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On a cold and windy morning in 1903, two brothers with a shared passion for technological innovation literally flew out of obscurity to international attention. At 10:35 a.m. on December 17th, they flew the world's first powered airplane.

The flight lasted a scant 12 seconds and covered just 120 feet above the sandy beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But, that brief moment captured the extraordinary genius of two rather ordinary men. Wilbur and his younger brother Orville repaired and manufactured bicycles in Dayton, Ohio. The sons of a church bishop, they were both bachelors who never finished high school. But, they took a common childhood fascination for flight - sparked by a toy "hélicoptère" driven by rubber bands brought home by their father - and turned it into a time-consuming hobby. Soon, that hobby became an obsessive desire to achieve human flight.

"For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money if not my life,"

wrote Wilbur Wright in a letter in 1900 to Octave Chanute, a civil engineer who compiled and published information on early aviation experiments.

Wilbur Wright was the more outgoing brother. A voracious reader and gifted public speaker, he once wanted to become a teacher.

The more Wilbur read about flight, the more convinced he became that human flight was possible. Together with his brother Orville, a mechanical wizard, they became self-taught engineers.

"We had taken up aeronautics merely as a sport. We reluctantly entered upon the scientific side of it. But we soon found the work so fascinating that we were drawn into it deeper and deeper."

Their experiments eventually led to the world's first flying machine, but the accomplishment didn't happen in a vacuum. The early 1900s was a ripe time for such an invention. Aerodynamics, structural engineering, engine design and fuel technology had all reached a stage of development where they could all be brought together to produce a practical flying machine.

Orville Wright was full of mischievous pranks around his family, but outside that tightly-knit circle, he was almost pathologically shy.

Although neither graduated from high school, Wilbur had been an outstanding student. (A family move prevented Wilbur from receiving his diploma, and a skating accident ruined his plans to go to Yale). Orville, on the other hand, caused much mischief in school and quit before his last year to start a printing shop. Both brothers however, shared a fascination for technological problem solving, which was encouraged by their father who filled the house with two extensive libraries.

"We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate whatever aroused curiosity."

They also possessed a mechanical aptitude, developed with the help of their mother, who, having spent much of her childhood in her father's carriage shop, had learned to design and build simple household appliances and toys for the Wright home. While Orville loved to concentrate on the detailed mechanics of a given problem, Wilbur looked at the big picture, the systems involved in the whole project. Glimpses of the brothers' successful collaboration - often characterized by heated debate - can be seen in the printing press they made out of recycled buggy parts and items from local junkyards for their first business venture together, and later in the creation of two lines of bicycles for their bike shop. Orville also invented a self-oiling wheel hub.

But it wasn't until the death of a famous German engineer in 1896 that the brothers embarked on a path to their biggest achievement.

 

 

Gliding To First Flight

 

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The first glider made in 1900 was flown as an unmanned kite. The brothers operated the levers of control through cords from the ground.

It was the summer of 1896, and Wilbur was taking care of Orville sick in bed with typhoid. Looking for a new challenge to occupy their thirsty minds, Wilbur came across the much publicized work of Otto Lilienthal, an engineer who made over 2,000 successful flights on hang gliders. He died on one of his flight experiments, but his work brought the idea of flight from the realm of foolish dreamers to the arena of real and exciting possibilities.

Intrigued, Wilbur began to read up on all the articles he could get on flight. Three years later, he'd exhausted all his resources, and wrote a letter to the venerable Smithsonian Institution for published articles on flight.

"I am about to begin a systematic study of the subject in preparation for practical work to which I expect to devote what time I can spare from my regular business… 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."

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Orville beside their second glider (on its tail) in 1901.

By the time Wilbur wrote to Chanute in 1900 describing his "disease" and asking for yet more information, he'd figured out what the major obstacle to human flight was - and had already solved it.

"People had flown before the Wright brothers," says Tom Crouch, author of The bishop's boys: A life of Wilbur and Orville Wright. "What nobody had really ever done was wrestle with the control issue. How do you control this thing once you get it in the air?"

After observing how buzzards keep their balance in the air, Wilbur realized that in order to operate successfully, an airplane must operate in three axes of motion: pitch, roll and yaw (See diagram). It seems like an obvious observation to us now, but back then, Wilbur was the first to recognize the need to control a flying machine in all three axes of motion.

His solution to the problem of control was a technique called wing warping. By twisting the surface of each wing with levers, it changed the position of the wing in relation to the oncoming wind. So, one side could produce more lift as the other side produced less simultaneously. This enabled an aircraft to keep a level position even when disturbed by the wind - very much like a buzzard twisted its wings to control its movement.

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Wilbur Wright was the first to recognize that an airplane needed to be controlled in all three axes of motion.

