Dexter Thomas 5/15/11

The Wright Brothers

The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903. The Wright brothers were two of seven children born to Milton Wright of English and Dutch descent and Susan Catherine Koerner. Wilbur Wright was born near Millville, Indiana in 1867; Orville in Dayton, Ohio in 1871. The brothers were never married while alive. The other Wright siblings were named Reuchlin, Lorin, Katharine, and twins Otis and Ida that died while they were infants. In 1878 their father, who traveled often as a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, brought home a toy helicopter for his two younger sons. The device was based on an invention of French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Pnaud. Wilbur and Orville played with it until it broke, and then built their own. In later years, they pointed to their experience with the toy as the initial spark of their interest in flying. They both attended high school, but did not receive diplomas. The family's abrupt move in 1884 from Richmond, Indiana to Dayton prevented Wilbur from receiving his diploma after finishing four years of high school. During the winter of 188586 when he was playing hockey with friends, Wilbur was accidentally struck in the face by a hockey stick, where he loss of his front teeth. From then on, he had been vigorous and athletic, and although his injuries didnt appear severe, he became withdrawn, and did not attend Yale as planned. Had he enrolled, his career might have taken a very different path than the extraordinary one he eventually followed with his brother. Instead, he spent the next few years caring for his terminally ill mother who suffered from tuberculosis. He assisted his father during times of controversy within the Brethren Church, but became uneasy over his own lack of ambition. During Orvilles junior year of high school, he had dropped out of school to start a printing in 1889, having built his own printing press with the help from Wilbur. Being able to shake off his depression, Wilbur was able to help his brother more by becoming the publisher of the West Side News, which didnt carry on too far. . One of their clients for printing jobs was Orville's friend and classmate in high school, Paul Laurence Dunbar, who rose to international acclaim as a ground-breaking African-American poet and writer. The Wrights printed The Dayton Tattler, a weekly newspaper that Dunbar had edited for a brief period. With the capitalizing growth of Bicycles nationwide, they opened their own bike sales and repair shop in 1892, then manufacturing their own brands in 1896. They used this endeavor to further fund there interest in flight. In the early or late 1890s, they read
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a magazine and newspaper articles and possibly photos of the glides done by Otto Lilienthal in Germany. The year of 1896 brought many three important aeronautical events. In May of that year, Samuel Langley flew a steam-powered aircraft. In the summer Octave Chanute brought together several men who had tested different types of gliders over sand dunes along the shores of Lake Michigan, and in August, Lilienthal was killed by the plunge of his own glider. These plus many other events lodged the consciousness of the two brothers. Sometime in May 1899, Wilbur had written a letter to the Smithsonian Institution, requesting some information and publications about aeronautics. They began their mechanical aeronautical experiments that year. The Wright Brothers has always had a unified public image, always sharing the credit for whatever they did, even though Wilbur always took the initiative in last years of the 1800s, by writing of MY machine or MY plans before Orville really became more involved, when the first person singular became WE or OUR. Even though they knew about Lilienthals fate, they still favored the strategy, which was to practice gliding in order to master the art of control before actually attempting motor-driving flight. At that time, the British aeronaut Percy Pilcher died in a hang gliding crash in 1899, which reinforced their opinion that only a reliable method of pilot control was the key to successful and safe flight. They had regarded control as the unsolved flying problem. In 1900 the two brothers journeyed to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to begin their gliding experiments. Wilbur had chosen the locale on the basis of a reply from his letter to Octave Chanute, whose suggestion included the Atlantic coast for it regular breezes and a soft landing surfing. The location, although it being remote, it was close to Dayton than other places that Chanute suggested. The spot had given them privacy from the reporters, who turned Chanutes experiments into something of a circus. He visited them in camp each section but not the powered flights. The brothers' contracts with the U.S. Army and a French syndicate depended on successful public flight demonstrations that met certain conditions. The brothers had to divide their efforts. Wilbur sailed for Europe; Orville would fly near Washington, D.C. His first flight lasted only one minute 45 seconds, but his ability to effortlessly make banking turns and fly a circle amazed and stunned onlookers, including several pioneer French aviators, among them Louis Bleriot. In the following days, Wilbur made a series of technically challenging flights, including figure-eight, demonstrating his skills as a pilot and the capability of his flying machine, which far surpassed those of all other pilot pioneers. The French public was thrilled by Wilbur's feats and flocked to the field by the thousands. The Wright brothers catapulted to world fame overnight. Former doubters issued apologies and effusive praise. Orville followed his brother's success by demonstrating another nearly identical Flyer to the United States Army at Fort Myer,
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Virginia, starting on September 3, 1908. On September 9, he made the first hour-long flight, lasting 62 minutes and 15 seconds. On September 17, Army lieutenant Thomas Selfridge rode along as his passenger, serving as an official observer. A few minutes into the flight, a propeller split and shattered, and sent the aircraft out of control. Selfridge suffered a fractured skull in the crash and died that evening in the nearby Army hospital, becoming the first airplane crash fatality. Orville was badly injured, suffering a broken left leg and four broken ribs. Twelve years later, after he suffered increasingly severe pains, X-rays revealed the accident had also caused three hip bone fractures and a dislocated hip. Deeply shocked by the accident, Wilbur determined to make even more impressive flight demonstrations; in the ensuing days and weeks he set new records for altitude and duration. In January 1909 Orville and Katharine joined him in France, and for a time they were the three most famous people in the world, sought after by royalty, the rich, reporters and the public. The kings of England, Spain and Italy came to see Wilbur fly. Neither brother married. Wilbur once quipped that he "did not have time for both a wife and an airplane. He became ill on a trip to Boston in April 1912. After returning to Dayton, he was diagnosed with typhoid fever. He lingered in and out of consciousness for several weeks until he died, at age 45, in the Wright family home on May 30. His father Milton wrote about Wilbur in his diary: "A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadfastly, he lived and died. Orville died on January 30, 1948 after his second heart attack, having lived from the horse-and-buggy age to the dawn of supersonic flight. He was followed a day later by John T. Daniels, the Coast Guardsman who took their famous first flight photo. Both brothers are buried at the family plot at Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio.