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Wilbur & Orville Wright  

were ordinary boys with ordinary toys,

became extraordinary men with extraordinary machines.

 

The story of their success can inspire all young dreamers to become the inventors of the future.

 

Inventing the Future

 

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Orville

Orville and Wilbur's father, Milton, was a minister in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. As part of his work, he often traveled from place to place. When he returned home, he often brought gifts for his young children. Once, he presented a rubberband-powered flying toy to the boys. The toy fascinated them and sparked their lifelong interest in flight.

"Late in the autumn of 1878, our father came into the house one evening with some object partly concealed in his hands, and before we could see what it was, he tossed it into the air. Instead of falling to the floor, as we expected, it flew across the room till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor ... It was a light frame of cork and bamboo, covered with paper, which formed two screws, driven in opposite directions by rubber bands under torsion. A toy so delicate lasted only a short time in the hands of small boys, but its memory was abiding."

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Wilbur

Neither Wilbur nor Orville finished high school, although both liked to learn new things. By the time Wilbur was 22 years old, he and Orville (who was 18) opened their own printing office. They recycled broken parts and built the printing press they would use to start their business. A few years later, they became interested in bicycles and decided to switch businesses. In 1893, they opened the Wright Cycle Company, a bicycle sales and repair business in their hometown of Dayton, Ohio. By 1896, Wilbur had his mind set on a new idea: flying.

Wilbur began by reading everything he could find about the state of human flight. It became his hobby. At the time, several scientists in Europe were testing human gliding machines. As a matter of fact, one of the most famous, Otto Lilienthal, crashed and died in a gliding accident in 1896. By 1899, Wilbur had studied all of the research that was available and decided to request more from the Smithsonian Institution. In a letter dated May 30, 1899, Wilbur asked to receive all available information and also stated his plan to begin a "systematic study of the subject in preparation for actual work."

Just a month or so later, in the summer of 1899, the brothers built their first biplane. It was made of wood and cloth with a wingspan of five feet and a chord of about thirteen inches. The plan was to fly it as a kite to test their ideas about controlling the forces of flight. Orville was not present when Wilbur flew the kite that summer in Dayton. No written record or photographs exist.

The results must have been good, though, because in November, 1899, Wilbur wrote to the U.S. Weather Bureau and asked about wind predictions for the Chicago area. He wrote that they planned to fly a kite that was "capable of sustaining a man."

By the following Summer, in August, 1900, the Wright Brothers had changed their plans. They decided instead to go to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This empty beach on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean would be windy while also having soft, sandy ground for landing.

By then, they were also ready with their new design. They had used Otto Lilienthal's scientific data table to calculate the size and shape of their first full-sized flying machine. They began to build some of the pieces in Dayton, with plans to finish building the plane in Kitty Hawk.

On September 6, 1900, Wilbur left Dayton to travel to North Carolina. Orville stayed behind to take care of the bicycle business, but planned to join Wilbur later in the month. When Orville arrived in Kitty Hawk on September 28, Wilbur was almost finished building the plane.

The glider's wing frames were made of bent ash wood and covered with a high-quality French sateen fabric. The other wooden pieces were made from white pine. The wing span was seventeen feet and the chord was five feet. On the bottom wing, in the center, was a space for the pilot to lie down. With one of the brothers onboard, the weight of the plane was about 190 pounds.

In October, the brothers flew their "manned kite." They quickly realized that the wind was not strong enough to lift a man. Still, they were able to test the design of the kite and were pleased with their findings.

Sadly, the 1900 glider was damaged in a strong gust of wind, so they went home to Dayton with plans to build a new one.

"Our machine was designed to be flown as a kite, with a man on board, in winds of from fifteen to twenty miles an hour. But, upon trial, it was found that much stronger winds were required to lift it. Suitable winds not being plentiful, we found it necessary, in order to test the new balancing system, to fly the machine as a kite without a man on board, operating the levers through cords from the ground."

