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Wright Brothers National Memorial
- Introduction
- The
Wright
Brothers
of
Dayton,
Ohio
- Young
Business Partners
- Pioneers
of Flight
- Problems
of Flight
- First
Experiments, 1899
- Why
Kitty Hawk?
- Glider
Experiments, 1900
- Glider
Experiments, 1901
- Wind-Tunnel
Tests, 1901
- Glider
Experiments, 1902
- The
Powered Machine, 1903
- December
17, 1903: The Day Man First Flew
- The
Original
Airplane
Exhibited
- The
National Memorial
- Guide
to the Area
Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills are American place names that will live
in history. Here Wilbur and Orville Wright, two unassuming brothers
with a passion for advancing aeronautical knowledge, and the
willingness to undertake a scientific adventure, made the world's first
successful flight of a man-carrying, power-driven, heavier-than-air
machine. December 17, 1903, was the day man first flew in this machine.
It was a cold and windy day when Orville Wright climbed aboard their
plane at 10:35 a.m. His first power-driven flight of 120 feet lasted
just 12 seconds when he flew over a wind-swept stretch of level sand
now preserved at Wright Brothers National Memorial. From those moments
the science of aeronautics has borne the impress of the Wright's'
achievements.
The two young men who were to be the first to fly were born in the
midwest shortly after the Civil War. Wilbur Wright was born on a farm
near Millville, 8 miles east of New Castle, Ind., April 16, 1867. Four
years younger, Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio, August 19,
1871. They were the sons of Rev. Milton Wright, a minister, and later
bishop, of the United Brethren Church, and Susan Koerner Wright. Both
parents had been teachers. When his sons were small, Bishop Wright was
editor of the church's publications. Mrs. Wright had "a streak of her
father's mechanical ability," and she had a reputation in the family
for being able "to mend anything." Bishop and Mrs. Wright also had two
older sons, Reuchlin and Lorin, and a younger daughter, Katharine.
In the Wright home, children were encouraged to pursue
intellectual interests and to investigate whatever aroused their
curiosity. Wilbur and Orville displayed mechanical aptitude, the gift
of original thinking, and a pioneering urge. Sharing a common interest
in mechanical devices, the boys made kites and toy helicopters, built a
lathe and a printing press that worked. Wilbur wrote of their close
associations:
- From the time we were little children my brother
Orville and myself
- lived together, played together, worked together and,
in fact, thought
- together. We usually owned all our toys in common,
talked over our
- thoughts and aspirations so that nearly everything that
was done in
- our lives has been the result of conversations,
suggestions and
- discussions between us.
Mrs. Wright died in 1889. It was that year that the brothers
assembled their printing press from old parts found in junk yards and
barns and began to publish a successful neighborhood weekly newspaper.
Although each brother attended high school the full time required for a
diploma, neither of them formally graduated from high school or
attended college. Their two older brothers married and established
homes of their own, but Wilbur and Orville remained bachelors. After
completing their schooling they continued to live with their father and
schoolteacher sister in a modest framehouse in Dayton.
Wilbur and Orville formed the Wright Cycle Company in 1892 to sell
bicycles. Business increased, and they soon found that they needed to
add a repair shop. Moderately successful, both in selling new bicycles
and general repairing, the brothers twice moved their expanding
business to larger quarters. As a next step they began to manufacture
bicycles. They called their first bicycle the "Van Cleve" after their
pioneer ancestors; a later model manufactured was named the "St.
Clair"; and finally they made a low-priced model known as the "Wright
Special." They manufactured several hundred bicycles of their own brand
before discontinuing the business in order to devote their full time to
aviation.
Inseparable companions in business and personal life, the
brothers shared everything from a joint bank account to their
laboratory work while unraveling the problems of flight. They were not
longfaced and dour; both were sprightly and humor-loving. They loved
small children and dogs, and they played musical instruments, sang, and
enjoyed practical jokes.
The bicycle business provided the funds for the Wrights''
work in aviation, and afforded them sufficient leisure to pursue their
interest in flying. Their father gave each of his children $1,000. This
Wilbur and Orville invested in stock and never drew on for their
aviation work--but it was there in case of necessity. They were never
financed by anyone.
The repair and manufacture of bicycles sharpened the brothers
mechanical skill. The enterprise also developed their business
experience, helpful later when they took the lead in founding the
aviation industry. In their construction of flying machines, Wilbur and
Orville often used the same equipment and tools used in repairing
bicycles. They conducted many of their scientific experiments in the
backroom of their shop, and most of the parts used in the first
successful airplane were built there.
Since the dawn of history the idea of human flight has intrigued
mankind. As the influence of the Wrights' achievements will last far
into the future, so will the contributions of aeronautical pioneers who
probed the mysteries of flight before Wilbur and Orville solved the
problem. The research of these imaginative pioneer investigators
influenced the brothers. In studying those earlier works the Wrights
found many points that interested them. The knowledge that other
pioneers had shared their faith in the possibility of heavier-than-air
flight helped their morale.
In the pioneers' direct line of descent from the Greek legend
of Daedalus and Icarius to the Wrights is Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci
drew some interesting sketches in the late 15th century, though a
machine built from his drawings could not possibly have flown. The
interest in England of Sir George Cayley influenced other men to
undertake the problem.
A Frenchman, Alphonse Penaud experimented with toy
helicopters, using twisted rubber bands for motive power. It was a
Penaud toy helicopter, given to Wilbur and Orville by their father,
that first stirred their childhood interest in flying. However, in
Europe, most experimenters had turned from heavier-than-air machines to
lighter-than-air dirigible balloons by the time the brothers took up
the problem of heavier-than-air flight. The American-born Sir Hiram
Maxim, after spending $100,000, had abandoned his work; the machine
built by Clement Ader, at the expense of the French Government, had
been a failure. None of the early experimenters attained sufficient
knowledge of the aerodynamic principles involved to be able to design a
successful powered machine capable of free, controlled, and sustained
flight.
Only a few of the general public could distinguish between a
heavier-than-air powered flying machine and a lighter-than-air gas bag
equipped with propellers. Few knew that the problem of powered flight
was not to fill a balloon with gas or hot air and float in it, or to
glide in a complicated kite against air currents. Many among those who
realized the obstacles to heavier-than-air flight in a powered machine
believed it was as impossible as perpetual motion.
Wilbur and Orville acknowledged Otto Lilienthal, a famous
German pioneer in aviation, as their greatest inspiration. Recognized
as the father of gliding, Lilienthal made hundreds of glides with
various apparatuses employing birdlike wings. First to explain
scientifically why curved surfaces in a flying machine are superior to
flat surfaces, Lilienthal's work on wing surfaces and air pressure
proved valuable to the Wrights. Interested in scientific affairs, the
brothers read with fascination and excitement, reports in 1895 of
gliding flights by Lilienthal. But the art of gliding was neither a
game nor child's play for aviation's pioneers. Lilienthal crashed and
died as a result of a glider accident in 1896. Reading of his death,
the Wrights wondered if they could go on from where he had left off.
Eventually the Wrights were ready to begin "a systematic
study of the subject in preparation for practical work," and hoped to
make contributions "to help on the future worker who will attain final
success." Searching for, but finding little material on attempts to fly
in the Dayton Public Library, Wilbur wrote, in May 1899, to the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington seeking information about
publications to read on aeronautics. The list of books and articles
suggested by the Smithsonian included works by Dr. Samuel P. Langley
who later became its director and secretary. The brothers were
encouraged by seeing that a man of Langley's scientific standing
believed in the possibility of flight at a time when few people did.
Langley had been making aeronautical studies and experiments and
succeeded in building power-driven models that flew. Later he built and
attempted to fly a full-size, man-carrying powered machine; but in this
he failed.
