Flight of Fantasy - Part 2

Those Magnificent Women

As both the Wright Brothers are too heavy for their plane, the Wright Flyer, to become airborne, they have asked Samantha to fly their plane as she weighs far less than either of the two men.

James shook his head sadly. “I can’t allow my wife to fly your plane. She’s never flown before and has no experience in this area.”

Orville Wright looked slightly surprised. “Nobody has flown before. This was to be the first flight, so naturally nobody has any experience with this.” He turned to Samantha. “What do you say ma’am? Will you fly this plane and help us out of our predicament?”

“I’d like to,” mumbled Samantha as she looked imploringly at James, “but it’s this Butterfly Effect that I have to be careful of.”

Wilbur Wright smiled broadly. “Yes, indeed ma’am. You’ll be just like a butterfly floating through the air. So, you’ll do it then?”

Samantha looked at James and then shrugged, before softly answering. “I suppose I could give it a try.”

“That’s the spirit!” exclaimed Orville loudly as he slapped his thigh in appreciation.

“However, I do have a couple of questions,” continued Samantha. “For example, supposing I’m able to take off successfully, how do I then land this machine?”

“That is a good question,” replied Orville, “and the answer is that nobody knows because it’s never been done before. We’re just assuming that the plane will return to earth by itself once gravity takes over. It really shouldn’t be a problem.” He took his broad brimmed hat off and showed it to Samantha. “Let’s assume this is the flying machine. Now watch carefully as I throw it into the air.” He tossed the hat into the air with a flick of his wrist, as if throwing a frisbee and it spun through the air for a moment before gliding gracefully back to earth. “You see, ma’am, what goes up must come down. A fellow by the name of Isaac Newton said this when he discovered the law of gravity.”

Samantha glanced quickly at James who frowned as he shook his head. * (You will understand Samantha’s reaction if you have read ‘Heading for Disaster’). 

“As you can therefore see,” continued Orville, “at some stage the machine will return to earth, so my best advice is to just hang on and don’t fall off.”

“Hmm, I see,” said Samantha slowly. “Which brings me to my second question. Why do I have to lie flat on the plane? Why can’t I have a seat? Surely it will be much easier to control the plane if I’m sitting down.”

“What a good idea,” replied Orville as he glanced at his brother. “Why didn’t we think of that?”

“It was to save weight,” replied Wilbur.

“Yes, but if we had a more powerful engine then that wouldn’t be a problem,” said Orville. “I told you we needed to increase the power.”

“And I’d like to fly to the moon,” snapped Wilbur irritably. “We’ve been through this before, Orville. This is the biggest engine there is. If we want more power then we need to build a bigger one ourselves.”

“Then why don’t you?” interjected James.

“Because we don’t have the money,” replied Wilbur. “This flight was supposed to be the catalyst that would provide further financial support.”

“Well,” continued Samantha, “if you had two seats, then you could carry a passenger, and they could pay you for the flight. That could be another way of raising money.”

Both Wilbur and Orville looked at her in amazement. “You truly are a visionary, ma’am,” said Orville.

The reporter shook his head. “You’ve been reading too many futuristic stories by that H.G. Wells fellow, young lady. This flight business is just a publicity stunt. It will never take off. I can see the slight possibility that these new-fangled automobiles might replace horses some day, but flying machines? Never! I mean, you need a long paddock to get the machine into the air, and if you do get airborne and fly any distance, where are you going to land?”

Samantha was about to answer when James quickly interrupted. “The weather looks like it might be about to change. If you’re going to do this then I suggest that you do it now.”

They all turned and glanced at the distant storm clouds. “He’s right,” said Wilbur. “We need to get moving. You will need to wear these ma’am, for your protection,” he said as he handed her a pair of goggles and a leather helmet. “You will be going so fast and the wind will be so strong that you will need the goggles in order to see. We estimate that the machine might travel at speeds of up to 30mph * (45kph) which is a speed that very few humans have ever travelled at, hence the need for goggles.”

“I see,” replied Samantha as she glanced once more at James before turning back to Wilbur. “And what’s this leather thing for?”

“That’s your helmet in case things go wrong and you crash, not that that’s going to happen,” he added quickly.

As Samantha tugged the leather helmet on and did up the strap, she muttered, “I’m sure this thing will save my life.” They hauled the machine around so that it faced into the wind and then helped Samantha climb on board.

“Where’s the safety belt?” she said as she glanced around.

“The what?” replied Wilbur.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Samantha as she lay flat on the long red cushion that had been attached to the plane.

“Okay,” said Wilbur. “Once we get the engine revving up, I’ll give you a thumbs up signal and you pull back on this lever and then hang on tightly. Do you understand?”

Samantha nodded as she tried to offer an encouraging smile, but in reality, she had never felt more nervous in her life.

