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The Wright Brothers’ Success

Anne Prosperi

Fall 2014

HIST 395

Hyser

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A person’s past always influences their present, and without the Wright brothers’

past, mankind may have never learned how to fly. Starting in 1867 with Wilbur’s birth,

the specific circumstances surrounding Wilbur and Orville’s lives allowed them to

succeed in aviation in a way no other inventors had been able to. In a time period

marked by limited mechanical knowledge and slow intellectual progress by a handful of

other inventors, the Wrights’ personal experiences growing up in Ohio and traveling to

North Carolina gifted them with the tools necessary to create one of mankind’s arguably

best inventions, the airplane. Without the Wrights’ childhood influences, natural

creativity, or mechanical knowledge; the discovery of aviation might have had to wait a

couple more decades.1

Early records of aviation attempts had been marred by failures for thousands of

years before the Wright brothers were even born. In 400 B.C., the first individuals began

documenting their interests in human flight after being inspired by the wing mannerisms

of birds. A number of these early aviators constructed replica bird wings out of wooden

beams and feathers, strapped them to their arms, and jumped out of high towers to soar

with the birds. Almost all of these attempts resulted in the death of the flyer and the

conclusion of their study into aviation. The high fatality rate further justified the public’s

1 To further understand the Wright brothers’ contribution towards aviation, see Michael J. H. Taylor,

Chronology of Flight c.843 B.C. -1939 (Broomall, PA: Chelsea House, 2000) and Tracy Irons-Georges, ed., Encyclopedia of Flight (Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press, 2002). Information on other individuals trying to fly during the time period can be found in Elsbeth E. Freudenthal, Flight into History: The Wright Brothers and Their Air Age (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1949). Biographies that follow the Wrights more in depth would be Fred C. Kelly, The Wright Brothers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1943) and Fred Howard, Wilbur and Orville (New York, Alfred A. Knopf Inc, 1987). One journal article that focuses specifically on the Wrights’ family would be Charles Gibbs-Smith, “The Wright Brothers: The Family Background,” History Today, no. 24 (February 1974): 128-134, accessed October 14, 2014. Wilbur and Orville Wright, The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wight, ed. Marvin W. McFarland (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, 1972) is a two volume work made up of edited letters and papers written by the Wright brothers around the time of their experiments with flight. Another composition of primary sources would be Wilbur and Orville Wright, Miracle at Kitty Hawk, ed. Fred C. Kelly (New York: Arno Press, 1972), which is made up of the brothers’ notes about and during their experiments.

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view that human flight was impossible, and that opinion carried on for centuries to cause

public dislike of possible aviators and the hindrance of their research.2

Leonardo da Vinci was the first to begin the theoretical approach to human flight.

One of the most ingenious and groundbreaking ideas he conceived was that the air

pressure exerted on the top of a moving bird or airplane wing was less than the amount

of pressure exerted on the bottom side of the wing, thus generating lift. He stated this

theory in a 15th journal entry,3 saying that when air strikes the surface of an object, such

as the surface of a wing, the air is compressed downward and the higher density of air

beneath the wing is a sufficient force in supporting the wing in flight. Along with his

theory of lift, he conceptualized the idea of drag by stating that the air pressure exerted

on the front of an object is greater than the amount of air pressure acting on the back of

the object. His intellectual musings were often incomplete or inaccurate, but they

provided the inspiration and foundation for later scientists and their more advanced

theories.