When a model flies, it does not necessarily follow that a
full-size machine of the same design will also fly. As boys Wilbur and
Orville had built model Penaud helicopters that flew, but even the
Wrights could not later have built a successful man-carrying machine by
merely following Penaud's same general design. The difficulty is--as
early experimenters with model machines unhappily discovered--that when
the linear measurement of a model is doubled it needs about eight times
the power to make it fly.
Among the sources suggested by the Smithsonian was Octave
Chanute's Progress in Flying Machines. Chanute, a successful
contruction engineer living in Chicago, had directed experiments with
gliders of his own design. A longtime encouraging friend and adviser to
the Wrights, Chanute made an exhaustive study of the history of
aeronautics.
A pioneer experimenter once said that "it is easy to invent a flying
machine; it is more difficult to build one--but to make one fly is
everything." As Lilienthal had seen, the Wrights also saw that, if ever
they were to make progress in solving the problems of flight, they had
not only to study them theoretically, but also to get up into the air
in gliders and test their theories by actual practice. "If you are
looking for perfect safety," said Wilbur, "you will do well to sit on a
fence and watch the birds; but if you really wish to learn, you must
mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial."
Preferring the air to a fence, the brothers recognized that when
undertaking to fly gliders their first major problem would be how to
fly safely so they could live long enough to learn to fly a powered
machine.
Wilbur wrote his father:
- I do not intend to take dangerous chances, both because
I have no
- wish to get hurt and because a fall would stop my
experimenting, which
- I would not like at all. The man who wishes to keep at
the problem long
- enough to really learn anything positively must not
take dangerous risks.
- Carelessness and overconfidence are usually more
dangerous than
- deliberately accepted risks.
The problem of equilibrium was the second major problem that
the brothers had to solve. They needed to devise measures to steer or
control a flying machine both up and down and to each side.
When the Wrights started their investigations they believed
that others had already solved the problems of how to design wings,
propellers, and motors. Only later did they realize that they must also
correctly design both the wings and the propellers and build their own
motor. Thus their third major problem became how to design wings
sufficiently strong to support the weight of the machine, motor, and
pilot to take the greatest advantage of air particles providing lift by
streaming along the upper and lower surfaces of the wings.
A fourth major problem that faced Wilbur and Orville was how
to design a light-weight, high-powered engine and the propellers
required to drive the machine through the air. They were to find that
these problems were interrelated and that they would solve them only
after 4 1/2 years of spare-time study and experimentation.
Wilbur and Orville realized that the motion of the air on a flying
machine is frequently variable and tricky, causing the machine to rear
up or down, or one wing to rise higher than the other, and the machine
to become unstable. The problem--how to control a flying machine--was
to find a method of restoring the machine's equilibrium both up and
down and to each side.
Most pre-Wright experimenters had relied on human control to
balance flying machines. The operator simply shifted the weight of his
body to tilt the wings in the direction opposite from adverse action of
the wind. But the continual contortions and acrobatics required to
maintain equilibrium by this method were not within the skill of many
experimenters. While using it, both Lilienthal and Percy S. Pilcher, an
English experimenter, were killed in nose dives.
Chanute sought to effect "automatic stability" independent of
the operator by causing the flying machine's structurally automatic
supporting surfaces to adjust positions by flexible joints
automatically with changes in the wind. Wilbur and Orville were to
conceive a different method of control than that sought by Chanute,
though they themselves later designed and patented an "automatic"
device-- a pendulum analogous to Sperry's gyroscope.
At Dayton, in 1899, the Wrights were ready to move beyond the
first phase of study, speculation, and discussion. Their combined
attack on the problem of equilibrium resulted in the conception of one
of the fundamental principles of aeronautics. Their reasoned principle
for lateral control of a flying machine was that the movement of an
airfoil about its longitudinal axis could be controlled by means of a
pressure differential exerted on its opposing lateral extremities (the
principle known today as aileron control). Both modern-day ailerons and
the Wrights' wing-warping are merely arbitrary mechanical devices for
applying this principle. The brothers' first achievement was the
conception of the principle itself.
Wilbur and Orville decided first to test their principle of
control in a small model glider to see if it worked, thus sparing
themselves from being injured if it did not. At first it occurred to
them to effect the result of their principle by pivoting the right and
left wings on geared shafts at the stable center of a glider. One wing
would turn upward in front when the other turned down, and the balance
would readjust. But there seemed to be no way to make this device
strong enough without making the glider too heavy. They finally decided
on warping or twisting the wings as the simplest and most effective
method to effect the result of their principle. (It still would be
effective if used today.) The wingtips were to be warped by means of
cables controlled by the operator. By warping the wingtips, they
expected to vary the inclination of sections of the wings at the tips,
and obtain force for restoring balance from the difference in the lifts
of the two wingtips.
While twisting a small pasteboard box with opposite ends
removed, Wilbur
observed that though the vertical sides were rigid endwise, the top and
bottom sides could be twisted to have different angles at the opposite
ends. Here was a simple means of warping the wings as they intended.
They decided that a biplane's wings could be twisted or warped in like
manner, enabling them while flying in a glider to warp the wings on the
right and left sides to present their surfaces to the air at different
angles. By warping the wingtips the operator would be able to increase
the angle of attack on one wingtip and decrease it on the other. Thus,
they believed, the operator could obtain a greater lift on whichever
side he needed it and less lift on the other side in order to assure
lateral equilibrium. (They later had to modify this by adding a movable
vertical tail. )
To test their principle safely, the brothers built a model
glider-- actually a kite--with a 5-foot wingspan. Flown as a kite at
Dayton, the model glider's wing surfaces were warped by the use of four
cords reaching from the upper and lower wingtips on each side to the
operator on the ground. Balance from front to rear was maintained in
part by an elevator tested variously at the front and rear, as well as
by other means. The Wrights believed after the tests that the model
glider had demonstrated the efficiency of their system of obtaining
both lateral and longitudinal control.
Wilbur and Orville now proposed to build a full-size, man-carrying
glider on which to test their method of control. Highly enthusiastic
with the idea of gliding as a sport, they started thinking of a place
for testing it. To get practice in operating the glider, they would
first fly it as a kite before making gliding flights. For kite flying,
steady winds and flat, open country were needed; for the gliding, a
sandy area for soft landings and sandhill slopes free of trees and
shrubs for low-level flights. The Wrights' hometown of Dayton and its
environs were not suitable for extensive glider trials. But because of
their business demands, they wanted a site fairly close at hand.
On May 13, 1900, Wilbur wrote his first letter to Chanute
asking advice on a suitable location to test a glider. In this letter
to the man who became their friend, mentor, and most important
correspondent, Wilbur stated:
- 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....
- It is possible to fly without motors, but not without
knowledge & skill.
- This I conceive to be fortunate, for man, by reason of
his greater intellect,
- can more reasonably hope to equal birds in knowledge,
than
- to equal nature in the perfection of her machinery.
Chanute suggested beach locations for glider tests in
California, Florida, Georgia, or South Carolina. But after a study of
wind records obtained from the Weather Bureau at Washington, the
Wrights decided that Kitty Hawk, N.C., seemed to meet their
requirements better than any other place within that distance from
their home. To confirm this, they wrote to Kitty Hawk, and the replies
from Joseph J. Dosher and William J. Tate convinced the brothers that
Kitty Hawk was the ideal place for their experiments. They decided to
go there as soon as they could build their glider and their bicycle
business permitted.
At Dayton, the Wrights began to assemble parts and materials for a
full-size, man-carrying glider to test their method of warping the
wings to achieve lateral control, and a forward rudder for fore-and-aft
balance. In September 1900 Wilbur undertook the journey to Kitty Hawk.
