How close did he come to building the first flying machine back in 1877?
His airplane was people-powered, no motor or engine. The story is that he didn’t fly it but one of the men that worked for him did. It didn’t perform exactly the way Mr. Murrell wanted it to and he got discouraged, then all of a sudden he quit the project and became a preacher. It’s possible that if he had continued he might have done real well with it and maybe even have beat the Wright Brothers. Some of the pieces of the original machine are downtown in a museum, and one of the local teachers has built a replica that’s also in the museum. Do you have any record of how many students you’ve taught over all these years? I quit adding up the students that I’ve soloed when it got to about three thousand, and that was a long time ago. I do keep records of the flight tests I’ve given and that number is up over nine thousand now. Most of my time is flight tests. I have about five students and that’s about all I want right now because I’ve been the airport manager at Morristown for forty-five