On July 10, 1901, the brothers returned to Kitty Hawk and set up camp further south at Kill Devil Hills. The next few weeks were spent building the new plane and hiding from the rain and mosquitoes.

The new plane was almost twice the size of the previous flying machine. To solve some of the lift problems that they had noticed in 1900, the new plane was built exactly to the sizes specified by Lilienthal's lift calculations.

On July 27, they began. The first few trials were almost disasters. The plane nearly crashed. Wilbur was puzzled. The 1900 glider had worked better. He decided to take the wings apart and rebuild them. They tried again and had fastastic glides of 389 feet!

They returned to Dayton in August, facing a new problem. After thinking about the events of 1900 and 1901, Wilbur was beginning to think that Lilienthal's data tables were wrong. Lilienthal was the famous international expert on the forces of flight, while Wilbur was just a hobbyist. Yet, Wilbur was finding that the numbers didn't work.

"The experiments of 1901 were far from encouraging. ... we saw that the calculations upon which all flying-machines had been based were unreliable, and that all were simply groping in the dark. Having set out with absolute faith in the existing scientific data, we were driven to doubt one thing after another, till finally, after two years of experiment, we cast it all aside, and decided to rely entirely upon our own investigations. Truth and error were everywhere so intimately mixed as to be undistinguishable. Nevertheless, the time expended in preliminary study of books was not misspent, for they gave us a good general understanding of the subject, and enabled us at the outset to avoid effort in many directions in which results would have been hopeless."

Wilbur also realized that the brothers could not afford to keep building gliders based on the old data tables. So, in the Fall of 1901, Wilbur became a scientist. He began to experiment with models in order to create his own calculations. No longer was he just enjoying his hobby. Now, he was ready to change the world.

In the Fall of 1901, the Wright Brothers decided to begin a "series of experiments to accurately determine the amount and direction of the pressure produced on curved surfaces when acted upon by winds at the various angles from zero to ninety degrees." To do this, they built a wind tunnel.

"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. Two testing-machines were built, which we believed would avoid the errors to which the measurements of others had been subject."

The tunnel was a long rectangular wooden box with one end open for a fan to make the wind. It was six feet long, sixteen inches wide, and 16 inches deep. They put a pane of glass in the topside of the box so that they could see inside. The fan had two blades and was powered by a belt and pulley system attached to the ceiling. The air from the fan blew at twenty-five to thirty-five miles per hour and passed through a metal grid which straightened it.

Inside, on the floor of the box, they attached two balances which were made from broken hacksaw blades, bicycle spokes, and scrap metal. One balance measured lift while the other measured the ratio of lift to drag.

They then attached horizontal planes to the balance to test how they behaved in the wind. These horizontal planes, called airfoils, were miniature models for full-sized airplane wings. The brothers made the airfoils from twenty-gauge steel and hammered them into shape. Wilbur once wrote, "With a pair of tin shears, a hammer, a file, and a soldering iron, you can get almost any shape you want."

They made hundreds of tests in the wind tunnel, recording all of the measurements precisely. They used the back of scrap pieces of wallpaper to record data and then filled page after page of their notebooks with precious information.

Within a few months, the Wrights had the world's best collection of lift data. Years later, Orville reflected on the wind tunnel experiments and said, "I believe we possessed...more data on cambered surfaces, a hundred times over, than all of our predecessors put together."

They used their new knowledge to build a very different glider. In September, 1902, Wilbur and Orville returned to Kill Devil Hills. The 1902 glider had a wingspan of thirty-two feet and a chord of five feet. It was the biggest flying-machine ever built. Their wind tunnel tests had convinced them that these measurements should work.

Cautiously, the brothers began to fly the glider as a kite. Pleased with the performance, they cut it loose and let it soar. On the first two days, Wilbur and Orville made nearly fifty glides. A few days later, they made seventy-five and then 150. The glider landed safely every time.

