SEPTEMBER 30th - A Little Flight



This day in 1929 was the flight of the Opel RAK.1. If you are not an aviation buff, you should know that the Opel RAK.1 was the world’s first purpose-built rocket-powered aircraft built by Julius Hatry and paid for by Fritz von Opel. Von Opel also flew the thing. If you are an aviation buff, congratulations! I hope that you have found a way to utilize your predilection for air travel history in a way that is more useful than being able to say “I already knew that, interwebs dude,” when reading an obscure historical post on the interwebs. But hey, you have to start somewhere right? I've already explicated my Jeopardy theory before (memorizing the first line of every post could win you some money if you are ever lucky enough to compete on the show), but perhaps a more common use would be for Trivial Pursuit. You could kill the aviation history questions. You might only get an aviation history question one out of every twenty games, but if you play for long enough with the same people, you’ll soon become known as the Aviation History Guy. People would notice and say things like, “Hey, Aviation History Guy do you need a beer?” or ”Yo, Aviation History Guy, how about some pizza?” because they would know that you would be thirsty and hungry from studying all the histories of all the aviations. And then one caring friend would treat you to a Blue Angels show. That would be pretty cool. Better than sitting in your room and rewatching the Spruce Goose scene from The Aviator over and over. Like I said, you have to start somewhere. Von Opel and the Opel Rak.1 “flew” for .93 miles, landed roughly, and sustained irreparable damage. Not impressive by today’s standards. But the thing flew. For close to one glorious mile, it flew. And while von Opel’s thirst for flying was quenched, the flight undoubtedly inspired others to take up the mantle. You never know when you might inspire someone. Hopefully in doing so, you get to experience a little flight of your own (minus the crash landing). Even if that’s just killing one out of every hundred questions that pop up on Trivial Pursuit. However little, I hope you fly.

This day has been Marked.

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