“Excellent,” beamed Wilbur cheerfully. “Now don’t you worry about this little lady, it’s all going to work out just fine, but I’ll wish you good luck anyway.”

He stepped away from the plane as two technicians gave the propeller an abrupt swing and the engine immediately burst into life. Wilbur waited a moment and then turned solemnly towards Samantha and raised his thumb. Samantha nodded in return, took a deep breath, and pulled back on the lever. It resisted her efforts momentarily and then, with a roar, the plane began to taxi down the rail line, picking up speed as it went. A sudden gust of wind then tore the plane free from the earth’s grip and it soared into the air and then flew several metres above the ground.

Even though Samantha had travelled much faster in cars and planes in her own time period, she still felt exhilarated by the experience. This was such a flimsy contraption in comparison to the vehicles she was used to and the risk she was taking added to her feeling of exhilaration. She was just thinking about seeing if the plane could turn, when it landed back on the ground with a jarring thump. The Wright brothers, accompanied by their assistants quickly raced towards the plane, whooping and hollering in excitement while the cameraman remained in the background recording the history making flight.

“I told you it could fly,” yelled Wilbur to nobody in particular as he climbed up next to Samantha and turned off the motor. They all gathered around the plane for several minutes slapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves and as the tumult gradually died down, the newspaper reporter stepped into the middle of the group, and in a loud voice, said, “Gentlemen, I have a dilemma.”

“What sort of dilemma?” demanded Orville, who clearly wasn’t very fond of the reporter. “You saw the plane fly? How can there be a dilemma?”

The reporter paused for a moment. “It’s just that neither of you two gentlemen actually flew the machine. I’m here to report on the Wright Brothers making a successful flight, not some unknown lady. I don’t think my readers will like it, particularly with this suffragette thing going on. My editor wants to keep women out of the paper, not plaster them all over the front page.”

“Suffragette thing?” asked Samantha curiously as she slid off the fuselage and dropped daintily to the ground.

“I’ll explain it to you later,” replied James quietly as he took her hand and led her away from the others.

“No, explain it to me now,” demanded Samantha as she shook her hand free.

James shrugged. “Okay. At this present moment, in 1903, women are treated as second class citizens. They aren’t allowed to vote and entry into most of the higher professions such as doctors and lawyers is denied to them. The suffragettes want to change all of that.”

“I see,” replied Samantha. “And if I was on the front page of the newspaper as the first person to fly a plane, that would help to promote their cause.”

“Yes,” said James, “but both you and I know that it cannot happen. Wilbur and Orville Wright have to get the credit for flying the plane and we have to quietly exit stage left and return to our own time period. We need to leave now while they’re still discussing the situation.”

“I suppose,” replied Samantha reluctantly. “What do you think they’ll do?”

“We already know what they’ll do. Wilbur and Orville will talk the reporter into giving them credit for the flight, and rightly so in my opinion, and no mention will ever be made of the mysterious woman who appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared just as mysteriously.”

“It isn’t fair,” pouted Samantha. “I never get any credit for my part in shaping history.” As they walked back to the time machine, Samantha said, “My brain is still having trouble understanding these time loops. We only went back to 1903 because we wanted to watch the Wright Brothers first flight. However, as both of the brothers were too heavy for the aircraft, it obviously couldn’t have taken place, but it did, and with me in the plane, because I went back in time to watch them. I didn’t go back in time to watch me. After all, I wasn’t even born then, in fact neither were my parents. It’s just so confusing.”

“Yes, but when you go back in time,” explained James, “you are a real person in that era, even though you are just visiting. If that plane had crashed, you could have been killed and therefore you would no longer exist in our present timeline.”

Samantha grimaced. “Does that mean my past would have been wiped out? What if I had children? Would they still exist?”

James smiled. “Of course they would. Nothing would change in your past except of course if you unleashed a giant butterfly that affected the timeline as a whole. However, we haven’t suddenly disappeared so it appears that our little adventure hasn’t made any drastic changes to our present time. Now, if it makes you feel any better, I already have plans for a new time trip.”

Samantha brightened considerably. “You do?”

“Yes,” replied James. “You studied Latin at school, didn’t you?” 

Samantha nodded. “I was in the top half of my class.”

“Well, it’s time to do some revision,” said James, “because I’m planning on doing a tour of the ancient wonders of the world. I’d like to see them at the height of their glory. The remaining wonders still look magnificent, but they are damaged and worn. Imagine how they looked when they were in pristine condition.”

“So why do I have to study Latin?” asked Samantha.

“Most of the ancient world spoke either Latin or Greek and Latin hasn’t evolved in the way that most languages have. So, we should be able to communicate adequately with our modern Latin should the need arise. I don’t think English would get us very far.”

“I see,” said Samantha happily. “Quid pro quo.”

James smiled. “Something like that.”

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