One of the limitations faced by early aviators was the inability to test their

theories. Da Vinci had over 500 sketches in his journals depicting flying machines,

called ornithopers, where a human pilot could sit and control a series of levers that

2 Anderson, Inventing Flight, 6-8.

3Leonardo da Vinici’s journal entry became a part of Codex Trivultianus, a series of his writings compiled

and published after his death. Later, he documented his observational interest in birds in Codex E, around 1513, and credited seagulls for his theories of aviation. Da Vinci’s ideas about human flight remained relatively unchallenged and unimproved for centuries, distinguishing his work as groundbreaking for aviation simply because it was accepted as fact for so long. One explanation as to why da Vinci’s work remained unchallenged for so long was that so few people at the time thought human flight was even possible, and they didn’t want to waste their time or resources disproving a theory that was already seen as false in the eyes of the public. Another explanation, which also explains why it took so long for more theories of flight to develop, is that nobody wanted to decipher the reverse cursive script that da Vinci wrote his journals in, especially since nobody thought aviation would be beneficial or attainable during this time period.

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would pump the wings to manipulate lift and drag into allowing sustained flight. Lack of

technology restricted the application of theories to wooden machines and gliders that

were impossible to fly and always resulted in failure.4 The inability to physically apply

theories hindered the development of many of them, since they were unable to prove if

they were correct or not due to inadequate testing technology. Theories remained

untested or unsuccessfully proven until the 17th century, when Edme Mariotte pioneered

the use of contemporary technology to build experimental models that allowed theories

to be tested on a smaller and more achievable scale during that time period. Mariotte’s

practical application of ideas led to the development of many theories related to the

fundamental physics of aviation that would be vital to the Wright brothers when they

began their research into flight.5

When the Wright brothers first began to pursue their interest in aviation, there

was still very little research on the mechanics of a flying machine. The first successful

human flight occurred in 1782 when the Montgolfier brothers used the idea of hot air

rising from a flame to power a balloon large enough to carry a basket large enough for

passengers.6 Hot air balloons provided the only means of flight for the next hundred

years, but balloons contributed nothing to the technological advancements needed for

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th century mathematician Giovanni Borelli actually proved that human pilots were the reason the

heavier-than-air gliders failed. According to Borelli, humans did not possess the muscular strength required to lift themselves and the flying machine into the air and into a sustained flight.

5 Anderson, Inventing Flight, 8-13; Freudenthal, Flight into History, 12.

6 In 1783, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier became the first to successfully fly a hot air balloon with human

passengers. After only a year of developing and testing their own theories about the lifting power of hot air when it rises, they constructed a balloon out of paper and linen. Scholars credit the speed and success of the Montgolfiers’ research to the fact that their father owned a paper manufacturing business, which gifted them with a great familiarity of the materials they used. Their first public demonstration of a hot air balloon carrying human passengers was made on November 21, 1783 and lasted 25 minutes.

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heavier-than-air flying machines.7 The only other popular conception of a flying machine

in the 19th century involved flapping wings, similar to da Vinci’s ornithopter. In 1804,

George Cayley, on a whim, tested out the idea of a fixed wing for a flying machine on

handmade gliders and had some of the first successful test results for a machine that

wasn’t a hot air balloon. The fixed wing was somewhat of a technological breakthrough

at the time, and had a significant impact on the Wrights’ design of their own gliders.

However, Cayley never experimented with the fixed wing again, halting the idea from

developing to be of more use for the Wright brothers.8

In 1866, Wilbur and Orville’s biggest inspiration began his experiments in flight.

German Otto Lilienthal made a name for himself in aerodynamics, before either of the

Wright brothers had been born, by being the first to measure the effects of lift and drag

on different-shaped lifting surfaces. Lilienthal gathered a great amount of data on the

efficiency of cambered airfoils, which would later be used by the Wrights as the basis of

their own airfoil patent. In 1889, he redirected his aeronautical expertise to designing

flying machines, and within two years had constructed the world’s first practical air

glider.9

7 Hot air balloons contributed no technological advancement to heavier-than-air machine theories, but

have been credited by scholars as the turning point in the public’s opinion of aviation. Before hot air balloons, the public had believed any type of human flight was impossible, and often shunned those who thought differently. However, the success of the Montgolfiers’ balloons sparked the public’s interest in aviation, making the experimentation of flying machines more socially acceptable for later aviators.

