The Philip B. Petersen Collection Broadcast July 24, 1991

     In the last few years of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, two great scientific achievements started that had a tremendous impact on future development all over the world.  Guglielmo Marconi sent the first wireless message a distance of one mile.  Then Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first very short powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
     The press ridiculed the Wright brothers and said, "If God wanted man to fly he would have given him wings."  Marconi's wireless set, now called radio, was also not taken seriously until October 1899, when he was able to send exclusive news reports to the New York Herald from 15 miles at sea off the coast of Highlands, New Jersey, where the America's Cup Yacht Races were held and scooped all the other newspapers.
      Until 1910, these great inventions were going their separate ways.  Radio was going greater distances and so was the Wright brothers' airplane.
     Elmo Neale Pickerill, a young enthusiastic radio amateur, known as Pick, lived in Mineola, Long Island, and was also interested in flying.  In 1909, he met Orville Wright and asked if he could rent one of his planes with a pilot so that he could go aloft to conduct experiments with his wireless apparatus.  Orville scorned the idea, saying "There is no plane with sufficient power to fly two men plus a load of wireless equipment --- it just wouldn't get off the ground!"  Pick was determined to fly and made arrangements with Wilber Wright for flying lessons.  A few months later, he installed his wireless equipment on the spare seat and mounted his special push-button telegraph key to one of the aircraft controls.
     On the 4th of August, 1910, Elmo Neale Pickerill made his historic flight that took him on a 40-mile round trip from Mineola, Long Island, to Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, non-stop in a Model B Wright Biplane flying at 1000 feet.  Pick established communications with nine stations.  Five were aboard ships in the New York area, two were coastal stations, one was a station in New York City, and one a portable station in Manhattan Beach.  Upon his return, he was told he had also set a new world record for having flown 40 miles in one hour and 3 minutes.
     Since then, aviation radio and electronics are increasingly used for navigation, landing systems, weather, traffic control, autopilots and safety devices that have greatly improved the all-weather capability, performance and safety of flying.
     Elmo Neale Pickerill accomplished many more milestones in radio and aviation before he died in 1968.  To honor him, the Society of Wireless Pioneers named their Northeast Chapter The Elmo Neale Pickerill Chapter.  He was truly the Father of Aviation Radio and Electronics.

July 24, 1991

** Broadcasts recordings preserved and presented here by Mr. Robert Buss and Mr. Bernie Ricciardi, Phil's friends and fellow Marconi Chapter 138 QCWA members **

Page updated January 24, 2004  page created June 11, 2001