The Wright Brothers By Carrie Hughes
 Wilbur Wright and Dan Tate flying 1902 glider as a kite, 1902 |
In 1878 the Reverend Milton Wright brought his children a toy: a “helicopter” that, powered by the release of a rubber band, flew. The toy didn’t last long, but the fascination it instilled in Rev. Wright’s younger sons, Orville and Wilbur, led to their lifelong obsession with the possibility of flight.
Wilbur and Orville Wright were the third and fourth of Milton and Susan Wright’s five children, born in 1867 and 1871, respectively. Their father was a minister and later a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. Their mother, in addition to running the household, was particularly mechanically talented, building appliances for domestic use and toys for her children. The family moved frequently around the Midwest for Rev. Wright’s job until they finally settled permanently in Dayton, Ohio, in 1884. The Wrights were a close and loving family, and both Wright parents encouraged their children’s intellectual pursuits.
 Wright Brothers' Glider in Flight at Kitty Hawk, NC |
The 1884 move to Dayton happened quickly. As a result, Wilbur, who had been an excellent student, never completed his high school course work or graduated. He had intended to enroll in college, but in 1885 he was hit in the face while playing an ice hockey-type game. This injury led him to give up on college and withdraw from the world for four years, rarely leaving the house. His mother cared for him, but she became ill herself with tuberculosis in 1889. Wilbur nursed his mother until her death during that turbulent year, which was also marked by a bitter schism in the Brethren church. After his mother’s death, Orville did not return to high school, deciding instead to become a printer. Care of the household was passed to the youngest Wright child, the only girl, Katherine, who would keep house for her father and brothers for years and eventually helped support the family on her salary as a school teacher. While the older two brothers, Reuchlin and Lorin, married and moved out, Orville, Wilbur, Katherine, and Rev. Wright would live together into the 20th century.
 Wright Brothers rebuilding glider at Kitty Hawk in wooden shed, 1901 |
In 1889, Wilbur and Orville went in to business together—first a print shop, then a series of newspapers (which eventually failed). In 1892, they expanded into bicycle sales and repair, and by 1896 they were manufacturing bicycles. Though the Wrights were not natural businessmen, their skill as engineers and innovators made the business a moderate success. As the Wrights were building their bicycle business, the possibility of flight was gaining ground. While plenty of skeptics remained, many inventors and engineers were becoming optimistic, and progress was being made by innovators like Samuel Langley, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, and the German inventor Otto Lilienthal. As these men devoted their time and energy to flight, their exploits were widely covered in the press. In 1894, a McClure’s magazine article about Lilienthal’s glider experiments piqued Wilbur’s interest. He began to study flight, reading as much as he could find in the local libraries and magazines, and observing the birds of Dayton. Lilienthal’s 1896 death in a glider crash provoked debate between the Wrights about flight. Their tendency to argue intellectual ideas vigorously (“I love to scrap with Orv,” Wilbur is quoted as saying) proved fruitful throughout their work.
Wilbur was never fully satisfied with life in the bicycle business, and flight was the answer to his search for something to stimulate, challenge, and occupy him. His mechanically inclined brother readily joined in the hobby. In 1899, Wilbur wrote a letter to the Smithsonian, requesting whatever information or pamphlets they could provide on the subject of flight. “I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine. I wish to avail myself of all that is already known and then if possible add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain final success,” he wrote. At the time, research was progressing along two branches. Some experimenters, including Langley, were focused on building an engine powerful enough to achieve lift. Others were more concerned with stability and control. The Wrights determined that they should follow the latter path (after all, most of the lethal experimental flights had been lethal because the pilot lost control), first designing a glider that was stable in the air and reliable to pilot, before trying to power a machine. Using Lilienthal’s calculations for lift and the biplane structure pioneered by Chicago engineer Octave Chanute, they began their work. Building kites as models, they developed what would be their great breakthrough: the technique of wing-warping, which enabled uniquely stable control in unpredictable winds.
Armed with their research and theoretical calculations, and the success of their kite models, the Wrights were ready to build a full-size glider. In 1900, after writing to the weather bureau to inquire about average winds around the country, they made their first trip to remote Kitty Hawk, NC, which provided appropriate wind, few trees and hills, and privacy. There they were the object of considerable curiosity and endured rustic, sometimes challenging conditions (sand, mosquitoes). Undeterred, they set up camp and built their first glider. Those who knew them in Kitty Hawk noted that they seemed to work endlessly but that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Compared to the bicycle shop, Kitty Hawk was a vacation.