Having resolved the control issue with tests on biplane kites, the brothers began experimenting with full-size gliders. The Wrights built their first two gliders according to Lilienthal's calculations for lift - which were also the basis for all previous flight attempts. But something wasn't quite right. While their 1900 glider proved that their system of control worked, the lifting capacity fell short of Lilienthal's calculations. Their 1901 glider performed better than any of their predecessors, but again its lift capacity fell short of calculations.

"After two years of experiment, we cast it all aside, and decided to rely entirely upon our own investigations."

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Experimental flights on the 1901 glider.

That winter, at the back of their bicycle shop, they built a wind tunnel to test for themselves the exact measurements for lift and drag, using an ingenious set of balances designed by Orville. They tested over 200 different airfoils in various angles to collect their data, and achieved another first: the collection of precise and accurate measurements of lift and drag in a wind tunnel. When they took their chosen wing shape for tests on their 1902 glider, they made almost 1,000 gliding flights - some covering distances over 600 feet - proving the previous calculations were wrong, just as they had suspected. Now, all they needed was power.

Back at their wind tunnel, the Wrights made another breakthrough. They built the first efficient air propellers.

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The 1902 glider in flight.

It seemed an easy problem to solve at first. Since a propeller was just a wing in a spiral motion, the brothers planned to apply the air pressure calculations they gathered from their wing data to the formula of marine propellers.

However, shipbuilding literature provided no theory of propulsion - only empirical data.

"…the exact action of the screw-propeller, after a century of use, was still very obscure."

For months, they thrashed over the simultaneous reaction of a machine moving forward, the air flying backward, and the propellers turning sidewise, and finally figured out how they all worked together.

"High efficiency in a screw-propeller is not dependent upon any particular or peculiar shape, and there is no such thing as a "best" screw… The propeller should in every case be designed to meet the particular conditions of the machine to which it is applied."

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Front view of the 1903 Flyer. (Photo courtesy the Franklin Institute)

Meanwhile, when they found that no one was willing to build an engine light enough and powerful enough to power an aircraft, they built one themselves with the help of a machinist. The brothers built a 200 lb, 12 horsepower, four cylinder engine; it had the best power-to-weight ratio of any engines around at the time.

"They are the inventors of the airplane in a much truer sense than inventors usually are," says Crouch, also a senior curator of Aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution. "The scope and scale of their breakthrough was incredible."

Because the brothers took the time to carefully calculate and test each component of the aircraft step by step, they knew their fourth glider - called the Flyer and now known as Kitty Hawk - would fly. So, in March of 1903, nine months before their actual first flight, the Wright brothers filed an application for a patent on their work. Their systematic experimentation came to fruition before five witnesses on the windy December morning of December 17th. With a few jerky up and down movements, Orville Wright flew their flying machine for the first time over a span of 120 feet. The brothers flew a total of four flights that day, the longest covering 852 feet in 59 seconds.

But, as with many great inventions, it brought much heartache to the inventors, for it fueled a bitter feud with the Smithsonian that would last over 25 years.

 

 

The Feud With The Smithsonian

 

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The only known drawing of the 1903 Flyer.

The Wright brothers weren't the only people attempting to fly in the early days of flight. Many established scientists and engineers were also trying their hand at creating the first practical flying machine. One of them was Samuel Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Just nine days before the Wright brothers' successful flight, Langley had one of his own. But his steam-powered machine, called the Great Aerodrome, broke apart almost immediately upon takeoff in a highly-publicized event, and his pilot landed in the Potomac River. A reporter who witnessed the event claimed it flew "like a handful of mortar." Heavily funded by the U.S. government, Langley suffered stinging humiliation over the incident for many years.

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The telegram the Wright Brothers sent their father after their historic first flight.

But while Langley quietly passed away in 1906, the embarrassment he and the Smithsonian suffered was not forgotten by Langley's good friend and successor Charles Walcott, who also played an important role in funding Langley's aerodrome. Anxious to redeem his friend's reputation, he claimed that although Langley may not have flown that December morning, his aerodrome was certainly capable of it. His "proof" was in a rebuilt version of Langley's aerodrome, which was later successfully flown by American airplane manufacturer and former A.E.A. member Glenn Curtiss.

Curtiss, who was engaged in a patent suit with the Wright brothers, rebuilt and flew Langley's aerodrome with 1914 modifications with the hope of showing the courts that the Wrights did not invent the airplane. While Curtiss eventually lost the patent suit, the flight was used by the Smithsonian to redeem Langley's role in the history of flight.

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The Wright Brothers were the first to make precise and accurate measurements of lift and drag in a wind tunnel. They wrote down all their calculations in this notebook.

The 1914 Smithsonian annual report stated that the old aerodrome had flown "without modification". Their 1915 report repeated the claim that "the tests thus far made have shown that former Secretary Langley had succeeded in building the first aeroplane capable of sustained free flight with a man." Similar statements were repeated in later Smithsonian publications. The insult culminated with the inscription that accompanied the Smithsonian's display of Langley's aircraft: "the first man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the world capable of sustained flight."

