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CNN Live At Daybreak
Ezekiel's Wings: First Flight
Aired December 17, 2002 - 05:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: About this time a year, it's appropriate to look skyward. You see it was about a hundred years ago that men first flew. You think I'm talking about the Wright Brothers, don't you? Well, I'm not.
CNN's Bruce Burkhardt explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No sand dunes, no beach, it doesn't much look like Kitty Hawk. That's because it's Pittsburgh -- Pittsburgh, Texas.
(on camera): I thought the Wright Brothers were the first ones to fly?
MAYOR D.H. ABERNATHY, PITTSBURGH, TEXAS: Well, that's been a controversial issue.
BURKHARDT (voice-over): At 90 years old, D.H. Abernathy has been mayor of Pittsburgh for more than half his life, almost 50 years.
ABERNATHY: We have people that have testified that they saw this Ezekiel Airship fly.
BURKHARDT: Saw it fly in 1902, a year before the Wright Brothers. And technically it wasn't an airship, but a heavier-than- air manned craft. An airplane, sort of.
The Ezekiel Airship was the brainchild of one Reverend Burrell Cannon, a devout Baptist and sawmill operating, who at the turn of the century when Pittsburgh was a booming cotton town set to work trying to make a machine that would fly. It was a mission from God, the way Reverend Cannon saw it. Not only did his inspiration come from the biblical book of Ezekiel, so did the design.
GLENN GORDON, REV. CANNON'S GRANDSON: Their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
BURKHARDT: Glenn Gordon reads from the Bible that belonged to his grandfather, Rev. Cannon, a Bible that the reverend/inventor poured over believing that the secret to a flying machine was right there in Ezekiel Chapter 1. The profit describes a vision from the sky and its appearance, a wheel within a wheel.
GORDON: It's supposed to create its own lift by throwing air into the canvas. It's more or less like a... BURKHARDT (on camera): And those panels throw the air into the canvas?
GORDON: This is built more or less like a kite.
BURKHARDT (voice-over): Bob Lowry (ph) built a replica of the airship. It sits here in the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Museum, suspended probably about as high as the ship actually flew.
CLEO GORDON HUFFMAN, REV. CANNON'S GRANDDAUGHTER: I remember her saying it flew over a fence and hit the ground and that was it. I don't think they ever tried anymore.
BURKHARDT (on camera): OK.
(voice-over): Miss Cleo is Rev. Cannon's granddaughter. Like everyone else, she's had to rely on the few eyewitness accounts handed down about that 1902 flight.
JOHN HOLMES, HISTORIAN: Now you can argue about it being controlled flight and repeatable flight and documented flight and that gives credit to the Wright Brothers, and they deserve that credit.
BURKHARDT: John Holmes and Lacy Davis (ph), both Pittsburgh natives, teamed up on a book about the whole episode, "On the Wings of Ezekiel."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was plenty of room for that thing to do its flying in this area right here, and that's why the historical marker has been placed here.
BURKHARDT: As the story goes, the airship was destroyed shortly afterward when it was en route to St. Louis to be displayed at the World's Fair.
(on camera): So in the coming year leading up to the centennial of the Wright Brothers' flight, we're going to hear a lot about Wilbur and Orville and their world-changing accomplishment. But this December 2002, maybe it's appropriate and fair to tip the hat elsewhere. Happy anniversary, Rev. Cannon.
Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Pittsburgh, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 17, 2002 - 05:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: About this time a year, it's appropriate to look skyward. You see it was about a hundred years ago that men first flew. You think I'm talking about the Wright Brothers, don't you? Well, I'm not.
CNN's Bruce Burkhardt explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No sand dunes, no beach, it doesn't much look like Kitty Hawk. That's because it's Pittsburgh -- Pittsburgh, Texas.
(on camera): I thought the Wright Brothers were the first ones to fly?
MAYOR D.H. ABERNATHY, PITTSBURGH, TEXAS: Well, that's been a controversial issue.
BURKHARDT (voice-over): At 90 years old, D.H. Abernathy has been mayor of Pittsburgh for more than half his life, almost 50 years.
ABERNATHY: We have people that have testified that they saw this Ezekiel Airship fly.
BURKHARDT: Saw it fly in 1902, a year before the Wright Brothers. And technically it wasn't an airship, but a heavier-than- air manned craft. An airplane, sort of.
The Ezekiel Airship was the brainchild of one Reverend Burrell Cannon, a devout Baptist and sawmill operating, who at the turn of the century when Pittsburgh was a booming cotton town set to work trying to make a machine that would fly. It was a mission from God, the way Reverend Cannon saw it. Not only did his inspiration come from the biblical book of Ezekiel, so did the design.
GLENN GORDON, REV. CANNON'S GRANDSON: Their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
BURKHARDT: Glenn Gordon reads from the Bible that belonged to his grandfather, Rev. Cannon, a Bible that the reverend/inventor poured over believing that the secret to a flying machine was right there in Ezekiel Chapter 1. The profit describes a vision from the sky and its appearance, a wheel within a wheel.
GORDON: It's supposed to create its own lift by throwing air into the canvas. It's more or less like a... BURKHARDT (on camera): And those panels throw the air into the canvas?
GORDON: This is built more or less like a kite.
BURKHARDT (voice-over): Bob Lowry (ph) built a replica of the airship. It sits here in the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Museum, suspended probably about as high as the ship actually flew.
CLEO GORDON HUFFMAN, REV. CANNON'S GRANDDAUGHTER: I remember her saying it flew over a fence and hit the ground and that was it. I don't think they ever tried anymore.
BURKHARDT (on camera): OK.
(voice-over): Miss Cleo is Rev. Cannon's granddaughter. Like everyone else, she's had to rely on the few eyewitness accounts handed down about that 1902 flight.
JOHN HOLMES, HISTORIAN: Now you can argue about it being controlled flight and repeatable flight and documented flight and that gives credit to the Wright Brothers, and they deserve that credit.
BURKHARDT: John Holmes and Lacy Davis (ph), both Pittsburgh natives, teamed up on a book about the whole episode, "On the Wings of Ezekiel."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was plenty of room for that thing to do its flying in this area right here, and that's why the historical marker has been placed here.
BURKHARDT: As the story goes, the airship was destroyed shortly afterward when it was en route to St. Louis to be displayed at the World's Fair.
(on camera): So in the coming year leading up to the centennial of the Wright Brothers' flight, we're going to hear a lot about Wilbur and Orville and their world-changing accomplishment. But this December 2002, maybe it's appropriate and fair to tip the hat elsewhere. Happy anniversary, Rev. Cannon.
Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Pittsburgh, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
