`Wright Brothers aircraft engine`

Used to push back on the framing of aluminum as a "new" structural material.

You don't think of aluminum as a new material in aircraft — we've been making aluminum aircraft since the 1940s. Actually the engine in the Wright Brothers' aircraft was an aluminum-copper alloy casting. They were using aluminum on the first flight. And certainly by the 1940s many of the military aircraft were mostly made out of aluminum. It was a big deal in the 1990s, only 20 years ago, when Audi came out with all-aluminum vehicles. Was that really a big deal? I could show you pictures of Andrew Mellon, of Carnegie Mellon Bank fame, in the 1930s with his all-aluminum Pierce-Arrow. He could have Pierce-Arrow build him an aluminum Pierce-Arrow because he was the investor for Alcoa. He made a lot of money off the aluminum business.