When published articles on the modifications made on the Great Aerodrome failed to produce a retraction from the Smithsonian, Orville finally responded by sending the 1903 Flyer to the Science Museum in London, England. He wrote:

"I believe that my course in sending our Kitty Hawk machine to a foreign museum is the only way of correcting the history of the flying machine, which by false and misleading statements has been perverted by the Smithsonian Institution. In its campaign to discredit others in the flying art, the Smithsonian has issued scores of these false and misleading statements…In a foreign museum this machine will be a constant reminder of the reasons for its being there, and after the people and petty jealousies of the day are gone, the historians of the future may examine the evidence impartially and make history accord with it. Your regret that this old machine must leave the country can hardly be so great as my own."

So distressed by the feud was Orville, that while preparing his will in 1937, he stipulated the Flyer should remain in London after his death - unless he amended it with a subsequent letter and a change of heart. His heart would be changed by one thing only - an admission that Langley's 1903 aerodrome was incapable of flight.

In 1942, 28 years after the false claims were first made, the new secretary of the Smithsonian retracted the original 1914 report. The Flyer was finally brought back to the United States and unveiled at the Smithsonian in 1948 with following inscription:

THE ORIGINAL WRIGHT BROTHERS AEROPLANE THE WORLD'S FIRST POWER-DRIVEN, HEAVIER-THAN-AIR MACHINE IN WHICH MAN MADE FREE, CONTROLLED, AND SUSTAINED FLIGHT INVENTED AND BUILT BY WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT FLOWN BY THEM AT KITTY HAWK, NORTH CAROLINA DECEMBER 17, 1903 BY ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH THE WRIGHT BROTHERS DISCOVERED THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN FLIGHT AS INVENTORS, BUILDERS, AND FLYERS THEY FURTHER DEVELOPED THE AEROPLANE, TAUGHT MAN TO FLY, AND OPENED THE ERA OF AVIATION

While the Smithsonian took over a quarter of a century to fully recognize the Wright brothers' contributions to aviation, other institutions were a little quicker. The Franklin Institute honored the Wrights with the Cresson Medal for scientific achievement in 1914. (The Institute was handsomely rewarded upon the brothers' deaths. They received the twosome's entire engineering collection).

Orville (left) and Wilbur testing the wind with an anemometer.

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Sketches and notes taken on the back of wallpaper.

Wilbur passed away in 1912 after a four-week battle with Typhoid, but Orville lived to see a national monument erected in their honor at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. It's the only national monument in the United States that was erected while its namesake was living.

After public flights in new, improved Wright planes in Europe and the United States in 1908 and 1909, the Wright brothers became established as two of the great heroes of American history - their appeal that much greater, because although they were geniuses, they had led such simple, ordinary lives until their invention.

Orville outlived his older brother by 36 years, and in that time, he continued doing what he loved best - experimenting with mechanical designs to improve daily life and work.

He developed an automatic pilot system and designed and patented toys. But most of his time was spent creating labor-saving gadgets around the house - a remote furnace control system, a reading stand for his favorite armchair, and a bread slicer and toaster to turn his toast to a golden brown.

He died just as he lived - fiddling with a mechanical object. He suffered a heart attack while fixing the doorbell. And like his brother Wilbur, Orville died a bachelor. Aviation was their one passion in life.

All images in this section (except for the telegram) are courtesy the Franklin Institute.
 

Quotes taken from the Wright Brothers are from their writings and correspondence, now housed at the United States Library of Congress. All images, unless otherwise stated, are also courtesy the Library of Congress.

The Wright Brothers: Engineering Prodigies
By William Wraga

 

 

Multimedia

 

	Take a ride with Wilbur Wright. Taken in Italy on April 24, 1907, this film is the first time a motion picture was shot from an airplane in flight.
	Watch Wilbur Wright flying in Europe.