Orville followed him later. At the turn of the century such a trip to
the isolated village required time and patience. It lies on the Outer
Banks of North Carolina between broad Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic
Ocean. Then no bridges connected it with the mainland so travel across
the sound was by boat.
Wilbur traveled by train from Dayton to Elizabeth City, N.C.,
the nearest railroad point to his destination. Asking the first persons
he chanced to meet about Kitty Hawk he learned that "no one seemed to
know anything about the place or how to get there." Those better
informed had vexing information: the boat making weekly trips to the
Outer Banks had gone the day before. For several days he patiently
waited to be dubiously rewarded by passage with Israel Perry on a
flat-bottom fishing schooner, then anchored 3 miles down the Pasquotank
River from the wharf at Elizabeth City.
The small skiff used to take Wilbur from the wharf out to the
anchored schooner was loaded almost to the gunwale with three men and
supplies. Noticing that the skiff leaked badly, Wilbur asked if it was
safe. "Oh," Perry assured him, "it's safer than the big boat." Even so,
the schooner managed to sail down the Pasquotank River and through
Albemarle Sound safely enough in the rough weather.
It was 9 o'clock the following night before the schooner
reached the wharf at Kitty Hawk. Though hungry and aching from the
strain of holding on while the schooner rolled and pitched, Wilbur did
not go shore until the next morning.
Later, Orville joined Wilbur at Kitty Hawk where both
brothers boarded and lodged with the family of William J. Tate until
October 4, when they set up their own camp about half a mile away from
the village. Native Outer Bankers showed only mild interest in the
Wrights' hopes of flying, but they became excited when they learned
that the brothers were keeping in their tent, as fuel for a newfangled
gasoline cookstove, the first barrel of gasoline ever taken to the
Kitty Hawk area. Fearing an explosion, local folk warily warned their
children to keep well away from the brothers' tent. Orville was the
cook while in camp; to Wilbur fell the dish- washing chore. Orville always felt that he
had the better of the bargain.
The new glider was a double-decker with a span of about 17
feet, and a total lifting area of 165 square feet. Its weight with
operator was 190 pounds. It cost $15 to make. The uprights were jointed
to the top and bottom wings with flexible hinges, and the glider was
trussed with steel wires laterally, but not in the fore-and-aft
direction. The operator, lying prone on the lower wing to lessen head
resistance, maintained lateral equilibrium by tightening a key wire
which, in turn, tightened every other wire, applying twist to the
wingtips. The glider had no tail. Its wing curvature was less than
Lilienthal had used.
Wilbur and Orville placed the horizontal operative rudder or
elevator in front to provide longitudinal stability. They believed that
by placing it in front they would have more up-and-down control to
forestall nose dives similar to those that had killed Lilienthal and
Pilcher. The Wrights did not invent the elevator. They did use it to
more advantage than had earlier experimenters: it was in front of the
wings; it was operative instead of fixed; and it flexed to present a
convex surface to the air, instead of a flat surface.
The Wrights first flew the glider in the open as a kite. They
held it with two ropes and operated the balancing system by cords from
the ground. The first day's experiments were attempted with a man on
board, using a derrick erected on a hill just south of their camp. The
glider was not flown from the derrick again at Kitty Hawk after the
first day's tests. On days when the wind was too light to support a man
on the glider, they used chain for ballast or flew the machine as a
kite in the open without ballast.
Before returning to Dayton, the brothers were determined to
try gliding on the side of a hill with a man on board. Four miles south
of their camp was a magnificent sand dune about 100 feet high, covering
26 acres, called Kill Devil Hill. They carried their glider to this
hill where they made about a dozen free flights down its side.
To take-off from the hillside, one brother and an assistant
holding the ends of the glider ran forward against the wind, while the
brother who was to operate it ran with them until the machine began to
"take hold" of the air, or was airborne. Then the operator jumped
aboard and glided free down the hill for 300 or 400 feet, usually
gliding only 3 or 4 feet above the soft, sandy ground. The Wrights
repeatedly made landings on sledlike skids while moving at a speed of
more than 20 miles an hour. The glider was not damaged, nor did the
brothers receive any injury. "The machine seemed a rather docile
thing," Orville wrote to his sister, from Kitty Hawk, "and we taught it
to behave fairly well."
Wilbur and Orville had misread the weather charts they had
studied when choosing Kitty Hawk as the location for their experiments.
The charts had listed monthly averages, while the day-by-day weather
proved to be less than ideal. On some days tests could not be made
because of a dead calm; other days the wind blew too strong--up to 45
miles an hour. Orville wrote about the strong winds that blew:
- A little excitement once in a while is not undesirable,
but every night,
- especially when you are so sleepy, it becomes a little
monotonous....
- About two or three nights a week we have to crawl up at
ten or eleven
- o'clock to hold the tent down.... We certainly can't
complain of
- the place. We came down here for wind and sand, and we
have got
- them.
Even though the Wrights had only brief spells of favorable
weather for practice, they learned much from their experiments. They
were pleased with the efficiency of wing-warping to obtain lateral
balance, and the horizontal rudder for fore-and-aft control worked
better than they had expected. Though Wilbur and Orville believed that
fore-and-aft balance and lateral balance were equally important, they
were gratified that fore-and-aft balance was so easily attained. They
made careful measurements of lift, drag, and angle of attack. The main
defect of the glider was its inadequate lifting power. This might be
due, the brothers conjectured, to insufficient curvature or camber of
the wings which did not have the curvature used by Lilienthal, or
perhaps even the Lilienthal tables of air pressure might be in error.
Although important strides had been made toward solving the
problem of control, Wilbur and Orville lacked opportunity for
sufficient practice since they did not get much time in the air. There
still remained much for them to learn before solving the major problems
of how to (1) design wings properly, (2) control the aircraft in
flight, and (3) provide power, in order to build and fly a powered
machine. They knew that they must learn how properly to build and
control a glider before attempting to add a motor. "When once a machine
is under proper control under all conditions," Wilbur wrote his father
from camp, "the motor problem will be quickly solved. A failure of
motor will then mean simply a slow descent & safe landing instead
of a disastrous fall." They looked forward to the next slack season in
the bicycle business so that they might resume experiments with a new
glider.
In July 1901 the Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk during a downpour of
rain immediately after a storm had broken anemometer cups at 93 miles
an hour. There followed a miserable week spent fighting mosquitoes,
"which came in a mighty cloud, almost darkening the sun." They
attempted to escape by going to bed early, wrapped up in blankets with
only noses protruding cautiously from the folds. But the July heat
became unbearable beneath the blankets. When they partly uncovered, the
mosquitoes again swooped down upon them, forcing a perspiring retreat
once more behind blankets. But Wilbur and Orville pushed forward
good-humoredly and energetically to solve the problem of flight.
During the 1900-1902 experiments, the Wright family, and the
brothers themselves, considered the brother's stay in camp at Kitty
Hawk simply as pleasure trips or vacations. Everyone in the family was
glad to have them go to their North Carolina camp. The advantages of
the sunshine, sea breezes, and outdoor exercise outweighed occasional
discomforts and seemed to be good for their health. Indeed, their
sister Katharine wrote, "Will and Orv . . . think that life at Kitty
Hawk cures all ills, you know."
Being sons of a bishop who enjoined them "to honor the
Sabbath," the brothers did not test their gliders on Sundays while in
camp. On those days they often visited with the friendly and hospitable
people in Kitty Hawk, and at nearby lifesaving stations. They
frequently wrote home. One of Orville's hobbies--photography--also
resulted in a fine record of the early experiments. They collected
shells and went hunting and fishing. Orville observed while in camp,
"This is great country for fishing and hunting. The fish are so thick
you see dozens of them whenever you look down into the water."
