Wilbur Wright, the son
of a United Brethren Church bishop and the brother of Orville
Wright, was born
in Millville, Indiana, in 1867. When Orville was seven and Wilbur
was eleven, their father gave them a model
monoplane that had been designed by Alphonse
Pénaud.
They were fascinated by the toy and told themselves that one day they
would make an aeroplane that would fly.
In 1888 Orville started
a printing business. Wilbur joined him and together they designed
and built a new printing press. Four years later the brothers sold
their printing business and opened a bicycle shop to sell and repair
bicycles in Dayton, Ohio. The shop was a great success as both brothers
were talented engineers.
In August, 1896, the brothers
read about the death of Otto Lilienthal
in a flying accident. Lilienthal, a German engineer, had for many
years been building flying machines. Wilbur Wright later wrote: "The
brief notice which appeared in the telegraphic news at the time aroused
a passive interest which had existed from my childhood." Soon
afterwards the Wright brothers acquired a copy of Lilienthal's Bird
Flight as a Basis for Aviation.
They also read Etienne-Jules
Marey's book, The Flight of Birds.
Orville
Wright commented:
"Learning the secret of flight from a bird was a good deal like
learning the secret of magic from a magician". According
to Wilbur "we soon passed from the reading to the thinking stage,
and finally to the working stage."
Percy
Pilcher, another figure trying to develop a flying machine was
killed on a glider flight in October 1899. This convinced the Wright
brothers to concentrate on building kites controlled from the ground.
These kites had controls for warping the wings to achieve control
of direction and stability.
By 1901 the Wrights had
developed a successful glider and broke the world record by reaching
389 feet (118 m). Not satisfied with this the following year one of
their gliders went even higher and achieved 600 feet (183 m). They
now decided to build an aeroplane. To help them in this they moved
to Kitty Hawk, an isolated fishing village in North Carolina. At Kitty
Hawk they had miles of empty sand dunes to carry out their experiments.
The brothers also built a small wind tunnel so they could test various
wing designs and cambers.
The Wrights also decided
to develop their own engine and propeller. With the help of their
wind tunnel, they were able to carry out research that enabled them
to develop a propeller that converted 66 per cent of the engine's
power into forward thrust. Their experiments revealled that the propeller
tilted the aircraft in the direction opposite to the way it turned.
Therefore the Wrights used two propellers, turning in opposite directions.
Samuel
Pierpont Langley of
the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory was also busy developing
a flying machine. Powered by a gasoline engine, the Aerodrome
attempted to make its first flight on 7th October, 1903. The Aerodrome
crashed soon after leaving the launch pad on the Potomac River. The
front wing was badly damaged but this was repaired and a second attempt
was made on 9th December. This time the rear wing and tail completely
collapsed during the launch.
Wilbur and Orville Wright
watched these developments with interest. They did not allow Samuel
Pierpont Langley's failure
to damper their own enthusiasm to create a flying machine. On 17th
December, 1903, the brothers were ready to test out the areoplane
they called Flyer I. Orville took
the controls and the flight only lasted 12 seconds. However, the aircraft
travelled 118 feet (36 m), 10 feet (3 m) above the sand. The brothers
made a couple more flights and a few hours after Orville's first flight,
Wilbur managed to clear 852 feet (260 m) in 59 seconds. After he landed
a gust of wind caught the Flyer I
and blew it over, damaging it so badly that it never flew again.
There might have been doubts
about the truth of these test runs. However, as well as aviators,
the Wright brothers were also interested in photography and had arranged
for these flights to be captured on camera. Despite this evidence
other aviators, especially in France, refused
to believe that the Wright brothers had made the first ever powered
flight. Instead they preferred to believe that Clement
Adler had done this in 1897.
The Wright brothers now
began negotiations with various governments around the world. Two
years later they sold their designs for the Flyer
I for $30,000 (about $600,000 in today's money). The Wright
brothers now returned to manufacturing areoplanes. In October, 1905,
the Flyer III stayed in the air
for 38 minutes.
In 1908 the brothers produced
the Wright Model A. This was a
two-seater with an improved control system. It had a much more powerful
engine and could reach a speed of 44 mph (71 kpm). However, on 17th
September, the brothers had their first plane crash. Orville
Wright was seriously
injured and his passenger, Thomas Selfridge, was killed.
Wilbur took the machine
to France and at a demonstration at the military field at Camp d'Auvours,
set an endurance record of 2 hours 20 minutes 23 seconds. It also
set an altitude record of 362 feet (110 m). As a result of the tests
the brothers were able to sell construction licences for the Wright
Model A to Britain, France and Germany.
Wilbur Wright died from
typhoid fever in 1912.
Orville Wright, watched by
Wilbur Wright, pilots
the Flyer in its first flight on 17th December, 1903
(1)
Julian Borger, The
Guardian (18th December, 2003)
The original Wright Flyer
got off the ground for 12 seconds and flew for barely 35 metres. But
this was still 12 seconds and 35 metres more than an exact replica
managed yesterday, during initial attempts to re-enact the Wright
brothers' feat. Determined to mark the centenary of the first flight,
hundreds of Americans gathered at the spot on the Outer Banks of North
Carolina where the first long hop took place.
The occasion, however,
quickly became a re-enactment of the setbacks that the pair of bicycle
mechanics faced a hundred years ago.
One attempt to fly the
replica of the Wright Flyer, in front of President Bush and some of
the surviving greats of aviation history, had to be postponed due
to torrential rain.
A later attempt to get
off the ground failed because of a lack of headwind, and the wood
and canvas contraption flopped on to the muddy fields at Kill Devil
Hills, near the town of Kitty Hawk.
Enthusiasts were still
trying to get the replica off the ground last night.
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