Biography Timeline
Apr. 16, 1867:	Wilbur is born in Millville, Indiana to Milton and Susan Wright. Milton is a minister and later becomes a bishop for the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.
Aug. 19, 1871:	Orville is born in Dayton, Ohio. The family has moved to the city the year before so that Milton can edit the church paper.
Autumn 1878:	Milton brings home the boys a toy "hélicoptère" - which sparks their interest in flight. The boys are 11 and 7. Over the next several years, the boys try to build these themselves, calling them "bats". But, the larger they get, the less they fly. They don't know that a machine with only twice the linear dimensions of another requires 8 times as much power. Discouraged, the boys turn their attention to kite-flying.
1886:	Wilbur, an excellent student, is injured in a skating accident. A vaguely defined heart disorder keeps him away from college. He spends the next four years depressed at home caring for his mother, who is dying from tuberculosis.
July 4, 1889:	Their mother Susan dies. Orville, an average student, decides to quit school and start a printing business with Wilbur. They begin publishing a four-page weekly newspaper, the West Side News at the ages of 22 and 18. It's the first time the young men refer to themselves as "The Wright Brothers".
1892-1904:	The brothers turn their business interests to bicycles and operate a bicycle repair shop and factory. The two brothers manufacture their own bicycles an Orville invents a self-oiling wheel hub.
Summer 1896:	While taking care of Orville who is sick with typhoid, Wilbur reads about the death of Otto Lilienthal, a famous German glider pilot who made over 2,000 sustained and replicable glides. His experiments bring manned, powered flight out of the realm of foolishness to real possibility and the brothers get seriously interested in flight again. They read all the articles on aeronautics that they can get.
May 30, 1899:	Wilbur writes to the Smithsonian Institution, requesting published papers on flight, saying that he is "about to begin a systematic study of the subject in preparation for practical work." He writes, "My observations… have only convinced me more firmly that human flight is possible and practicable. It is only a question of knowledge and skill just as in all acrobatic feats."
May 13, 1900:	Wilbur Wright asks civil engineer Octave Chanute, who wrote about early aviation experiments, for his help in gathering still more information. He writes: "For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money if not my life." In the letter, Wilbur outlines his solution for the need to control a flying machine. He describes a technique called wing warping - which requires twisting the surface of each wing to change its position in relation to oncoming wind. Chanute and the Wrights keep up a regular correspondence during the brothers' process of building a manned flying machine.
October 1900:	The Wright brothers begin their first field experiments. They build a glider modeled after one made by Chanute and Herring, and based on data used by Lilienthal. They design the glider to be flown as a kite with a man onboard, but it doesn't have enough lift. So, they fly it as an unmanned kite, operating the levers through cords from the ground.
Summer 1901:	The Wrights build a bigger version of the 1900 glider. But, again the lift falls short of calculations. They conclude there's something wrong with the lift calculations (on which all flying machines previous were based).
Winter 1901:	They build a wind tunnel to measure the lift data themselves. In the process, they discover that the commonly accepted coefficient of lift is too high; they also identify a longer and narrower wing shape that's far more efficient for flight.
Fall 1902:	They successfully test a new glider based on their own measurements, making almost 1,000 gliding flights - some covering distances of more than 600 feet.
1903:	The Wrights make another breakthrough. Ship-building literature provides no theory of propulsion for the propeller they need on their airplane. After months of "long arguments", they reason that a propeller is only a moving wing, and they test various shapes in their wind tunnel. They also build a four-cylinder engine that's got the best power-to-weight ratio than anything around.
March 23, 1903:	The Wrights haven't even flown the Flyer yet, but they apply for a patent of their work as the field test now becomes only a confirmation of what they already know: it will fly.
Dec. 17, 1903:	At 10:35 a.m., the Wright brothers make aviation history. With a few jerky up-and-down movements, Orville flies the Flyer for 12 seconds, covering just 120 feet. They make a total of four flights that day before a gust of wind damages the Flyer.
1905:	The Wright brothers build the world's first practical airplane. It can stay airborne for more than half an hour.
May 22, 1906:	The brothers receive their patent for the Wright Flying Machine.
1908:	After winning a contract to produce Wright airplanes in Europe, Wilbur makes record-breaking flights with their new, improved machines near Le Mans, France. In five months of flight demonstration, he makes over 100 flights, is airborne for 25 hours, and ends with a record flight of 2 hours and 20 minutes. Orville gets his chance to shine in Fort Myer, Virginia, demonstrating the worthiness of flying machines for use in the U.S. army. Their planes become the world's first military airplanes.
1909:	The Wright brothers wow the world with their exhibition flights in France, Italy, Germany and the United States.
May 30, 1912:	Wilbur Wright dies of typhoid at the age of 45.
1914:	The Smithsonian claims its former secretary's aerodrome was capable of flight before the Wright Brothers flew their flying machine. (Samuel Langley's Great Aerodrome broke apart upon takeoff and threw its pilot into the Potomac River at a humiliating, highly publicized event just nine days before the Wright Brothers' flight). Subsequent publications repeat the claim, belittling the Wrights' achievement.
Spring 1925:	Insulted by the Smithsonian's refusal to retract their false claim, Orville announces he will send the Flyer to the Science Museum in London, England - as a "constant reminder of the reasons for its being there."
March 3, 1932:	A national monument is dedicated to the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. It's the only national monument in the United States that is erected while its namesake is living.
1942:	The Smithsonian retracts its false claims made 28 years earlier.
Jan. 30, 1948:	At the age of 77, Orville Wright dies of a heart attack while fixing a doorbell. Like his older brother Wilbur, he dies a bachelor - their one passion in life is aviation.
Dec. 17th, 1948:	On the 45th anniversary of the world's first flight, the Smithsonian unveils the Flyer with an inscription commemorating the Wright Brothers.