8 Anderson, Inventing Flight, 24-30; Orville Wright, How We Invented The Airplane, ed. Fred C.Kelly (New

York: David McKay Company, Inc, 1953):5. 9 Anderson, Inventing Flight, 59-74; Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 45-50; Sherwood Harris, The First to Fly,

(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970): 38-53.

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Wilbur and Orville were in their twenties when they first came across Otto

Lilienthal’s work.10 At the time, the two young Wrights were the proprietors of their own

bicycle repair shop. Long interested in mechanics and the physical world, the brothers

read as many scientific journals as they could during their downtime at the shop.

Childhood influences created a great fascination with human flight within the Wright

brothers, and made them pay particularly close attention to any articles about

aerodynamics. In 1895, a brief excerpt describing Lilienthal’s glider experiments

impressed the Wrights so much that they began searching for more information about

Lilienthal. The potential applications of the glider was what fascinated the Wrights the

most; at the time, they never thought flying machines would be used for anything other

than for sport, but believed that it would be a very enjoyable one. Due to the recent

nature of the gliding experiments, very few articles regarding Lilienthal or his research

had reached the United States from Germany. Lilienthal’s death in 1896 spurred Wilbur

and Orville’s search for information about aviation even more, and they spent the

following two and a half years looking through libraries and encyclopedias.11 In 1899,

they wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. asking for more advanced

written material on the concept of human flight, which they studied religiously until

deciding to design their own glider.

There were a number of circumstances throughout Wilbur and Orville’s life that

made them the best suited to solve the problem of flight. Their glider and their passion

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The first time they saw an article about Lilienthal was in 1895, when Wilbur was 28 years old and Orville was 24.

11 Lilienthal died in 1896 in a glider crash. Orville, at the time, had been suffering from typhoid fever and

Wilbur thought he was too delirious and fragile to hear about the death of their aviation hero. Wilbur was devastated, but waited months until Orville had fully recovered to tell him the news.

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for aviation would not have taken off the ground if not for the personal influences the

brothers had. Both Wrights credited their childhood many times as the reason they were

able to succeed in fields that no one else could. Orville once claimed that they had a

special advantage over other aviators because they alone had been “lucky enough to

grow up in a home environment where there was always much encouragement to

children to pursue intellectual interests [and] to investigate whatever aroused

curiosity”.12 He also speculated that “in a different kind of environment [their] curiosity

might have been nipped long before it could have borne fruit” or amounted to anything

worthwhile.13 The Wrights essentially claimed that they owed their accomplishments

solely to their childhood influences, and publicly questioned if they could have been

achieved under different circumstances.14

The environment credited with properly raising Wilbur and Orville for success

began with their family. Their parents, Milton and Susan, were both college educated15

and kept a large amount of books within their house to encourage their children’s

passion for reading. The books were separated by the levels of the house, with

advanced books on a variety of scientific subjects on one floor and with fictional books

that first captured the Wrights’ interest in reading on another. In a letter to his authorized

biographer later in life, Orville described Wilbur as the most avid reader in the family.

12

Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 28. This source is a biography, however, it was the only biography authorized by the Wright brothers and is written by a close friend that they had had a relationship with for many years prior to publication. It is technically considered a secondary source, but it was edited and approved by Orville Wright and includes a number of personal quotes and pages from his notebook, giving the biography some primary source aspects and more credibility.

13 Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 28.

14 Howard, Wilbur and Orville, 4; Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 27-28.

15 Milton Wright graduated from a small college in Hartsville, Indiana, and received his certificate to

preach from the United Brethren church at the age of 22. He then traveled to Willamette Valley, Oregon to teach at a small college in the area. It was there that he met Susan Catherine Koerner, a student at the college, and married her in 1859.

