Eagle Man & the VIN FIZ: A Script Story

In the lobby of the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian hangs the legendary VIN FIZ which made the first transcontinental flight across America in 1911 piloted by Galbraith Perry Rodgers. This script story is based on that amazing story.It was a hot summer afternoon in Washington D.C., when I entered the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum and first witnessed the famous VIN FIZ, hanging from the ceiling and looking small and frail inside the massive entry hall. It was a Wright Brothers’ Model B biplane fitted with two worn wicker seats.I read the information about the famous biplane and how it had crashed so many times that there was almost nothing left of the original that crossed America except for a few struts. The VIN FIZ seemed so insubstantial I could not get my mind around how such a contraption could fly all the way across the United States battling winds and fierce storms.But with Cal Rodgers as its pilot, it had become a part of American aviation history. I had never heard the epic story of the first transcontinental air crossing or of the famed flier. Aviation was in the very earliest stages of its infancy...but when Cal Rodgers finally set down in Pasadena, California, people all across our country were staying close to their radios waiting for news of his arrival and over ten thousand people were waiting anxiously at the landing field.