‘Anti-aviation’ society born out of drunken stupor 61 years ago today in North Carolina
Dec. 17 is the anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight on the shores of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
But the real party starts the night before.
As told by The Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society, it’s a tradition that began 61 years ago “on one of those dark and windy nights when nothing flew” — much like today, weather-wise. On that night, a group of naysayers invited to attend the buttoned-up commemorative festivities celebrating the anniversary of the historic first flight started thinking, and drinking, until “the myth of the Wright Brothers’ flight in 1903 became as hard to swallow as the bootleg rye they imbibed.”
The society calls those who attend the Dec. 17 celebration “the serious folk,” more commonly known as adults.
“Some of our own 5,000 members convene the previous evening (every December 16th) to combat propaganda emanating from that group,” the society says.
Their motto? “Birds fly, men drink.”
The celebration starts in the afternoon on Dec. 16 and continues until 10:45 a.m. the following day — the exact time of the Wright brothers “alleged” first flight, according to the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
It’s all tongue-in-cheek, of course.
All in good fun
The majority of the society’s members are, after all, pilots themselves, the DNR says. It was boredom that drove them to create the elaborate affair in 1959 — a party to “to balance out the formality of the First Flight Society, which organizes the anniversary event,” the magazine Our State reported.
Their rallying cry is rooted in-part in the words of a newspaper man from Dayton, Ohio, who once wrote “man will never fly, and if he does, he will never come from Dayton.”
During the celebration, the society gives out awards for “those who have done the most to deter the advance of aviation,” according to the DCR.
Previous recipients include the last four U.S. presidents, “flying ace” Chuck Yeager (may he rest in peace) and Snoopy.
The Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society isn’t “opposed to flight” — they just don’t believe in it, according to its website.
“Birds do it, Bees do it, even educated fleas do it, Cole Porter once said. But when you stop to think about it, do you actually believe that a machine made of tons of metal will fly?”
Airports and airplanes are a fallacy. Planes, after all, are just “Greyhound buses with wings,” the website states. Our State compared it to an “elaborate Truman Show-style charade” in which “grips simulate air travel by making loud, engine-y noises and running past your airplane window holding fake scenery.”
Don’t drink and fly
In 1966, when the state supreme court made drinking in public illegal, the society went so far as to threaten to relocate.
The proposal read “in view of the nature of our society... it is proposed that, pending possible action by the N.C. General Assembly, we change the place of future meetings to some state whose laws more clearly recognize the unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness,” The Times-News reported.
That year, the group also changed its motto to “Birds fly, men drink (but it ain’t easy in North Carolina).”
The law never reverted, but the society stayed. And it’s still fighting the good fight.
“The Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society has fought the hallucination of airplane flight with every weapon at its command save sobriety,” their website states. “We remain dedicated to the principle that two Wrights made a wrong at Kitty Hawk.”
However, as the coronavirus continues to surge, it’s not immediately clear how the pandemic will affect this year’s celebrations.
This story was originally published December 16, 2020 at 11:05 AM with the headline "‘Anti-aviation’ society born out of drunken stupor 61 years ago today in North Carolina."
