St Joseph's Silver Beach

Louis Blériot was the person to fly over the English Channel back in 1909.  That was an incredible 20 mile feat. Well, did you know that the second flight over water was done above our own Lake Michigan? Logan "Jack" Vilas flew 60 miles in a Curtiss bi-plane flying boat on July 1, 1913 from Silver Beach in St Joseph to Chicago. The hull of this aircraft is in Washington DC's Smithsonian. Today mark's the 99th anniversary of that historic flight.

Pride of Detroit at The Henry Ford

In 1927, just a few months after Lindbergh made his historic flight across the Atlantic, two men from Detroit, Ed Schlee and Billy Brock, tried to fly around the world. They had made it from Michigan hopscotching all the way to Tokyo, but a monsoon and pleas from their families and maybe an ounce of sanity made them abort and take a ship to Seattle from Japan, thus completing their journey around the world in 18 days. Their plane, the Pride of Detroit, is displayed at the Henry Ford with details of their heroic efforts.