For living quarters the Wrights continued using a tent. To
provide more space they erected a combined glider storage shed and
workshop, the building of which they undertook on arrival at camp in
1901. Fresh water was secured nearby by driving a pipe 10 feet or more
into the sand.
Their new campsite was located 4 miles south of Kitty Hawk,
about 1,000 feet north of Kill Devil Hill, which they had used for
gliding the season before and which they now realized offered the best
test opportunities. Near the camp were four dunes formed of sand heaped
by the winds. These dunes were collectively named Kill Devil Hills.
They were constantly changing in height and slope, according to the
direction and force of the prevailing winds. Using three of the four
Kill Devil Hills for gliding experiments during the period 1900-1903,
the Wrights called these the Big Kill Devil Hill, the West Hill, and
the Little Hill.
On the 1901 trip to camp the brothers brought with them parts
to be assembled into a larger glider than the one tested in 1900.
Knowing it would be impractical to house the larger glider with them in
the tent, as they had done with the smaller one, they built a rough
frame shed for the new glider and for use as a workshop. This building
was 25 feet long and 16 feet wide. Its ends were hinged at the top near
the gable parts to form doors so the glider could be removed or stored
easily. The doors also served as awnings at the ends of the building.
When assembled, the new glider had a wingspan of 22 feet. It
weighed 98 pounds, nearly double the weight of the earlier glider. To
give it greater lifting power, the glider had a total lifting area of
290 square feet, considerably larger than the 165-foot wing area of the
previous glider. The 1901 glider was a much larger machine than anyone
had ever dared try to fly. It had the same system of, control and
general design as the first one. The Wrights increased the camber in
this glider from 1 in 22 to l in 12 to conform to the shape prescribed
by Lilienthal's tables of air pressure. Chanute and others had used
these tables, and the brothers were rudely surprised upon finding that
wings with a camber of l in 12 were even less efficient than the
l-in-22 camber wings they had used in 1900.
The Wrights were also dismayed to discover that the fore-and
aft control was not as effective in a machine with wings of 1-in-12
camber. At times when gliding, they were required to use all their
skill and the full power of the rudder to prevent the glider from
rearing up so sharply as to lose all headway and then to plunge toward
the ground (a dangerous condition which they later referred to as
"stalling"--an aeronautical term still in use). The brothers reduced
the camber of the wings by adding little "trussing posts" to wires to
depress the ribs and flatten the curvature from that used by others to
1 in 18 to make the wings more like those of their 1900 glider. This
change resulted in control as good as it had been the year before.
Several hundred glides were made by Wilbur and Orville during
the 1901 season of experiments. Using the slopes of Kill Devil Hill and
West Hill, they sailed along in winds up to 27 miles an hour, breaking
all records for distance in gliding. But the brothers were far from
satisfied. They had learned a great deal about control, though their
glider was still too feeble in lifting itself off the ground and
staying aloft.
Occasionally in free flight, the warping of the wings to
increase the angle of attack to recover lateral balance did not produce
the desired result. The wing having the greater angle sometimes lost
speed as it lifted, compared with the opposite wing having a lesser
angle. The brothers then realized that the greater angle of the wing on
one side gave more resistance to forward motion and reduced the
relative speed of that wing. This decrease in speed more than
counterbalanced the effect of the larger angle of the wing in producing
lift. The Wrights determined that they must add something to their
method of controlling equilibrium to insure that equal speeds at the
wingtips would be maintained. However, a vertical tail as a solution to
the problem was left for the next glider.
Contrary to the scientific texts they had read, it was
becoming evident to the Wrights that the travel of the center of
pressure on curved or cambered surfaces was not always in the forward
direction as on a plane surface. They observed that when the angle of
attack on a plane surface was decreased, the center of pressure did
move toward the front edge; but on a cambered surface this was true only
when
large
angles
were
being
decreased.
Wilbur and Orville were discouraged that the ideas about
pressures on curved surfaces and travel of center of pressure, concepts
advanced by the most reputable writers on the subject, including
Langley, were unreliable. So perplexing did the problem seem that the
Wrights considered dropping their experiments altogether. It was
apparent, then, that better scientific data were needed before the
problems of flight could be solved.
On their way to Dayton from camp, Wilbur declared his belief
to Orville that not within a thousand years would man ever fly! He
later reduced this prophecy to 50 years. When they made known their
discouragement to Chanute he urged the brothers to continue their
researches, arguing that if they stopped experimenting it might be a
long time before anyone else would come as near to understanding the
problem or know how to work toward its solution. The admonitions of
Chanute and their own intense interest in scientific inquiry led them
to continue their research.
Always practical, the brothers did not take up the problem of
flight with the expectation of financial profit, and they had no
intention of ruining their bicycle business in pursuit of a dream. When
Chanute, who was kept fully informed of their researches offered
financial assistance, Wilbur wrote:
- For the present we would prefer not to accept it for
the reason that
- if we did not feel that the time spent in this work was
a dead loss in
- a financial sense, we would be unable to resist the
temptation to devote
- more time than our business will stand.
Shortly after their return to Dayton, the Wrights undertook a series of
scientific experiments which produced knowledge that no one had
possessed before and that contributed materially to their solution of
the problem of powered flight. Disappointed by the relatively poor
results achieved at Kitty Hawk with their 1901 glider, in the
construction of which they had relied on Lilienthal's and other
published tables of air pressures, the Wrights decided to start again
from scratch by conducting laboratory tests of their own and by
evolving their own air pressure tables from measurements made with
model airfoils (miniature wing surfaces) using a simple but effective
homemade wind tunnel.
Their second wind tunnel--the first was a makeshift affair
hurriedly contrived by Orville out of a wooden starch box and was used
for just a few days and then only in preliminary tests--consisted of an
open-end wooden box 6 feet long and 16 inches square (inside
dimensions). Through this box-like tunnel a flat-bladed fan forced a
current of air at a speed of about 25 miles an hour. The air entered
the tunnel through a funnel-shaped metal section equipped with a
honeycomb-type wind straightener to produce a uniform airflow. The most
ingenious parts of the Wright wind tunnel were the two balances they
designed for measuring the lift and drag of the model air-foils. Using
these balances, the forces could be read as angles from a pointer
moving over a protractor fixed to the floor of the tunnel.
In a period of about 2 months toward the close of 1901, the
Wrights tested more than 200 surfaces. They measured monoplane,
biplane, and triplane wing models. Among these shapes were models of
the bird-like wing surfaces used by Lilienthal and the tandem
arrangement (in which one wing followed the other) used by Langley.
They measured lift and drag forces at various angles from 2° to
45°, tangentials, gliding angles, and lift/drag ratios; they tested
the effect of aspect ratio and the effect on lift of varying the camber
of curvature of the surfaces, and tried a variety of shapes and
thicknesses for the leading and trailing edges, for wingtips, and for
such structural members as uprights.
As a result of these experiments, all carefully carried out
and minutely recorded, they obtained a body of data on air pressures
and on the aerodynamic properties of wings, control surfaces, and
structural parts. The extent and reliability of the information from
these tests far exceeded anything that had ever been available to other
experimenters or was to be available for at least another decade. Their
friend and correspondent, Octave Chanute, marveled at the speed and
accuracy with which this laboratory research was carried out. The
Wrights themselves soon came to realize that these scientific
experiments, on which they had embarked with considerable reluctance,
were in fact the most valuable part of all their work in that they gave
them accounts and detailed knowledge on which to base the design of
flying machines.
