Article: Glenn took the long road back to space; His journey not always smooth after first flight.

Second in a five-part series

The biplane didn't amount to much.

It rattled and squeaked, sputtering a few times as it circled the grassy hills outside New Concord, Ohio. The pilot performed no aerial feats, making lazy turns in the sky.

But to the 9-year-old boy on the ground, the image might as well have been man's first successful flight, a conquest of technology over nature.

John Herschel Glenn Jr. watched with amazement as the creaky plane buzzed overhead. Moments later, at the behest of his father, he was strapped in for a ride.

It lasted only 10 minutes, but young Glenn would never be the same.

"That flight," ...

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