On October 23, 1902, Wilbur glided for twenty-six seconds over a distance of 622.5 feet. Orville wrote, "We now hold all the records! The largest machine...the longest time in the air, the smallest angle of descent, and the highest wind!"

But gliding would never be enough.  They left Kitty Hawk with a new dream: sustained powered flight.

Back in Dayton, the Wright Brothers began to search for an engine. They wanted the engine to be gasoline-powered, less than 180 pounds in weight, and able to give eight to nine horsepower with little vibration. When they learned that such an engine did not exist, they decided to build their own. They called Mr. Charles E. Taylor into service. Mr. Taylor was a skilled machine maker. By February, 1903, the three-man team had built, in their bicycle workshop, a twelve horsepower engine that weighed just 179 pounds.

Meanwhile, on March 23, 1903, they applied for a patent for their new biplane. The design was unlike any flying-machine ever imagined before. Clearly, the Wright Brothers were inventing the future.

On September 25, 1903, Wilbur and Orville returned to Kitty Hawk. The next few weeks were spent building the plane. The wingspan of the 1903 Flyer was forty feet, four inches. The chord was six feet, six inches. Unmanned, the total weight was 605 pounds, including engine, chain drive, and propellers.

While no plans or blueprints exist, the brothers did make a preliminary drawing of the 1903 Flyer. On plain brown wrapping paper, they made pencil sketches of the top, side, and front views. Wilbur also made some notations and computations on page.

Some problems did arise. The engine vibrated so strongly that it caused the propeller shaft to break. The shaft was made of heavy steel tubing and it revolved to spin the propeller blade. They repaired and strengthened the shaft, but, it broke again. Finally, in late November, Orville went home to Dayton to make stronger steel parts for the propeller. He was back in Kitty Hawk on Saturday, December 12 and the new parts worked perfectly. They were ready!

They rested on Sunday. On Monday, December 14, 1903, they carried the Flyer to the track. A toss of a coin gave Wilbur the honor of making the first flight. The engine and propeller powered the plane down the track, the Flyer lifted off, but immediately sank down. The plane was slightly damaged, but it was repaired by Thursday. They were disappointed, but knew that the dream was still in reach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This index card shows the formulas that the brothers used to design and test their gasoline-powered engine. To help them remember the variables, they kept a legend on the backside of the card.

After weeks of calculations, the Wrights were ready to build an engine. These images from the collection show how carefully the brothers calculated the specifications for the engine.

 

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On December 17, 1903, at 10:35AM, the Wright Brothers achieved their dream. It was a bitterly cold, windy Thursday, but the desire to fly, and a stove inside their camp building, kept them warm. Orville flew first that morning and later wrote about that "first flight."

"The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine. The control of the front rudder was difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center. This gave it a tendency to turn itself when started; so that it turned too far on one side and then too far on the other. As a result the machine would rise suddenly to about ten feet, and then as suddenly dart for the ground. A sudden dart when a little over a hundred feet from the point at which it rose into air, ended the flight. As the velocity of the wind was over the ground against this wind ten feet per second, the speed of the machine relative to the air was over 45 feet per second, and the length of the flight was equivalent to a flight of 540-feet made in calm air. This flight lasted only 12 seconds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started."

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Mr. Daniels, a witness, used Orville's camera to capture this image. Larger View (78k) | Largest View (84k) | Sideview (33k)

Wilbur was ready for his turn, but the cold weather drove them all inside first. After a twenty minute rest, the brothers and their guests were ready to fly again. The second flight was much like the first.

"The course of this flight was much like that of the first, very much up and down. The speed over the ground was somewhat faster than that of the first flight, due to the lesser wind. The duration of the flight was less than a second longer than the first, but the distance covered was about seventy-five feet greater."

Orville wanted another chance, and so, just an hour after the very first flight, he tried again. This third flight was a bit more dangerous.