 

The Wright Brothers' 1900 Kite and Glider Experiments By 1899, the Wright brothers had become seriously interested in the problem of human flight.  After they exhausted the references locally available to them, they wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for further information. When they read the works of others, particularly Lilienthal, Octave Chanute, and Samuel Pierpont Langley, they realized the one factor that had prevented others from achieving successful flight was the pilot's lack of ability to balance and control the craft once it was airborne. They felt the other difficulties of propulsion and determining the most efficient wing shape were minor in comparison, or had already been solved.

 

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Wilbur Wright’s letter to the Smithsonian Institution, May 1899.	Wilbur Wright.	Page of a letter that Wilbur Wright wrote to Octave Chanute, May 1900.

In May 1900, when Wilbur was 33 and Orville 29, Wilbur wrote to Octave Chanute and introduced Orville and himself.  At 68, Chanute was a well-known engineer and leading authority on aviation.  He had conducted his own flight experiments and documented the efforts of the many people who had attempted to build flying machines.  In his letter to Chanute, Wilbur said, "For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. I have been trying to arrange my affairs in such a way that I can devote my entire time for a few months to experiment in this field." Chanute would become a good friend and encouraged Wilbur's and Orville's efforts for many years. His writings, advice, and friendship often helped them during times of difficulty and frustration, and built their self-confidence in what they were doing.

At the time, most inventors were designing flying machines that were inherently stable.  These craft would maintain a straight and level course with little maneuvering by the pilot.  In contrast, Wilbur believed that the pilot had to have a means of controlling and balancing the motion of an aircraft in every axis.  To solve the lateral control issue, he developed the concept of "wing-warping" This control system worked by twisting the wings in opposite directions, which increased the air pressure on one wing while decreasing it on the other.  The resulting effect lifted one wing and lowered the other.

In July 1899, Wilbur built a kite to test a wing-warping control system. When he tested the kite, he was able to make it climb, dive, and roll by manipulating the kite strings.  The Wrights were ready to move on to the next step.

In 1900, they methodically began designing their first full-size, man-carrying aircraft, which they originally intended to use as a kite and control from the ground. This craft had two sets of wings, one above the other, a framework that allowed wing-warping, and an elevator in front of the wings to control the pitch (or angle) of the aircraft.

When their design was nearly complete, they wrote to the U.S. Weather Bureau for help in finding the best place to build and test their invention. Based on the information they received, they decided Kitty Hawk, a wind-blown village on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, offered them the most suitable wind conditions and plentiful sand dunes to cushion their landings.

Wilbur departed Dayton and arrived at Kitty Hawk on September 12, 1900.  Initially he stayed with William Tate; his wife, the local postmistress; and their three daughters. He began assembling their kite, a biplane, with a 17-foot (5.2-meter) wingspan.  This configuration was chosen for its great strength and was based on data Lilienthal had provided. Orville joined him two weeks later, bringing a tent and more supplies.

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Orville Wright.	The 1900 glider.	The wreck of the 1900 glider.

The brothers began their test flights during the first week in October. Their kite had a wing area of 165 square feet (15 square meters) and a forward elevator for pitch control and some protection in the event of a crash. The first flights of the tethered kite were made without a pilot on board. The aircraft did not develop as much lift as they had expected and the flights were disappointing.  On October 10, the wind caught the aircraft while on the ground, crashed it 20 feet (6 meters) away, and damaged it in several places. It was repaired and design adjustments were made. The brothers continued their test flights flying the kite empty or loaded with 25 or 50 pounds (11 or 22 kilograms) of chain on board.

On October 17, they flew their aircraft as a tethered kite with 10-year-old Tom Tate, William's nephew, on board. Again, the results were still less than expected, and they concluded that they would have to try free glides into the wind to generate enough lift to fly the kite. The next day, Wilbur climbed on board and flew—gliding without the constraints of a tether—as much as 300 to 400 feet (91 to 121 meters) for up to 15 seconds. He found these flights thoroughly exhilarating—he was flying!

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Tom Tate.	Wilbur Wright flying the 1900 glider.	Camp at Kitty Hawk.

During the next week, the wind was too light for manned glides, and the brothers broke camp for the winter on October 23. They returned to Dayton with plans to come again the next year with a larger glider.  They abandoned their 1900 glider in the sand. Bill Tate's wife cut the sateen cloth from the kite, washed it, and fashioned it into dresses for her daughters.

Courtesy of The Centennial of  Flight

 

Wing Warping

 

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Wilbur Wright built this kite in 1899 to test whether warping the wings would roll the craft right and left. The kite was controlled from the ground by four cables attached to two sticks.