The wind-tunnel experiments concluded in December 1901 made
it possible for the Wrights to abandon the trial-and-error method of
construction that had gone into their 1900 and 1901 gliders and to
solve the basic problem of the correct design for lifting wings. Now
they were able to devote their time to the two other major problems
that had to be solved before human flight could be accomplished: a
system for obtaining full control in the air, and the addition of an
engine and propellers to the aircraft.
The Wrights had faith in the tables of air pressure compiled from their
wind-tunnel experiments. Their new knowledge was incorporated into a
larger glider which they built based on the aerodynamic data they had
gained. Now they wanted to verify those findings by actual gliding
experiments. At the end of August 1902, they were back in camp at Kill
Devil Hills for the third season of experiments. Battered by winter
gales, their camp needed repairing. They decided to build a 15-foot
addition to the combined workshop and glider-storage shed to use as a
kitchen and living quarters. Their new living quarters were "royal
luxuries" when compared with the tent facilities of previous camps.
The new glider had a wingspan of 32 feet, l inch; a
considerable increase over the wingspan of 22 feet for the 1901 glider.
Its lifting area, 305 square feet, was not much greater than the glider
of the previous year. Their wind-tunnel experiments having demonstrated
the importance of aspect ratio, the brothers made the wingspan about
six times the chord or fore-and-aft measurement instead of three.
Weighing 112 pounds, the glider was 16 feet, l inch long. In the 1900
and 1901 gliders, the wing-warping mechanism had been worked by
movement of the operator's feet. In the 1902 glider this mechanism
operated by sidewise movement of the operator's hips resting in a
cradle on the lower wing. Wilbur wrote his father from camp, "Our new
machine is a very great improvement over anything we had built before
and over anything any one has built."
This was the first Wright glider to have a tail, consisting
of fixed twin vertical vanes, as well as a front rudder. The tail's
purpose was to overcome the turning difficulties encountered in some of
the flights with the 1901 glider by maintaining equal speeds at the two
wingtips when the wings were warped. The tail was expected to
counterbalance the difference in resistance of the two wingtips. If the
wing on one side tended to swerve forward, then the Wrights thought the
tail, being more exposed to the wind on the same side, should stop the
glider from turning farther.
The tail on this glider, however, caused a new problem that
had not occurred in their previous gliders. At times, when struck by a
side gust of wind, the glider turned up sidewise and came sliding
laterally to the ground in spite of the effort and skill of the
operator in using the warping mechanism to control it. The brothers
were experiencing tailspins, though that term did not come into use
until several years later. When tailspins occurred, the glider would
sometimes slide so fast that the movement caused the tail's fixed
vertical vanes to aggravate the turning movement instead of
counteracting it by maintaining an equal speed at the opposite
wingtips. The result was worse than if there were no fixed vertical
tail.
While lying awake one night, Orville thought of converting
their vertical tail from two fixed vanes to a single movable rudder.
When making a turn or recovering lateral balance, this rudder could k
moved toward the low wing to compensate for the increased drag imparted
to the high wing by its greater angle of attack. Wilbur listened
attentively when Orville told him about the idea the next morning.
Then, without hesitation, Wilbur not only agreed to the change but
immediately proposed the further important modification of
interconnecting the rudder control wires with those of the
wing-warping. Thus by a single movement the operator could effect both
controls. Through the brilliant interplay of two inventive minds, all
the essentials of the Wright control system were completed within a few
hours.
The combination of warp and rudder control became the key to
successful control of their powered machine and to the control of all
aircraft since. (Modern airplanes--and indeed Wright planes after the
middle of their 1905 experimental season--do not have the aileron and
rudder controls permanently interconnected, but these controls can be
and are operated in combination when necessary.) Together with the use
of the forward elevator, it allowed the Wrights to perform all the
basic aerial maneuvers that were necessary for controlled flight. The
essential problem of how to control a flying machine about all three
axes was now solved
The trials of the 1902 glider were successful beyond
expectation. Nearly 1,000 glider flights were made by the Wrights from
Kill Devil, West, and Little Hills. A number of their glides were of
more than 600 feet, and a few of them were against a 36-mile-an-hour
wind. Flying in winds so strong required great skill on the part of the
operator. No previous experimenter had ever dared to try gliding in so
stiff a wind. Orville wrote his sister, "We now hold all the records!
The largest machine we handled in any kind {of weather, made the
longest distance glide (American), the longest time in the air, the
smallest angle of descent, and the highest wind!!!" Their record glide
for distance was 622 1/2 feet in 26 seconds. Their record glide for
angle was an angle of 5° for a glide of 156 feet. The 1902 glider
had about twice the dynamic efficiency of any other glider ever built
up to that time anywhere in the world.
By the end of the 1902 season of experiments, the Wrights had
solved two of the major problems: how properly to design wings and
control surfaces and how to control a flying machine about its three
axes. Most of the battle was now won. There remained only the major
problem of adding the engine and propellers. Before leaving camp, the
brothers began designing a new and still larger machine to be powered
with a motor.
It was the 1902 glider that the Wrights pictured and
described in the drawings and specifications of their patent, which
they applied for in March of the following year. Their patent was
established, through the action of the courts in the United States and
abroad, as the basic or pioneer airplane patent.
Home again in Dayton, the Wrights were ready to carry out plans begun
in camp at Kill Devil Hills for a powered machine. They invited bids
for a gasoline engine which would develop 8 to 9 horsepower, weigh no
more than 180 pounds or an average of 20 pounds per horsepower, and be
free of vibrations. None of the manufacturers to whom they wrote was
able to supply them with a motor light enough to meet these
specifications. The Wrights therefore designed and built their own
motor, with their mechanic, Charles E. Taylor, giving them enthusiastic
help in the construction.
The engine body and frame of the first "little gas motor"
which they began building in December 1902 broke while being tested.
Rebuilding the light-weight motor, they shop-tested it in May 1903. In
its final form the motor used in the first powered flights had 4
horizontal cylinders of 4-inch bore and 4-inch stroke, with an
aluminum-alloy crankcase and water jacket. The fuel tank had a capacity
of four-tenths of a gallon of gasoline. The entire power plant
including the engine, magneto, radiator, tank, water, fuel, tubing, and
accessories weighed a little more than 200 pounds.
Owing to certain peculiarities of design, after several
minutes' run the engine speed dropped to less than 75 percent of what
it was on cranking the motor. The highest engine speed measured
developed 15.76 horsepower at 1,200 revolutions per minute in the first
15 seconds after starting the cold motor. After several minutes' run
the number of revolutions dropped rapidly to 1,090 per minute,
developing 11.81 brake horsepower. Even so, the Wrights were pleasantly
surprised since they had not counted on more than 8 horsepower capable
of driving a machine weighing only about 625 pounds. Having a motor
with a power output of about 12 horsepower instead of 8, the Wrights
could build the machine to have a larger total weight than 625 pounds.
The motor was started with the aid of a dry-battery coil box.
After starting, ignition was provided by a low-tension magneto,
friction-driven by the flywheel. No pump was used in the cooling
system. The vertical sheet-steel radiator was attached to the central
forward upright of the machine.
When the brothers began to consider designing propellers,
they unhappily discovered that the forces in action on aerial
propellers had never been correctly resolved or defined. Since they did
not have sufficient time or funds to develop an efficient propeller by
the more costly trial-and-error means, it was necessary for them to
study the screw propeller from a theoretical standpoint. By studying
the problem, they hoped to develop a theory from which to design the
propellers for the powered machine. The problem was not easy, as the
Wrights wrote:
- What at first seemed a simple problem became more
complex the
- longer we studied it. With the machine moving forward,
the air flying
- backward, the propellers turning sidewise, and nothing
standing
- still, it seemed impossible to find a starting point
from which to trace
- the various simultaneous reactions. Contemplation of it
was confusing.