"This one was steadier than the first one an hour before. I was proceeding along pretty well when a sudden gust from the right lifted the machine up twelve to fifteen feet and turned it up sidewise in an alarming manner. It began a lively sidling off to the left. I warped the wings to try to recover the lateral balance and reach the ground as quickly as possible. The lateral control was more effective than I had imagined and before I reached the ground the right wing was lower than the left and struck first. The time of this flight was fifteen seconds and the distance over the ground a little over 200 feet."

Now Wilbur wanted another chance, too. At just about noon, Wilbur made the fourth, and final, flight of that day.

"The first few hundred feet were up and down, as before, but by the time three hundred feet had been covered, the machine was under much better control. The course of the next four or five hundred feet had but little undulation. However, when out about eight hundred feet the machine began pitching again, and, in one of the its darts downward, struck the ground. The distance over the ground was measured and found to be 852 feet; the time of the flight 59 seconds."

And what a day it was! On that blustery December day, the world was made a little smaller. Two young men had forever changed the boundaries of human life. No longer would humankind envy the birds for their wings.

Unfortunately, mankind would have to wait a little longer. After Wilbur landed safely, a sudden gust of wind took the plane and sent it tumbling. The men rushed to save it, but were unable. The wings were broken, the motor damaged, and the chain guides were bent. They knew right away that there would be no more flights in 1903.

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Ten years later, Orville reflected on the events of December 17, 1903. He used the word "audacity," which means courage or boldness, when he thought back on that first flight.

"...I would hardly think today of making my first flight on a strange machine in a twenty-seven mile wind, even if I knew that the machine had already been flown and was safe. After these years of experience I look with amazement upon our audacity in attempting flights with a new and untried machine under such circumstances. Yet faith in our calculations and the design of the first machine, based upon our tables of air pressures, secured by months of careful laboratory work, and confidence in our system of control developed by three years of actual experiences in balancing gliders in the air had convinced us that the machine was capable of lifting and maintaining itself in the air, and that, with a little practice, it could be safely flown."

Audacity, indeed. Throughout history, great scientists and inventors have always shown a little boldness. The courage to think outside of the lines and to imagine the future makes "first flights" possible.

 

Convincing the World

Only seven men were present on December 17, 1903 when Orville Wright made the first successful flight. Orville and his brother, Wilbur, were two of them. The other five, who lived near Kitty Hawk, were witnesses. J.T. Daniels, W.S. Dough and A.D. Etheridge were members of Kill Devil Life Saving Station. W.C. Brinkley, of Manteo, and Johnny Ward, a boy from Nags Head, were also there.

"Although a general invitation had been extended to the people living within five or six miles, not many were willing to face the rigors of a cold December wind in order to see, as they no doubt thought, another flying-machine not fly. The first flight lasted only twelve seconds, a flight very modest compared with that of birds, but it was, nevertheless, the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course without reduction of speed, and had finally landed without being wrecked."

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In later years, curious onlookers came out more often to see the Wrights fly.

On a warmer day, there would have been more curious people watching, but the five who braved the weather on the chance that the flying-machine might actually fly, were rewarded with the story of a lifetime.

But who would believe it? Unless you saw it with your own eyes, would you?

Orville positioned his camera, and Mr. Daniels captured photographs for him, but, even with pictures, who could believe it?

So, the Wright Brothers began their work to prove that they had achieved the impossible—sustained, controlled, powered flight. Meanwhile, they also began to plan their next airplane.

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The Original Telegram

The first person the brothers told was their father. On the evening of December 17, 1903, after dinner, Wilbur and Orville went into town to send a telegram to their father.

Their father reacted, of course, with great pride. On January 16, 1904, Bishop Wright, the fair father, wrote these words about his sons.

"Neither could have mastered the problem alone. As inseparable as twins, they are indispensable to each other."

When Wilbur died on May 30, 1912, Bishop Wright reflected again on his son's lifework.

"This morning at 3:15, Wilbur passed away, aged 45 years, 1 month, and 14 days. A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadily, he lived and died."

