Piece Comment

Review of First Flight, First Hand


Entertaining sound rich recounting of the Wright Brothers' historic flight. Great archival material and well-written narration makes this piece by Producer Hal Cannon a fascinating listening. This isn't the happy story of inventors revered and successful. One died an early death. The remaining brother quit aviation soon after weary of fighting patent lawsuits including a dispute with the Smithsonian. There's even a brief recording of Wilbur. This piece would work well on any news magazine show. Certainly the topic of early aviation shouldn't be limited to the Wright Brothers Anniversary date. There is an NPR news tag outcue though that should be edited out and a station could easily back announce the producer credit.