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Quickly after learning how to read, he claims Wilbur had read a book on almost every

topic available to him within their home. He carried this penchant for reading for the rest

of his life, as well as his interest in a variety of subjects. Orville, who was four years

younger than Wilbur, followed his older brother’s footsteps by quickly becoming the

second best reader in their family. He admits that “he was [mostly] fascinated by

scientific articles in [his father’s] encyclopedia almost from the time he learned to

read”.16 The availability of so many books not only allowed the Wrights to develop the

foundation of their academic interests, but also helped them learn basic researching

and self-teaching skills that they would need later in life.

In the midst of their curiosity about the world of reading, the two brothers

received their first introduction to the concept of flight. Orville pinpointed the exact

moment aviation entered their life in a letter,17 edited by their authorized biographer:

Bishop Wright had returned from a short trip on church business bringing with him a little present for his two youngest sons…. He tossed the gift towards [Wilbur and Orville]. But instead of falling at once to the floor or into their hands, as they expected, it went to the ceiling where it fluttered briefly before it fell. It was a flying-machine, a helicopter, the invention of a Frenchman, Alphonse Penaud.18

The two young boys examined the small toy made out of cork, bamboo, and thin paper.

When they realized that the lifting power of the light-weight toy came from a number of

twisted rubber bands, their amazement at its simplicity sparked their interest in flying-

machines. Their small wooden helicopter eventually broke, as most fragile toys owned

by young boys do, but it marked the beginning of their curiosity with aviation. Their

16

Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 27. 17

The year was 1878, when Wilbur was 11 years old and Orville was 7. 18

Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 8.

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father, in an attempt to further educate his sons, had unknowingly given them a toy that

left a lasting impression on Wilbur and Orville. The toy must have continuously

influenced both boys’ interests throughout their lives, because even as they were knee-

deep in researching large-scale flying machines they took the time to note when they

came across an article about Penaud and his helicopter toys.

As Wilbur and Orville reached school age, they moved away from the study of

theories to more hands-on approaches of learning. Again, this change of interest was

sparked by the Penaud toy. Wilbur tried to improve the helicopter by building several

larger replicas of it, assuming the bigger the machine, the better it would fly. Orville was

too young to be of much use in the Wrights’ first attempt to construct a flying machine,

but his enthusiasm over the project was just as great as his brother’s. However, Wilbur

was too young to understand how variables like weight and power all worked together to

make the helicopter fly, and watched his replicas fail. Their next construction project

was inspired again by a gift from their father, but instead of a model to base their

measurements off of, they were given a book about kites. Orville took charge in this

one, probably because Wilbur thought he would appear immature if he joined his

younger brother in building kites.19 Despite having to work alone, Orville’s kites flew

better than every other boy’s in their town. This could have been because he and Wilbur

had already discovered a slight connection between the weight of an aircraft and its

ability to fly. Orville made the framework of his kites as thin and as light as possible, and

soon made a profit selling his superior kites to friends.

19

Orville was around the age of 9 when he started building and selling kites.

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The ability to build and sell kites at such a young age is just one example of the

Wrights’ natural creativity and entrepreneurship. Their family’s influence on their

intelligence may have given Wilbur and Orville the skills to pursue their curiosities, but

they somehow already had the out-of-the-box thinking that was necessary to capitalize

on their pursuits in ways no one else could. When they were young, Orville once

organized an entire circus with the help of Wilbur. He had noticed a collection of stuffed

birds and other taxidermy items in one of his friends barns, and decided they could be

put together to create an interesting exhibit that many people would want to see. He

enlisted the help of some of his friends to ask other members of their community if they

had anything that could be donated or borrowed for exhibits, in order to put together a

more rounded circus. As the date of the circus neared, Wilbur volunteered his services

to Orville and wrote flyers to be passed around and submitted advertisements in their

local newspaper. Wilbur’s description of the event enticed a large crowd to the parade

ground, and their circus of taxidermy animals was surprisingly a success.20 The Wrights

singlehandedly put together a large event out of nothing, showing off their creative and

entrepreneurial thinking that would be seen again when they designed their airplane.