In 1899, Wilbur Wright used a long narrow box to come up with the idea of wing warping.

Wing warping consists of the twisting motion of the wings of an aircraft to produce lateral control. The entire wing structure twists slightly in a helical motion in the desired direction. The Wright brothers first thought of this concept in 1899 when Wilbur, looking for a way to control the roll of an aircraft, twisted a long, narrow box and believed he could apply the motion to an aircraft's wings. The brothers first used this method of control successfully in a kite that they built that year. On the kite, they used ropes that they pulled on from the ground. When they implemented the method in a glider and later in their powered aircraft, they used cables that the pilot pulled on to twist the wings.

Other pioneer aircraft designers also used this method of control on early aircraft. The young French engineer Robert Esnault-Pelterie replaced wing warping in 1904 with the aileron on a copy he made of a Wright glider. Henry Farman was the first to use the aileron as an integral part of the wing structure in place of wing warping in 1908.

 

 

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Drawing of the Wrights' Glider This kite was the last flying machine built by the Wrights to have a horizontal tail in the back until almost a decade later when they began to manufacture the Wright B airplane.

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Wilbur Wright flying the 1900 glider. Note his high collar and tie.

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Demonstration of wing warping May, 1910 - October, 1910 Orville Wright demonstrating wing warping with the Wright Model A Flyer.

 

 

Courtesy of The Curtiss-Wright Corporation

 

The Original Wright "B" Military Flyer

Orville Wright and the 1911 Wright "B" Flyer at Huffman Prairie, Greene County, Ohio.

 

 

The First Crash

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Crash of the 1908         Military Flyer

It had only been five years since Orville and Wilber Wright made their famous flight at KItty Hawk. By 1908, the Wright brothers were traveling across the United States and Europe in order to demonstrate their flying machine. Everything went well until that fateful day in September that began with a cheering crowd of 2,000 and ended with pilot Orville Wright severely injured and passenger Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge dead.

 

 

 

 

 

A Flight Exhibition

 

Orville Wright had done this before. He had taken his first official passenger, Lt. Frank P. Lahm, into the air on September 10 at Fort Myer, Virginia. Two days later, Orville took another passenger, Major George O. Squier, up in the Flyer for nine minutes.

These flights were part of an exhibition for the United States Army. The U.S. Army was considering purchasing the Wrights' aircraft for a new military airplane. To get this contract, Orville had to prove that the airplane could successfully carry passengers.

Though the first two trials had been successful, the third was to prove a catastrophe.

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Preparing for a flight at Fort Myer. September, 1908	Spectators watching Orville Wright fly the Wright Model A Flyer at Fort Myer	"Start of speed trial of the Wright 1909 Signal Corps Flyer at Fort Myer." On July 30, 1909, Orville Wright with Lt Foulois make a speed trial from Fort Myer to Shuter's Hill, near Alexandria. His average speed was 42.583 miles per hour for the 10 mile round trip.

 

 

Lift Off

 

Twenty-six year-old Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge volunteered to be a passenger. A member of the Aerial Experiment Association (an organization headed by Alexander Bell and in direct competition with the Wrights), Lt. Selfridge was also on the Army board that was assessing the Wrights' Flyer at Fort Myers, Virginia.

It was just after 5 p.m. on September 17, 1908, when Orville and Lt. Selfridge got into the airplane. Lt. Selfridge was the Wrights' heaviest passenger thus far, weighing 175 pounds. Once the propellers were turned, Lt. Selfridge waved to the crowd. For this demonstration, approximately 2,000 people were present.

The weights were dropped and the airplane was off.

 

 

Out Of Control

 

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Wright Model A Flyer over the crowd at Fort Myer September, 1908 Orville Wright flying at Fort Myer

The Flyer was up in the air. Orville was keeping it very simple and had successfully flown three laps over the parade ground at an altitude of approximately 150 feet.

Then Orville heard light tapping. He turned and quickly looked behind him, but he didn't see anything wrong. Just to be safe, Orville thought he should turn off the engine and glide to the ground.

But before Orville could shut off the engine, he heard "two big thumps, which gave the machine a terrible shaking."²

Something flew off the airplane. (It was later discovered to be a propeller.) Then the airplane suddenly veered right. Orville couldn't get the machine to respond. He shut off the engine. Yet he kept trying to regain control of the airplane.

. . . I continued to push the levers, when the machine suddenly turned to the left. I reversed the levers to stop the turning and to bring the wings on a level. Quick as a flash, the machine turned down in front and started straight for the ground.

Throughout the flight, Lt. Selfridge had remained silent. A few times Lt. Selfridge had glanced at Orville to see Orville's reaction to the situation.

The airplane was about 75 feet in the air when it started a nose-dive to the ground. Lt. Selfridge let out a near inaudible "Oh! Oh!"

