115 Years Ago, Theodore Roosevelt Became the First President in the World to Take Flight

On October 11, 1910, the history of mobility entered a new era as a plane carried a distinguished passenger.

That day, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, took a historic flight aboard a plane piloted by Arch Hoxsey, a pilot from the Wright Exhibition Team. It was the first time a sitting or former president, in Roosevelt’s case, boarded an aircraft. A bold, symbolic gesture, and incredibly modern for the time.

The flight took place at Kinloch Field, near St. Louis (Missouri). The aircraft, a Wright Model B, was still a fragile assembly of wood and fabric, more akin to a giant kite than a contemporary airplane. Roosevelt, aged 51, sat alongside the pilot for a four-minute flight at an altitude of about 60 meters. Witnesses recall that the former president, enthusiastic, saluted the crowd while laughing, fully enjoying this unprecedented experience.

A Presidential Plane

This flight was no trivial matter. Just seven years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, Roosevelt became the first head of state in the world to fly. At a time when many still doubted the reliability of “flying machines,” his act conveyed a powerful message of confidence in technological progress.

Having already traveled across the United States by horse, train, and boat, he had just crossed a new frontier: the sky. This flight marked the entry of politics into the aerial age — several decades before world leaders made airplanes their daily mode of transportation.

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Arch Hoxsey, the pilot, continued to set records before tragically dying two months later at the age of 26. Roosevelt, meanwhile, will remain in history not only as a great reformer but also as the first president to take flight toward the future.

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