Wilbur and Orville hinted at their inventive potential multiple times after their

success with the circus. Almost immediately following the parade, Orville came across

images of woodcuts and began researching them. He fashioned his own carving tool

out of the spring of an old pocket knife, demonstrating his ingrained ingenuity, and

began making prints from blocks of wood. Borrowing his father’s small press, Orville

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The Wrights held their circus in a friend’s barn, but it was too small to hold the amount of people that showed up. They then took their exhibits outside and paraded them around so that more people could see. An admission fee of 3 cents for children 3 years and under and 5 cents for everyone older was enforced, earning the Wrights a considerable profit.

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made a number of prints that he distributed amongst his family members. His

perseverance in trying to print paper with inadequate equipment impressed his family,

and resulted in Wilbur buying him a larger printing press and twenty five pounds of

brevier type.21 From there, Orville started publishing items for local businesses in the

back of his family’s barn.22 Orville was unsatisfied with his method of production,

however, and built a much larger press with the help of Wilbur. They took the time to

research advanced printing methods and then constructed a press out of a mismatch of

materials.23 Orville started taking printing orders from customers again, but could now

make full newspaper sized pages that he made more money off of. This cycle repeated

itself many times; Orville and Wilbur would build an improved press and then profits

would rise. Their printing business continued on until Orville reached the age to

graduate high school, and then the switched to more mechanical gears.

As the Wrights reached their twenties, they became interested in bicycles. Orville

had begun to race them in local track events in 1892,24 and the two brothers quickly

acknowledged the increasing demand for bicycles. By the end of 1892, they had rented

out a space to sell and repair well known models. When bicycle season began in the

spring of 1893, their business became so successful that they had to rent out a larger

space for expansion. By 1895, they had made a name in their town as one of the best

21

Brevier type is the term for the size of the letters that would be inked and then pressed onto the paper. It is one of the smallest sizes of letter, but it would have been adequate for the small printing space Orville had available. Wilbur also bought him a proper set of carving tools to work with.

22 Local businesses would pay Orville a small fee to have him print and then distribute advertisements for

them. This system worked out fairly well for 12 year old Orville, until one businessman tried to pay in popcorn. The possibility of greater liquid capital encouraged Orville to begin seeking out new methods of improving his printing business.

23 The variety of materials they used included gravestones and decorative fabric roofing from a buggy.

24 Wilbur had been a distinguished athlete when he was younger, but had a terrible skating accident in his

late teens that left him bedridden and with a heart condition. By 1892, he had made a full recovery, but was unwilling to join Orville in the races and risk his health.

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bicycle repair shops, and had to move again to a two story building. The Wrights saw

the size of their new shop and decided it had enough room for both a showroom and a

very large repair shop. So large, in fact, that they would have plenty of space to build

entire bicycles in. Over the years, they had amassed a great amount of knowledge

about bicycles, and thought that they were properly qualified enough to build models for

sale.25 The quick escalation of their business plan over the course of 3 years was made

possible by the curiosity that was encouraged in them when they were children. The

Wrights were almost completely new to the world of bicycles before 1892, but their

researching skills allowed them to learn enough to become successful.26

The Wrights became soon became even more involved in their business. Their

favorite part, and often their focus, was building and repairing the bicycles, not the

actual business aspects. Spring and summer were the two biggest seasons for bicycle

racing and sales, meaning the Wrights would have had more downtime in the fall and

winter. However, they were so interested in the mechanics of bicycles that they would

lock themselves in their workshop during the colder months and build bicycle after

bicycle by hand.27 At first, the process was a slow one for the beginner cyclists and

amateur mechanics, but they described becoming addicted to the hands-on tinkering

that was required. The researching skills that had been instilled in them as children got

25

The Wright models of bicycles never sold as well as the well-known brand name bicycle models, but the mechanical knowledge they received from building their own models was priceless.

26 Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 29-33.