Encouraged by the results of their first glider experiments but realizing they had much work left to do, Wilbur and Orville returned to Dayton and their calculations. Another summer trip to North Carolina in 1901 with a larger glider was disappointing—the glider failed to lift as the math suggested it should. Forced to reevaluate all their data, the Wrights determined that many of the numbers they were relying on, drawn from Lilienthal’s results, were, in fact, incorrect. Back in Dayton, they set about recalculating Lilienthal’s tables. They also constructed a model wind tunnel that they then used to test their calculations.
In 1902, using data gathered from their wind tunnel, they built yet another, more sophisticated glider. Lift was much improved. Confident in the work they had done, the brothers determined that they were ready to add mechanical power. Finding no satisfactory engines commercially available, they enlisted their bicycle shop employee Charlie Taylor in building an engine that would be both light and powerful enough to drive their flying machine. They also continued to refine their propeller design. In September 1903, they returned to Kitty Hawk, hoping to fly an airplane.
The fully assembled plane was heavier than anticipated, and vibrations from the engine placed unexpected strains on the propeller shafts and sprockets. The Wrights were forced to adjust, and the test was delayed. Finally, on December 14, the Wrights made their first attempt at powered flight. A coin toss won Wilbur the chance to pilot the first run, but operator error led to a flight of merely 105 feet, which did not meet their standards for success. There were more repairs made, and when they tried again on December 17, the plane traveled 120 feet in 12 seconds. The Wrights had achieved flight. They flew three more times that day, the longest run an 852 foot, 59 second flight piloted by Wilbur.
While they did not return to Kitty Hawk, they continued to work on their plane in 1904 and 1905, attempting to bring it closer to a functional, practical, commercially viable machine. Flight had taken over their lives. Forced to choose—either give up the expensive and time-consuming pursuit of flight or close the bicycle shop and put all their professional and economic eggs in one aircraft—they set to work marketing their airplane. Experimenting at a field outside Dayton called Huffman Prairie, they managed to greatly improve the plane’s stability (and thus safety). By the fall of 1905, they achieved their longest flights to date—24.5 miles in less than 40 minutes. By that time, their flights had become such a draw that the number of spectators forced them to stop flying, concerned that their ideas might be stolen before their patent was secure and the plane sold. This unwillingness to demonstrate their craft in a bold public manner without a contract in place seriously impeded their ability to sell it. In 1904 and 1905, they were put off by both American and British officials, who insisted on further evidence before seriously considering entering into a contract.
Rebuffed by the Americans and the British, the Wrights then offered the machine to the French government, which took notice. They came very close to a contract with the French but were unable to agree on some details. Finally, in 1906, the Wrights received their U.S. patent. In 1908, with contracts with the French and American government in place, they set their first full public demonstrations: Wilbur in France in August, then Orville for the U.S. military in Virginia in September. These flights were successful and proved their accomplishment to the world, though their triumph was marred by a later September flight, which ended in a tragic crash that seriously injured Orville and killed his passenger, Lt. Thomas Selfridge.
In January of 1909, Orville and their sister Katherine joined Wilbur in Europe, where the Wrights were widely celebrated, entertained by the wealthy, introduced to royalty, and written about in newspapers and magazines. In October, back in the U.S., Wilbur flew from Governor’s Island to the Statue of Liberty with an audience of over one million spectators watching. In November, the Wrights incorporated the Wright Company, an airplane manufacturing business. However, 1909 also marked the beginning of the patent infringement litigation that would haunt them for years to come.
Their next few years were occupied with the business: training pilots, and developing, marketing, and exhibiting the Wrights’ amazing invention, both in the U.S. and abroad. Things changed in May 1912, when Wilbur died of typhoid fever. Orville sold the company and retired from the business in 1915. In 1917, he founded the Wright Aeronautical Laboratory in Dayton, where he continued to conduct experiments. In 1920, he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. He served on the committee until his death. In the later part of his long life, Orville also worked to defend the Wrights’ legacy and historical reputation. He was involved in several patent lawsuits, as well as a dispute with the Smithsonian, which claimed that the first craft capable of flight was Samuel Langley’s. Personally, Orville suffered more family disruption, with the death of his father in 1916, and the marriage of his sister, Katherine, in 1926, which so infuriated him that he cut off communication with her until shortly before her death in 1929. Orville Wright died of a heart attack in 1948.
http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/index_full.cfm
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/Learning.to.Fly-The.Wright.Brothers.Adventure.html
http://wright.nasa.gov/
http://www.fi.edu/wright/
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/wb-home.html
http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/shortw.html
Tobin, James To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight
Crouch, Tom D. and Peter L. Jakab The Wright Brothers and The Invention of the Aerial Age