 

 

The Crash

 

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An injured man being removed from wreck on a litter September, 1908 Orville Wright or Lt. Selfridge being carried away on a litter from the wreckage of the Wright Model A Flyer. C. H. Claudy Ft. Myer photograph album.

Heading straight for the ground, Orville was not able to regain control. The Flyer hit the ground hard. The crowd was at first in silent shock. Then everyone ran over to the wreckage.

The crash created a cloud of dust. Orville and Lt. Selfridge were both pinned in the wreckage. They were able to disentangle Orville first. He was bloody, but conscious. It was harder to get Selfridge out. He too was bloody and had an injury to his head. Lt. Selfridge was unconscious.

The two men were taken by stretcher to the nearby post hospital. Doctors operated on Lt. Selfridge, but at 8:10 p.m., Lt. Selfridge died from a fractured skull, without ever regaining consciousness. Orville suffered a broken left leg, several broken ribs, cuts on his head, and many bruises.

Lt. Thomas Selfridge was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the first man to die in an airplane.

Orville Wright was released from the Army hospital on October 31. Though he would walk and fly again, Orville continued to suffer from fractures in his hip that had gone unnoticed at the time. Orville later determined that the crash was caused by a stress crack in the propeller. The Wrights soon redesigned the Flyer to eliminate the flaws that led to this accident.

 

 

 

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Looking through the Wright Model A Flyer wreckage September, 1908 Looking through the wrecked wings of the Wright Model A Flyer after Orville Wright's crash that killed Lt. Selfridge. Caption below photograph, "Looking through the wreck."	Rear rudder and wings of Wright Model A Flyer after wreck September, 1908 View of the rear rudder and wings of the Wright Model A Flyer after the wreck. Caption below photograph, "Rear rudder planes impaled on skids."	Removing Wright Model A Flyer wreckage from injured men September, 1908 Soldiers and spectators raising the Wright Model A Flyer to remove Orville Wright and his passenger, Lt. Selfridge, from the wreckage. Caption below photograph, "The Wreck."

 

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Removing wreck from injured men September, 1908 Spectators and soldiers raising the Wright Model A Flyer in order to remove the unconcious Lt. Selfridge from the wreck. To the right, spectators attend to Orville Wright who suffered a broken femur and ribs, compressed vertebrae, and a bad cut above one eye. Caption below photograph, "Removing the men."	Soldier on horseback riding guard around wreck September, 1908 A soldier on horseback riding guard around the Wright Model A Flyer wreckage. Caption below photograph, "Riding guard about wreck." Caption on the right of photograph with arrow pointing to rear end of horse, "Lahm says this is part of his horse."	Three stout ladies examine the damaged Wright 1907 Flyer. August, 1908 Three women standing near the damaged Wright 1907 Flyer on the field at Les Hunaudieres race course near Le Mans, August 13, 1908. Wilbur's crash that day led to his decision to move his flying demonstrations to the French Army's Camp d'Auvour artillery range. Le Mans (France)

 

 

The WRIGHTS and GLENN CURTISS

by Steve Clugston, Curator of Exhibitions, March Field Air Museum

 

Orville Wright in a Military Flyer at Fort Myer, Virginia in 1908 with original stereographic left and right images

The Wrights are currently held to be the first to achieve, in a long list of modifiers, the coveted title: the "First to Fly". Their achievement or rather achievements, are listed as being the first:  "powered, sustained, controlled, heavier-than-air flight" in human history! It is disputed that even this may not be entirely the case, as it has been argued for over a century. Most, if not all other claims have systematically been discounted, but not without difficulty in our obsession and quest with being the first in anything.

Bypassing the long list of glider flights, as in the cases of Cayley, Montgomery, Lilienthal, and Chanute, the history of powered flight begins in 1890:

Clement Ader of France performed the first unassisted, takeoff in a powered aircraft using steam power. He actually flew for 150 feet, 30 feet longer than the Wright 1903 flyer did on its first flight! Critics allege that Ader's flight was not sustained, however this does not explain why it was longer than the Wright's first 120 foot flight, which was supposed to be sustained. This is in addition to the fact that Ader's aircraft, the Eole, did have controllable wings, also making it a controlled flight! On the other hand, his sponsor, the government of France, did contribute to a claim that he flew his later Avion III for more than 980 feet in 1897. This exaggerated report was substantiated, only partially by some witnesses, but remains controversial since it was not a completely sustained flight.

It was well known that in 1894, Sir Hiram Maxim (inventor of the machine gun) tested a huge steam powered biplane by having it lift off a train rail for about 2 seconds, then crash. This was obviously not sustained nor controlled.  

In 1901 and 1902, Gustave Whitehead, a German born American, made some "recorded flights or hops" in a steam powered aircraft (on 14 August 1901) near Bridgeport, Connecticut. This claim was generally regarded as unfounded, mostly by Orville Wright, who was somewhat suspiciously the loudest critic, but Whitehead's claims may still be supported by documentation.

