepreneurial spirit set out in surplus military aircraft and toured the country — selling airplane rides and operating from impromptu airfields mowed from farm pastures.

The most common aircraft used by barnstormers was the Curtiss JN-4 Jenny - a common biplane trainer used during the war and sold for as little as $200 (the aircraft was purchased $5000 new) after the end of the war. The Jenny was a sturdy and relatively simple aircraft and was well suited for the abuse it could suffer “on the road”.

When barnstormers started partnering up to create larger shows or “flying circuses”, the aerial antics became more and more daring.  Aerobatics, wing walking, performers jumping from a moving car into an airplane in flight, and even, as illustrated by this tattoo, performers moving from one aircraft to another in flight.  Because pilots and touring groups were always trying to out-shine and outperform each other, the stunts became more and more daring and risky.  Many pilots lost their lives in these unregulated, free-for-all days of flying because of this.

With the passage of the Air Commerce Act on May 20, 1926, the basis of federal regulation of aviation was established under the newly formed Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce.  Over the next several decades and name changes, federal regulation became the responsibility of the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) and Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB).  That organization gave birth to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1958 that placed all elements of aviation and airspace regulation and safety under the one agency.

This black and gray tattoo on the back of a calf commemorating the early days of flight was created by tattoo artist apprentice Christel Perkins currently apprenticing at Mile High Tattoo in Denver, CO.

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It’s been a while since we’ve run the Winged Wednesday feature… and since the most elemental image of flight involves the feathered wings seen on birds, it is truly the starting point for all flight related tattoos.

When it comes to tattooed wings, it only makes sense to restart the feature with the most famous tattooed wings ever, the wings worn by famous piercer Elayne Angel. 

She is, perhaps, one of the first people in the modern history of tattooing to have wings tattooed on such a scale and with such realism on their back — and believed it unique enough to apply and attain a registration by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  It was the first and to date is the only tattoo to be trademarked in such a form.  On November 5, 2002 Elayne Angel’s wings were issued Registration No. 2,645,270.  On the advice of her attorney, she had the encircled “R” symbol tattooed at the bottom of the wings to afford her greater legal protection in the case of action brought about from infringement of her mark.

The tattoo was created in 1986 by veteran tattoo artist Bob Roberts, owner of Spotlight Tattoo in Hollywood, CA. The tattoo was completed by Roberts in 18 hours, done over four sessions within a month.  Her black and gray wings remain one of the most well-known tattoos in the past several decades.

Elayne Angel owned and operated Rings of Desire, her own studio in the French Quarter in New Orleans, LA.  Unfortunately, the studio (and business) was badly impacted by Hurricane Katrina and as a result Elayne Angel closed the studio and relocated to Mexico.  She remains one of the pioneers of modern, safe, and sterile piercing practices in the U.S.

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