- After long arguments we often found ourselves in the
ludicrous position
- of each having been converted to the other's side, with
no more
- agreement than when the discussion began.
However, in a few months the brothers untangled the
conflicting factors and calculations. After studying the problem, they
felt sure of their ability to design propellers of exactly the right
diameter, pitch, and area for their need. Estimates derived from their
formulas led to their propellers operating at a higher rate of
efficiency (66 percent) than any others of that day. The tremendous
expenditure of power that characterized experiments of other
aeronautical investigators up to that time were due to inefficient
propellers as well as inefficient lifting surfaces.
The Wright propellers, designed according to their own
calculations, were the first propellers ever built by anyone for which
the performance could be predicted. After tests, their propellers
produced not quite l percent less thrust than they had calculated. In
useful work they gave about two thirds of the power expended--a third
more than had been achieved by such men as Sir Hiram Maxim and Dr.
Langley.
The brothers decided to use two propellers on their powered
machine for two reasons. First, by using two propellers they could
secure a reaction against a greater quantity of air and use a larger
pitch angle than was possible with one propeller; and second, having
the two propellers run in opposite directions, the gyroscopic action of
one would neutralize that of the other. The two pusher-type propellers
on the 1903 powered machine were mounted on tubular shafts about 10
feet apart, both driven by chains running over sprockets. By crossing
one of the chains in a figure eight, the propellers were run in
opposite directions to counteract torque. The propellers were made of
three laminations of spruce, each l 1/8 inches thick. The wood was
glued together and shaped with a hatchet and drawshave.
The 1903 machine had a wingspan of 40 feet, 4 inches; a camber of I in
20; a wing area of 510 square feet; and a length of 21 feet, 1 inch. It
weighed ~05 pounds without a pilot. The machine was not symmetrical
from side to side; the engine was placed on the lower wing to the right
of center to reduce the danger of its falling on the pilot. The pilot
would ride lying prone as on the gliders, but to the left of center to
balance the weight. The right wing was approximately 4 inches longer
than the left to provide additional lift to compensate for the engine
which weighed 34 pounds more than the pilot.
Fore-and-aft control was by means of the elevator in front,
operated by hand lever. The tail of the machine had twin movable
rudders instead of a single movable rudder developed in the 1902
glider. These rudders were linked by wires to the wing-warping system.
Their coordinated control mechanism was worked by wires attached to a
cradle on the lower wing, in which the pilot lay prone. To turn the
machine to the left, the pilot moved his body, and with it the cradle,
a few inches to the left. This caused the rear right wingtips to be
pulled down or warped (thus giving more lift and raising them) and the
rear left wingtips to move upward, and at the same time the
coordinating mechanism introduced enough left rudder to compensate for
yaw. The rudder counteracted the added resistance of the wing with the
greater angle and the resulting tendency of the machine to swing in the
opposite direction to the desired left turn, as well as aiding the turn
on its own account.
On September 25, 1903, the Wrights arrived once more at their
Kill Devil Hills camp. They repaired and again used the living quarters
which they had added to the storage building in 1902, called their
"summer house." Their 1902 glider, which they had left stored in this
building after that season of experiments, was again housed with them
in the building. They erected a new building to house the powered
machine alongside the glider-storage and living quarters building and
commenced the chore of assembling the powered machine in its new
hangar. Occasionally they took the 1902 glider out for practice. After
a few trials each brother was able to make a new world's record by
gliding for more than a minute.
The first weeks in camp were a time of vicissitudes for the
Wrights. Assembling the machine and installing the engine and
propellers proved an arduous task. When tested, the motor missed so
often that the vibrations twisted one of the propeller shafts and
jerked the assembly apart. Both shafts had to be sent back to their
Dayton bicycle shop to be made stronger. After they had been returned,
one broke again, and Orville had to carry the shafts back to Dayton to
make new ones of more durable material. The magneto failed to produce a
strong enough spark. A stubborn problem was fastening the sprockets to
the propeller shafts; the sprockets and the nuts loosened within a few
seconds even when they were tightened with a 6-foot lever.
It was then that the weather acted as if it were threatening
the brothers not to venture into a new element. A gale swept over their
camp with winds up to 75 miles an hour. As their living quarters rocked
with the wind, and rainwater flowed over part of the floor, the Wrights
expected to hear the new hangar building next door, which housed the
powered machine, crash over completely. "The wind and rain continued
through the night," related Wilbur to his sister, "but we took the
advice of the Oberlin coach, 'Cheer up, boys, there is no hope,' We
went to bed, and both slept soundly."
It became so cold that the brothers had to make a heater from
a drum used to hold carbide. Wilbur assured his father:
- However we are entirely comfortable, and have no
trouble keeping warm
- at nights. In addition to the classifications of last
year, to wit, 1, 2,
- 3, and 4 blanket nights, we now have 5 blanket nights,
& 5 blankets
- & 2 quilts. Next come 5 blankets, 2 quilts &
fire; then 5, 2, fire, &
- hot-water jug. This as far as we have got so far.
At last the weather cleared, the engine began to purr, their
handmade heater functioned better after improvements, and, with the
help of a tire cement they had used in their bicycle shop, they "stuck
those sprockets so tight I doubt whether they will ever come loose
again." Chanute visited their camp for a few days and wrote November
23, "I believe the new machine of the Wrights to be the most promising
attempt at flight that has yet been made." Both brothers sensed that
the goal was in sight.
The powered machine's undercarriage (landing gear) consisted
of two runners, or sledlike skids, instead of wheels. These were
extended farther out in front of the wings than were the landing skids
on the gliders to guard against the machine rolling over in landing.
Four feet, eight inches apart, the two runners were ideal for landing
as skids on the soft beach sands. But for take-offs, it was necessary
to build a single-rail starting track 60 feet long on which ran a small
truck which held the machine about 8 inches off the ground. The easily
movable starting rail was constructed of four 15-foot 2 x 4's set on
edge, with the upper surface topped by a thin strip of metal.
The truck which supported the skids of the plane during the
takeoff consisted of two parts: a crossbeam plank about 6 feet long
laid across a smaller piece of wood forming the truck's undercarriage
which moved along the track on two rollers made from modified bicycle
hubs. For take-offs, the machine was lifted onto the truck with the
plane's undercarriage skids resting on the two opposite ends of the
crossbeam. A modified bicycle hub was attached to the forward
crosspiece of the plane between its skids to prevent the machine from
nosing over on the launching track. A wire from the truck attached to
the end of the starting track held the plane back while the engine was
warmed up. Then the restraining wire was released by the pilot. The
airplane, riding on the truck, started forward along the rail. If all
went well, the machine was airborne and hence lifted off the truck
before reaching the end of the starting track; while the truck,
remaining on the track, continued on and ran off the rail.
With the new propeller shafts installed, the powered machine
was ready for its first testing on December 12. However, the wind was
too light for the machine to take-off from the level ground near their
camp with a run of only 60 feet permitted by the starting track. Nor
did they have enough time before dark to take the machine to one of the
nearby Kill Devil Hills, where, by placing the track on a steeply
inclined slope, enough speed could be promptly attained for starting in
calm air. The following day was Sunday, which the brothers spent
resting and reading, hoping for suitable weather for flying the next
day so that they could be home by Christmas.
On December 14 it was again too calm to permit a start from
level ground near the camp. The Wrights, therefore, decided to take the
machine to the north side of Kill Devil Hill about a quarter of a mile
away to make their first attempt to fly in a power-driven machine. They
had arranged to signal nearby life-savers to inform them when the first
trial was ready to start. A signal was placed on one of the camp
buildings that could be seen by personnel on duty about a mile away at
the Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station.