Not everyone reacted with a father's pride, however. In fact, Orville and Wilbur had quite a challenge convincing people that their success was true. After all, the two "hobbyists" had succeeded in just eight years while other "scientists" had failed for decades.

Some of the reactions were even ugly. The Wrights had applied for, and received, a patent for their 1903 Flyer. This allowed them to request a modest fee for using their design. Other aviators were furious. They refused to pay and tried to say that the Wright Brothers didn't deserve the patent anyway.

Wilbur and Orville applied for their patent on March 23, 1903, nearly ten months before their first flight. The United States Patent Office granted them a patent for their "Flying Machine" on May 22, 1906. The scientific principles in the patent are the basis for the design of all airplanes that have been made since. Yet, the Wright Brothers, in their lifetimes, never received the fame or fortune they deserved. Wilbur spent the last few years of his life fighting about the patent and he died without knowing the world finally recognized his work.

In their 1903 telegram, the brothers told their father to "inform Press," yet the first published, eyewitness account of the Wright flight was over a year later in the January 1, 1905 issue of "Gleanings in Bee Culture."

After the excitement of the December 1903 flights, the brothers could not wait another year to fly again. No longer worried about needing soft sand for crashing, they found a location in Ohio, eight miles outside of Dayton. In Spring of 1904, they built a work-shed on Huffman Prairie. There, they prepared to fly their new plane which was heavier, but similar in design to the 1903 Flyer. When they were ready, they invited every newspaper near Dayton to watch. The weather was not quite right, but, since the reporters were there, they tried anyway. The plane failed to liftoff. Some news reporters returned the next day to see another unsuccessful attempt. It's no surprise, then, that the Wright Brothers didn't make the papers.

In 1914, The Franklin Institute became the first major scientific institution to recognize the Wright Brothers' achievement. Orville traveled to Philadelphia to accept proudly the Cresson Medal for scientific achievement. Sadly, Wilbur had not lived to see the award. Years later, upon Orville's death on January 30, 1948, The Franklin Institute found out just how grateful Orville was. In his last will and testament, Orville gave most of his tools and drawings to The Franklin Institute. Today, the world's largest collection of Wright Brothers' artifacts is housed at The Franklin Institute. The broken 1903 Flyer, however, is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The exhibit is labeled with these words:

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

 

As this story about first flight shows, the small objects in The Franklin Institute's collection actually changed the course of human aviation more than the Flyer itself. The objects they used in their pursuit of scientific knowledge ultimately changed the course of human history.

On March 2, 1927, President Calvin Coolidge ordered the construction of a monument at Kill Devil Hills in honor of "first flight." On November 19, 1932, the sixty-foot granite memorial was finished. These words are carved in the granite: "In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright. Conceived by genius, achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith."

 

Crafting the Flyer

The drawing below is the only known diagram of the 1903 Flyer. It was drawn by the Wright Brothers using pencil on brown paper. (In preparing this digital image for presentation on the web, light was added to allow better viewing.) There are three views on the paper. The top view is a "bird's-eye" view looking down onto the Flyer. (Imagine the bird's reaction upon first seeing humans in sustained flight!) The second view is a side view. At the bottom is a straight-on view of the Flyer, with the circles indicating the propellers' range.

Some technical specifications for the Flyer:

gasoline-powered engine weighed 179 pounds, delivered 12 horsepower 2 propellers, each 8.5 feet in diameter propeller made of 3 layers of 1 1/8 inch spruce, glued together, shaped with hatchet and drawshave wingspan = 40 feet, 4 inches chord = 6 feet, 6 inches wing camber = 1:20 total wing area = 510 square feet horizontal forward rudder = 48 square feet distance from nose to tail = 21 feet, 1 inch unmanned weight = 605 pounds (including engine, propellers, and chain drive) wing skeleton covered with white French sateen fabric propeller shafts made of steel

 

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