<div dir="ltr">The Aviation Avenue, if you will, began in with the Wright Brother's $25,000 contract with the US Army (not unlike the one Brooks Brothers had for uniforms, or LLBean for boots) to teach servicemen to "fly". The brothers won the contract at Fort Belvoir and located a flat field adjacent to rail tracks near the Maryland Agricultural College, now UMD. College Park Airport was, until Sept. 11, "the world's oldest continuously operated airport." The first aviation death happend there -- Cpl. Frank Scott (the "Drive" is named for him), the first female to fly ever happened there, the first airborne machine gun was fired over that airport, and the airport was the the second half of the first US Air Mail flight that began with a takeoff on the National Mall with a bag of letters that landed in College Park.<div>
<br></div><div>As a youngster before the start of World War I, Paul Garber would ride his bicycle from his home in College Park to the airport after school and chat with the Wright Brothers as they worked on planes and with Army personnel. The chats spawned his life-long interest in aviation and he played a key role in the creation of the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum. The museum's preservation, restoration and storage facility in Temple Hills is named for him. </div>
<div><br></div><div>The late "Hyattsville fly boy" and radio personality Walt Starling, flew more than 2 million miles over more than 20 years, starting his day with a sunrise take-off from College Park and circling the outer reaches of the Metropolitan area first, closing in on the most-downtown part of the city by 10 am. He then made client calls or took friends to the Calvert House Restaurant (he was a part-owner for many years) for lunch, then back to the airport at 3:30 pm for three-and-a-half hours of evening rush from above it all. For a brief time, Starling also held the lease on the airport's repair facility at the end of the runway. Over his career, Starling was heard on WAVA-AM/FM, WASH-FM, WPGC-AM/FM, WLTT-FM and WARW-FM.</div>
<div><br></div><div>While aviation may have been born in Kitty Hawk, NC on Dec. 3, 1903, it grew up in College Park and Riverdale Park, Md. </div><div><br></div><div> <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Aaron Marcavitch <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:acornhp@yahoo.com">acornhp@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>Indeed - as we say, the entire span of human flight is between Bladensburg (first unmanned balloon launch in US) and Greenbelt (Goddard was the first "Houston"). Kenilworth ave should be Aviation Blvd. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I have a back channel note about the fate of ERCo (not good) which I am following up. <br><br>Aaron Marcavitch<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Sent from my iPhone</div></div><div class="im"><div><br>
On Feb 12, 2012, at 10:20 AM, <a href="mailto:Euniverz@aol.com" target="_blank">Euniverz@aol.com</a> wrote:</div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span> It's a surprise to see how many air fields there
were in this area in the infancy of aviation. The history of airflight and
this area is fascinating even for non-aviation buffs. </span><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><font color="#000000" face="Arial">
<div> </div>
<div>Adrianne Lefkowitz</div>
<div>Madison Street</div></font></div></blockquote></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>Jeffrey Yorke<br>Yorke Property Management, Inc.<br>Yorke Partners<br>Jeffrey@YorkeRents.com<br>301-502-1243<br><br>
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