The Wrights were soon joined by five lifesavers who helped to
transport the machine from camp to Kill Devil Hill. Setting the
605-pound machine on the truck atop the starting track, they ran the
truck to the end of the track and added the rear section of the track
to the front end. By relaying sections of the track, the machine rode
on the truck to the site chosen for the test, 150 feet up the side of
the hill.
The truck, with the machine thereon, facing downhill, was
fastened with a wire to the end of the starting track, so that it could
not start until released by the pilot. The engine was started to make
sure it was in proper condition. Two small boys, with a dog, who had
come with the lifesavers, "made a hurried departure over the hill for
home on hearing the engine start." Each brother was eager for the
chance to make the first trial, so a coin was tossed to determine which
of them it should be; Wilbur won.
Wilbur took his place as pilot while Orville held a wing to
steady the machine during the run on the track. The restraining wire
was released, the machine started forward quickly on the rail, leaving
Orville behind. After a run of 35 or 40 feet, the airplane took off.
Wilbur turned the machine up too suddenly after leaving the track,
before it had gained enough speed. It climbed a few feet, stalled, and
settled to the ground at the foot of the hill after being in the air
just 31/2 seconds. This trial was considered unsuccessful because the
machine landed at a point at the base of the hill many feet lower than
that from which it had started on the side of the hill Wilbur wrote of
his trial:
- However the real trouble was an error in judgment, in
turning up too
- suddenly after leaving the track, and as the machine
had barely speed
- enough for support already, this slowed it down so much
that before
- I could correct the error, the machine began to come
down, though
- turned up at a big angle. Toward the end it began to
speed up again
- but it was too late, and it struck the ground while
moving a little to
- one side, due to wind and a rather bad start.
In landing, one of the skids and several other parts were
broken, preventing a second attempt that day. Repairs were completed by
noon of the 16th, but the wind was too calm to fly the machine that
afternoon. The brothers, however, were confident of soon making a
successful flight. "There is now no question of final success," Wilbur
wrote his father, though Langley had recently made two attempts to fly
and had failed in both. "This did not disturb or hurry us in the
least," Orville commented on Langley's attempts. "We knew that he had
to have better scientific data than was contained in his published
works to successfully build a man-carrying flying machine.
Thursday, December 17 dawned, and was to go down in history as a day
when a great engineering feat was accomplished. It was a cold day with
winds of 22 to 27 miles an hour blowing from the north. Puddles of
water near the camp were covered with ice. The Wrights waited indoors,
hoping the winds would diminish. But they continued brisk, and at 10 in
the morning the brothers decided to attempt a flight, fully realizing
the difficulties and dangers of flying a relatively untried machine in
so high a wind.
In strong winds, hills were not needed to launch the machine,
since the force of the winds would enable the machine to take off on
the short starting track from level ground. Indeed, the winds were
almost too gusty to launch the machine at all that day, but the
brothers estimated that the added dangers while in flight would be
compensated in part by the slower speed in landing caused by flying
into stiff winds. As a safety precaution, they decided to fly as close
to the ground as possible. They were superb flyers, courageous, but
never foolhardy.
A signal was again displayed to notify the men at the Kill
Devil Hills Life Saving Station that further trials were intended. They
took the machine out of the hanger, and laid the 60-foot starting
track in a south-to-north direction on a smooth stretch of level ground
less than 100 feet west of the hanger and more than 1,000 feet north of
Kill Devil Hill. They chose this location for the trials because the
ground had recently been covered with water, and because it was so
level that little preparation was necessary to lay the track. Both the
starting track and the machine resting on the truck faced directly into
the north wind. The restraining wire was attached from the truck to the
south end of the track.
Before the brothers were quite ready to fly the machine, John
T. Daniels, Willie S. Dough, and Adam D. Etheridge, personnel from the
Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station, arrived to see the trials; with
them came William C. Brinkley of Manteo, and John T. Moore, a boy from
Nags Head. The right to the first trial belonged to Orville; Wilbur had
used his turn in the unsuccessful attempt on December 14. Orville put
his camera on a tripod before climbing aboard the machine, and told
Daniels to press the button when the machine had risen directly in
front of the camera.
After running the engine and propellers a few minutes, the
take-off attempt was ready. At 10:35 a.m., Orville lay prone on the
lower wing with hips in the cradle that operated the control
mechanisms. He released the restraining wire and the machine started
down the 60-foot track, traveling slowly into the headwind at about 7
or 8 miles an hour--so slow that Wilbur was able to run alongside
holding the right wing to balance the machine on the track. After a run
of 40 feet on the track, the machine took off. When the airplane had
risen about 2 feet above ground, Daniels snapped the
famous
photograph of the conquest of the air. The plane then
climbed 10 feet into the sky, while Orville struggled with the
controlling mechanisms to keep it from rising too high in such an
irregular, gusty wind.
Orville sought to fly a level flight course, though buffeted
by the strong headwind. However, when turning the rudder up or down,
the plane turned too far either way and flew an erratic up-and-down
course, first quickly rising about 10 feet, then suddenly darting close
to the ground. The first successful flight ended with a sudden dart to
the ground after having flown 120 feet from the take-off point in 12
seconds time at a groundspeed of 6.8 miles an hour and an airspeed of
30 miles an hour. In the words of Orville Wright:
- 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.
Orville found that the new, almost untried, controlling
mechanisms operated more powerfully than the previous controls he had
used in gliders. He also learned that the front rudder was balanced too
near the center. Because of its tendency to turn itself when started,
the unfamiliar powered machine's front rudder turned more than was
necessary.
The airplane had been slightly damaged on landing. Quick
repairs were made. With the help of the onlookers, the machine was
brought back to the track and prepared for a second flight. Wilbur took
his turn at 11:20 a.m., and flew about 175 feet in about 12 seconds. He
also flew an up-and-down course, similar to the first flight, while
operating the unfamiliar controls. The speed over the ground during the
second flight was slightly faster than that of the first flight because
the winds were diminishing. The airplane was carried back to the
starting track and prepared for a third flight.
At 11:40 a.m., Orville made the third flight, flying a
steadier course than that of the two previous flights. All was going
nicely when a sudden gust of wind from the side lifted the airplane
higher by 12 to 15 feet, turning it sidewise in an alarming manner.
With the plane flying sidewise, Orville warped the wingtips to recover
lateral balance, and pointed the plane down to land as quickly as
possible. The new lateral control was more effective than he had
expected. The plane not only leveled off, but the wing that had been
high dropped more than he had intended, and it struck the ground
shortly before the plane landed. The third flight was about 200 feet in
about 15 seconds.
Wilbur started on the fourth flight at noon. He flew the
first few hundred feet on an up-and-down course similar to the first
two flights. But after flying 300 feet from the take-off point, the
airplane was brought under control. The plane flew a fairly even course
for an additional 500 feet, with little undulation to disturb its level
flight. While in flight about 800 feet from the take-off point, the
airplane commenced pitching again, and, in one of its
darts downward, struck the ground. The fourth flight measured 852 feet
over the ground; the time in the air was 59 seconds.
The four successful flights made on December 17 were short
because the Wrights, not desiring to fly a new machine at much height
in strong winds, sometimes found it impossible to correct the
up-and-down motion of the airplane before it struck the ground. Wilbur
remarked:
- Those who understand the real significance of the
conditions under
- which we worked will be surprised rather at the length
than the shortness
- of the flights made with an unfamiliar machine after
less than one minute's
- practice. The machine possesses greater capacity of
being controlled
- than any of our former machines.