In 1903, Preston Watson, a Scotsman, once claimed to have flown before the Wrights, but later admitted it was in an unpowered glider. Karl Jatho, a German made some powered "hops" in a semi biplane, but this too was unsustained and uncontrolled.

A Richard Pearse of New Zealand allegedly flew in '03, but later admitted his attempts to fly were in 1904, were glider flights, and they were not successful.

In December of 1903, the month, if not the year of fate: aviation pioneer Prof. Samuel Pierpoint Langley witnessed his pilot, Charles Manley, crash his tandem wing Aerodrome into the Potomac River, just one week before the Wrights flew at Kitty Hawk. It was later determined that Langley's aircraft caught, ironically, on the launching catapult and this kept the craft from being properly released, causing serious damage. To make matters even more controversial, in 1914, aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss was asked by the staff of the Smithsonian Institute, (Langley's former employer) to see if he could rebuild the late Prof. Langley's Aerodrome and make it fly.

Curtiss's airplane business was being threatened by several law suits from the Wright Co., who claimed that their previously awarded wing warping patent covered all later inventions (which they ironically had nothing to do with): such as Curtiss's ailerons and in fact, the airplane itself, even on the other side of the Atlantic! Langley's restored Aerodrome not only flew on the first experimental flight, but Curtiss even improved the airplane's horsepower on a later second experiment and proved it to be even more viable indeed. This experiment led the Smithsonian to adopt the theory that Langley was potentially the first to make a powered aircraft. This, of course, was hotly criticized and argued against by Orville Wright. In 1942, the Smithsonian reversed its position on Langley and adopted Wright's claim instead in order to receive the original 1903 Wright Flyer into its collection in 1948, where it is today.

 

The Wright Influence

Another strong point of controversy lies in how much of the Wrights' flights and writings actually did influence aviation before 1908, when by that time, aviation was active on both sides of the Atlantic.

Wright Flyer Model A at Long Island, New York in 1909 with original stereo left and right images.

There can be a greater argument made for the work of Octave Chanute, who never flew a powered aircraft. Chanute was often the prime source of valuable aviation information for both Europe and America. He published many other early pioneers' works as well, and gave them all proper credit. He also was the Wrights' mentor and published their accomplishments accordingly. The Wrights' feats were still not fully realized until approximately 1906 and 1907! The Aero Club of America did not even acknowledge the many Wright flights in 1905 until March of 1906. These writings did not reach Europe until 1907 in the form of the French publication Les Experiences des Freres Wright. Even so, there was a great deal of European suspicion that the Wrights could not or did not achieve the flights they did. Most of this can be explained by French conceit, the Gauls claiming to be the first to fly, starting with the lighter-than-air Montgolfier balloons in the 1780s. Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian, was actually the first to successfully fly a powered, heavier-than-air craft in Europe, in France in 1906. Today, Dumont is regarded as the "Father of Aviation" in Brazil. This view was also held in France until 1908 when Wilber and Orville Wright finally publicly demonstrated their flyers in France and the U.S. Before then, the Wrights had been secretive about their flyers and their feats and declined to enter the public arena or air shows. By then, flight control by use of the aileron, and more powerful aircraft engines had been developed instead, making wing warping, The Wright's claim to fame, obsolete.      

 

 

The French Connection

 

Alberto Santos-Dumont, Paris, France (about 1908).    First man to fly powered flight in Europe.

It was therefore another set of brothers: Gabriel and Charles Voisin who built the first French commercial airplanes and who stated that French aviators knew nothing of the Wrights until 1908. There was also a feud between the Voisins and the Farman brothers, Henri and Maurice. As a matter of interest that the French were unaware of the Wright's many accomplishments: a prize of 50,000 francs was posted in 1907 for the 1st flyer to fly a one-kilometer flight in a circle. The prize went to Henri Farman in a Voisin-Farman biplane. Farman also won 10,000 francs for a 15-minute flight on July 6, 1908 and challenged the Wrights to a contest, which they declined. Finally, from August till December of 1908, the French witnessed Wilber Wright's demonstration flights. One was for 77 miles, over 2 hours and 20 minutes in the air, prompting some to admit that "we are beaten", according to famous French flyer Leon Delagrange. On July 25, 1909, Louis Bleriot became famous for flying his monoplane over the English Channel, winning a $5,000 prize from the London Daily Mail. Robert Esnault-Pelterie is known for his his 1st use of the aileron, which was adopted and improved (or invented independently) by Glenn Curtiss in America. This was a vast improvement over the Wright's wing-warping technique of flight control, in that ailerons have been used in aircraft ever since. Pelterie is also credited with the building of the first fuselage (enclosed aircraft body) in 1907, (although Sir George Cayley designed a model of a fuselage as early as 1799).