27 The workshop of their business was located on the second floor of their building, with the showroom

for customers was on the ground floor. Wilbur and Orville had to develop a routine of checking their downstairs regularly during the winter months to make sure there wasn’t a customer waiting for too long while they were upstairs building bicycles. They got so absorbed with their experiments and construction that they would become agitated when they would go downstairs to check on a noise, thinking it was a customer, only to realize there was no customer waiting for them. Eventually, they developed a bell system that would trip a wire every time a customer would enter the store. They manipulated the wire and bell so that the customer would hear nothing when they walked in the door, while a bell would ring upstairs and notify the Wrights.

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a significant amount of practice as they would travel to local libraries to read as much as

they could about bicycles.

However, the most important thing they got out of their bicycle business was not

their increased literary knowledge. The mechanical knowledge they taught themselves

was much more valuable to them later in life, when they began experiments with their

airplane. Wilbur and Orville had to start from scratch when they began to repair

bicycles; books can only teach so much. As they learned more from their repairs, they

began doing experiments on a variety of different solutions to common bicycle

problems. Their experiments not only taught them better ways to repair a bike, but also

the importance of trial and error testing. The fundamentals and importance of

mechanical experimenting would be the most valuable tools to the brothers once they

began their airplane.

It was during their busy seasons when the Wrights began reading scientific

journals. Having little time to do anything as time consuming as build a bicycle; the

brothers would both skim through a variety of scientific articles while waiting on

customers. Anytime one of them would come across an article that was particularly

fascinating, they would share it with the other and discuss it. They set aside all the

articles related to flight. Still interested in the properties of their wooden helicopter toy,

they would keep all the articles about aeronautical achievements and make

comparisons between different theories. Their fascination with flight would not have

been as great as it was without the seed of interest that was planted in them as young

boys when they received their wooden toy. As self-educated bicycle mechanics, they

were able to examine the variety of professional opinions on aerodynamics and absorb

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as much information without bias. In 1895, they came across the brief excerpt on

Lilienthal’s glider that inspired them to use their experimental methods on flight.

Having already collected a respectable amount of knowledge on aerodynamics,

they were most interested in how Lilienthal applied these to his successful glider. The

majority of other scholarly work that the Wrights had found used a method of developing

a theory and then testing it through experiments. A number of these scientists stopped

their experimenting when the results did not support their theory, halting their progress

and contribution to aerodynamics. Orville remembered feeling confused whenever they

read about a scientist that abandoned their work whenever their data didn’t prove

anything that they wanted it to. Lilienthal’s method was much different than the majority

of other aeronautic scholars, however. He was known for formulating his theories only

after he had researched and performed thorough experiments on the topic. Aside from

Lilienthal’s groundbreaking success from building the world’s first practical glider, his

experimental method was probably what attracted the Wright brothers so much to him.

The process for testing that the Wrights developed in their bicycle shop was very similar

to Lilienthal’s and explains why they felt such a strong connection to Lilienthal.

Whenever they had a problem with one of their bicycle repairs, they began researching

it, and would design small-scale experiments that tested popular theories for repair and

their own interpreted versions of those theories. It was this method that set Lilienthal

and the Wright brothers apart from others attempting to achieve human flight, and

allowed them to succeed when nobody else could.28

28

Anderson, Inventing Flight, 59-64; Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 45-47.

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Along with their superior experimental method, the Wrights still had the personal

influences and experiences that made them the most capable aeronautics in the late

19th century. After they were inspired by Lilienthal’s glider, they attacked their research

in a way nobody else could have. Years of being taught by their family to always pursue

their curiosities to the fullest made the Wrights return to their avid readership days in

order to research as many theories as possible. They used their collection of scientific

articles on flight as the foundation of their research, and looked through every local

library for the answer to human flight.

