One hundred years on, people are still fascinated by human flight. Which may be why groups of plane spotters converge at airports, writes Elaine Edwards
Every day they stand, sentinels at a steel fence, necks craned to the sky in expectation and concentration. Some peer through binoculars, adjusting them carefully to pick out the distant lights of an approaching jet.
Plane spotters keep vigil in their hundreds day after day at the perimeters of the State's airports.
To outsiders it can seem a strange hobby that falls within the anorakish realms of stamp and coin collecting. But the habit of sitting for hours on end as planes take off and land is hugely popular and has spawned books, magazines and hundreds of websites devoted to the joys of aviation.
On a warm, breezy day outside the southern perimeter of Dublin Airport, there are up to 20 cars at any time, their occupants sitting motionless in contemplation of the skies above runway 10/28, or standing outside to better catch the roar of jet engines.
It's one of the busiest airports in Europe, with some 180,000 flight movements last year.
It is difficult to keep your eyes on the road as you drive parallel to the runways. No matter how often you witness it, the vision of a big jet soaring into the sky just yards away is magnificent.
Audrey Lynch from Balbriggan was a regular visitor to the airport when she lived in nearby Finglas as a child. Today, she's watching the planes with her daughter Paula and twin grandchildren James and Emma, aged 21 months. "My father had a fascination with planes and as a kid I used to be brought out here on the crossbar of a bike. I still have the welts to prove it," she says.
"It was when they had the old Dakotas and Friendships. We knew someone who worked at the airport and, at that time, they used to be able to bring you in and let you sit in the planes." Strangely, she admits to a fear of flying and has flown only twice, rooted to the seat each time.
A fear of closer contact with the objects of their interest is a theme among the spotters today.
John Gallagher from Castleknock in Dublin has just taken up spotting recently. He bought binoculars over the summer and is about to invest in a proper logbook.
"I'm not quite sure why I come out. I'm actually terrified of flying," he admits. "I suppose I'm just fascinated how planes so large can just take off - I find it incredible. I've just come back from Canada recently and I fly reasonably regularly. Short flights I don't mind too much, but long flights I don't like." But he finds a couple of hours spent keeping watch at the airport relaxing.
Olive Kelly from Beaumont in Dublin is watching with her sons Kenneth (14) and Ian (13). Kenneth, a quiet teenager, wants to be a pilot and has invested in a multi-band radio to pick up communications between the pilots and air traffic controllers.
"It's a great facility here," says Olive. "It's a miracle of engineering to see those big planes take off. For me, it's the impossibility. But it's also about a sense of adventure that they're going off to see another part of the world and I want to do that and I want to show the children that it's possible. It's an interest and there's nothing like seeing a plane land, the enormity of it. I'm going to be buried here looking at the planes coming in!"
One spotter who contributes to the Irish-spotters e-mail list, but who asks not to be named, says 100 spotters will give 100 different reasons why they do it.
"The anorak image is undeserved in a great many cases for they are just ordinary people. The one thing that ties them all is a love for their subject."