However, at the time they began their research, there were too few proven

theories and supportive experiments to give the Wrights anything other than a basic

idea of what was needed to fly. Their aviation predecessors left them very little to work

with. They constantly had to compare theories to each other and test them to decide

which ones were relevant to flying machines. There were so few ideas that provided the

Wrights with anything other than basic understandings of physics that Wilbur and Orville

ended up conceptualizing all the distinguishable mechanics of their flying machine.

Without much help from the work of other aviators, the Wright brothers made

their flying machine from scratch. They conquered the limitations of lift and drag with a

truly creative and unique idea that nobody else could have imagined. Wilbur had been

working alone in the bicycle shop one day and was aimlessly twisting a rectangular

cardboard box29 while talking to a customer:

As he twisted the box he observed that though the vertical sides were rigid endwise, the top and bottom sides could be

29

The box was the container for a bicycle tube, which was what the customer was buying.

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twisted to have different angles at the opposite ends…. He thought, couldn’t the wings of a gliding machine be warped from one end to the other in this same way? Thus the wings could be put at a greater angle at one side than at the other, without structural weakness.30

The warped structure maintained the lateral equilibrium while also making it “possible to

get a greater lift on one side than on the other, so that the shifting of weight would not

be necessary for the maintenance of balance”.31 Wilbur’s discovery that twisting the box

and “pressing the corners together, the upper and lower surface of the box were given a

helicoidal twist, presenting the top and bottom surfaces of the box at different angles on

the right and left sides”.32 Their placement of the elevator, or horizontal rudder, on their

flying machine was also unique to the Wrights. Previous aviators had placed it close to

the center of their gliders, but the Wrights’ was located at the rear of the plane. This rear

placement of an elevator was accepted by everyone after the Wrights introduced it, and

has been used in planes ever since as the solution for horizontal control. 33

The engine was a different matter. Their flying machine was made of the lightest

wood and thinnest cloths that the Wrights could find,34 but still weighed hundreds of

pounds and needed a significant power source. No proven theories were applicable to

the number of horsepower the Wrights estimated they would need to lift and sustain

30

Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 50. 31

Wright, How We Invented The Airplane, 22. 32

Wright, How We Invented The Airplane, 22-23. 33

Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 58-83; Wright, How We Invented The Airplane, 21- 31. 34

The Wrights use material that they could find near Kitty Hawk, N.C., instead of materials from their home in Dayton, Ohio. They chose to fly in Kitty Hawk because of the favorable winds coming from the ocean would be enough to aid the support of the flying machine and because there was an abundance of cleared land. They traveled from Ohio to North Carolina by train and by boat, and did not thing it would be possible to safely transport their material such a long distance. Waiting until they got to Kitty Hawk to get their materials, their options were limited due to the rural nature of the area. They ended up getting their timber from Norfolk and Elizabeth City, and their thin cloth from similar areas. Wilbur used the sewing machine of the family he was staying with in Kitty Hawk to sew the cloth into strips and attach them to the wooden framework of their plane.

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their machine.35 Since they were was no information on airplane engines for them to

work with, the brothers turned to automobile engines. Those engines were usually

heavier than Wilbur and Orville would have liked, but had the necessary horsepower to

lift their glider. However, the Wrights were just bicycle mechanics experimenting in the

offseason, and didn’t feel qualified enough to build an automobile engine themselves,

so they asked multiple automobile dealers to make a motor to sell them. Unfortunately

for them, the belief that human flight was possible was not a popular idea. No

automobile dealer was willing to sell them an engine for their machine. They all either

thought the Wrights were madmen that were not to be trusted or did not want their

brand name to be associated with an attempt at something that was seen as lunacy.36

So the Wrights, along with their trusted mechanic, constructed an engine from scratch

and tried their best to make it the lighter dimensions that they needed, but their

inexperience with automobile engines delayed powered flight by two months.37

After solving the problems to lift, balance, and power; the only part the Wrights

were missing was a propeller. In the construction of their 1903 powered flying machine,

they left the designing of a propeller that would give them the proper amount of thrust to

the very last minute. Absolutely no practical data on air propellers existed. The Wrights

had to turn to marine propellers for inspiration, only to discover that there was very little

35

The Wrights needed an engine that could produce at least 8 horsepower, but could not weigh any more than 200 pounds.

36 The Wrights don’t remember if they actually told the dealerships that the engines would be used in for

an airplane, but they said the rejection letters seemed very vague and hinted that the automobile companies had caught wind of the intended use of the engine. They didn’t want their engines to be used by the Wrights because they didn’t want their brand name to be associated with them. Making an engine for the Wrights would have been seen as an automobile company believing that human flight was possible, and that would have considerably hurt their sales.

37 Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 85-86.

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data on those as well.38 They had neither the time nor the money to experiment on

propellers, so instead they took a theoretical approach to them. Wilbur and Orville

studied the thrust and momentum on screw propellers for months before they decided

upon a calculation. Their calculation and model propeller immediately excelled and was

far superior to any other propeller concept that was known at the time.39

On December 14th, 1903, the aviation knowledge and skill that had accumulated

for ten years came together for the successfully sustainable powered human flight.

Flown by Wilbur and spectated by five locals to Kitty Hawk, N.C., the Wrights’ 750

pound flying machine traveled 105 feet in 3.5 seconds. Wilbur and Orville achieved

what no other aviator had been able to accomplish, and what nobody else would be

able to imitate for another couple years. Their childhood influences, naturally ingrained

ingenuity, and mechanical experience all shaped the Wrights into the only aviators

capable of discovering the key to human flight. After their first few successful flights:

Demonstrated the possibility of man flight with a motor, [they] returned to Dayton [and] decided to build another machine with stronger landing gear and to continue the experiments, to acquire more skill in the handling of the machine, the lack of which had terminated each of the four flights at Kitty Hawk… [They] built another machine during the winter and spring of 1904, almost exactly like the one used at Kitty Hawk, excepting that most of the parts were built heavier and stronger. A new motor was installed which furnished 16 horsepower.40

38

Marine propellers had been used for years before then, but there was almost no written research done on them. Marine engineers would construct the propeller, and then would adapt the model to fit its purpose. There was no recorded data that indicated the amount of thrust certain physical characteristics of the propeller would yield.

39 Kelly, The Wright Brothers, 90.

40 Wright, How We Invented The Airplane, 59.

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This new machine brought their airplane to the stage of development that was able to

be applied by others for practical uses. Despite not receiving much immediate

recognition, competitors began adapting the Wrights’ concepts and adjusting them to

their own aircrafts. Wilbur and Orville then established their official company, called The

Wright Company, to manage their machines’ public image. The Wrights spent the next

couple of years attempting to contact their representative in Congress to ask him if the

United States War Department was interested in purchasing not only the invention, but

the knowledge possessed by the two Wrights. Not receiving a satisfactory answer, the

Wrights separated and began flying their machines before large groups of people to

improve public opinion on flying. Orville went to Germany, while Wilbur flew in France

and throughout the United States. Each taught a number of foreign aviators how to fly

their powered machines.41

On May 30th, 1912, Wilbur died after a three week fight with typhoid fever,42

leaving Orville as the sole president of The Wright Company. Orville soon tired of the

business aspects and bought out all his stockholders.43 He then sold the company to

eastern capitalists. His experiments resumed, and he successfully invented an

automatic stabilizer for future pilots to use to maintain equilibrium.44 Orville died in

1948,45 leaving begin the Wrights legacy and gifting mankind with the power to fly.46

41

Wright, How We Invented The Airplane, 64- 72. 42

Wilbur died at the age of 45. 43

Similar to their bicycle business, the business aspects of the company bored the bothers, and they were only interested in the experimental and scientific research.

44 In 1913, Orville received the Aero Club of America Trophy for his invention of the automatic stabilizer

45 Orville died at the age of 76.

46 Wright, How We Invented the Airplane, 64-78.

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