They carried the airplane back to camp and set it up a few
feet west of the hangar. While the Wrights and onlookers were
discussing the flights, a sudden gust of wind struck the plane and
turned it over a number of times, damaging it badly. The airplane could
not be repaired in time for any more flights that year; indeed, it was
never flown again. Daniels gained the dubious honor of becoming the
first airplane casualty when he was slightly scratched and bruised
while caught inside the machine between the wings in an
attempt to stop the plane as it rolled over. Subsequent events were
vivid in Daniels' mind while reminiscing of his "first--and God help
me--my last flight." He relates:
- I found myself caught in them wires and the machine
blowing across
- the beach heading for the ocean, landing first on one
end and then
- on the other, rolling over and over, and me getting
more tangled up
- in it all the time. I tell you, I was plumb scared.
When the thing
- did stop for half a second I nearly broke up every wire
and upright
- getting out of it.
Orville made this matter-of-fact entry in his diary: "After
dinner we went to Kitty Hawk to send off telegram to M. W. While there
we called on Capt. and Mrs. Hobbs, Dr. Cogswell and the station men."
Toward evening that day Bishop Milton Wright in Dayton received the
telegram from his sons:
- Success four flights Thursday morning all against
twenty-one mile wind
- started from level with engine power alone average
speed through air
- thirty-one miles longest 57 seconds inform press home
Christmas.
- Orevelle Wright.
In the transmission of the telegram, 57 seconds was
incorrectly given for the 59-second record flight, and Orville's name
was misspelled. The Norfolk telegraph operator leaked the news to a
local paper, the Virginian-Pilot. The resulting story produced
a series of false reports as to the length and duration of the December
17 flights. Practically none of the information contained in the
telegram was used, except that the Wrights had flown.
The Bishop gave out a biographical note:
- Wilbur is 36, Orville 32, and they are as inseparable
as twins. For
- several years they have read up on aeronautics as a
physician would
- read his books, and they have studied, discussed, and
experimented
- together. Natural workmen, they have invented,
constructed, and
- operated their gliders, and finally their 'Wright
Flyer,' jointly, all at
- their own personal expense. About equal credit is due
each.
The world took little note of the Wrights' tremendous
achievement and years passed before its full significance was realized.
After reading the Wrights' telegram, the Associated Press
representative in Dayton remarked, "Fifty-seven seconds, hey? If it had
been fifty-seven minutes then it might have been a news item." Three
years after the first flight an editorial appeared in the December 15,
1906, issue of the Scientific American, which included the
following:
- In all the history of invention, there is probably no
parallel to the
- unostentatious manner in which the Wright brothers of
Dayton, Ohio
- ushered into the world their epoch-making invention of
the first successful
- aeroplane flying-machine.
After 1903, the Wrights carved brilliant careers in aeronautics and
helped found the aviation industry. The successful flights made at Kill
Devil Hills in December 1903 encouraged them to make improvements on a
new plane called Flyer No. 2. About 100 flights were flown near Dayton
in 1904. These totaled only 45 minutes in the air, although they made
two 5-minute flights. Experimenting chiefly with control and maneuver,
many complete circuits of the small flying field were made.
A new and improved plane, Flyer No. 3, was built in 1905. On
October 5 they made a record flight of 241/s miles, while the plane was
in the air 38 minutes and 3 seconds. The era of the airplane was well
on the way. The lessons and successes at Kill Devil Hills in December
1903 were fast making the crowded skies of the Air Age possible.
Believing their invention was now perfected for practical
use, the Wrights wanted the United States Government to have a world
monopoly on their patents, and more important, on all the aerodynamic,
design, and pilotage secrets they knew relating to the airplane. As
early as 1905 they had received overtures from representatives of
foreign governments. The United States Army turned down their first
offers without making an effort to investigate whether the airplane had
been brought to a stage of practical operation. But disbelief was on
the wane. In February 1908 the United States War Department made a
contract with the brothers for an airplane. Only 3 weeks later the
Wrights closed a contract with a Frenchman to form a syndicate for the
rights to manufacture, sell, or license the use of the Wright airplane
in France.
During their Dayton experiments, the Wrights had continued to
pilot their airplanes while lying prone with hips in the cradle on the
lower wing. Now they adopted a different arrangement of the control
levers to be used in a sitting position and added a seat for a
passenger. The brothers brought their airplane to Kill Devil Hills in
April 1908 to practice handling the new arrangement of the control
levers. They wanted to be prepared for the public trials to be made for
the United States Government, near Washington, and for the company in
France.
They erected a new building at Kill Devil Hills to house the
airplane and to live in, because storms the year before had nearly
demolished their 1903 camp buildings. Between May 6 and May 14, 1908,
the Wrights made 22 flights at their old testing grounds. On May 14 the
first flight with two men aboard a plane was made near West Hill;
Wilbur Wright being the pilot, and Charles Furnas, a mechanic, the
passenger. Orville and Furnas then made a flight
together of over 2 miles, passing between Kill Devil Hill and West
Hill, and turning north near the sound to circle Little Hill before
returning over the starting point close to their camp to land near West
Hill on the second lap.
Byron R. Newton, a newspaper reporter, was concealed in the
woods with other newsmen near camp to watch the Wrights fly. Newton
predicted in his diary just after seeing his first flight: "Some day
Congress will erect a monument here to these Wrights." Nineteen years
later the Congress established the area as a National Memorial.
Wilbur journeyed to France after completing the tests at Kill
Devil Hills, while Orville returned home to complete the construction
of an airplane for the United States Government. As Wilbur set about
methodically to assemble his airplane at Le Mans, some 125 miles from
Paris, skeptics greeted the delay by accusing him of bluffing. But
Wilbur refused to hurry. "Le bluff continue," cried a Paris
newspaper. However, when Wilbur took off on August 8, circling the
field to come in for a perfect landing, the crowd could scarcely
believe its eyes. Skeptics were confounded, and enthusiasm was
uproarious.
Wilbur's complete lack of conceit, together with his decency
and intelligence, won from the French people a hero-worship attitude,
while the press was unsparing in its praise and lamented having
called him a bluffer. The Figaro commented, "It was not merely a
success but a triumph; a conclusive trial and a decisive victory for
aviation, the news of which will revolutionize scientific circles
throughout the world." It was a statement to the press by a witness,
Maj. B. F. S. Baden-Powell, president of the Aeronautical Society of
Great Britain, that is most often quoted: "That Wilbur Wright is in
possession of a power which controls the fate of nations is beyond
dispute." One of Wilbur's sayings in France became famous: "I know of
only one bird, the parrot, that talks," he said, "and it can't fly very
high."
Orville's first public flight was on September 3, 1908 at
Fort Myer. He circled the field one and one-half times on the first
test. "When the plane first rose," Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., recorded
"the crowd's gasp of astonishment was not alone at the wonder of it,
but because it was so unexpected." Orville's final flight at Fort Myer
in 1908 ended in tragedy. The airplane crashed, killing Lt. Thomas
Selfridge, a passenger flying with Orville. Orville suffered broken
ribs, a fractured leg, and hip injuries.
In 1909, Orville completed the Government test flights by
flying 10 miles in 14 minutes, or just under 43 miles an hour. The
United States Army formally accepted its first airplane from the
Wrights on August 2, 1909. During the same year both brothers made
further flying triumphs in Europe where they became famous flying in
France and Italy. While Orville was making sensational flights in
Germany (as required for the formation of a Wright company in that
country), Wilbur, in America, made spectacular flights at New York City
where more than a million New Yorkers got their first glimpse of an
airplane in the air.
Commercial companies were formed in France and Germany to
manufacture Wright planes before the Wright Company was organized in
the United States with Wilbur as president and Orville vice president.
In financial affairs the Wrights were remarkably shrewd-- a match for
American and European businessmen. They grew wealthy as well as famous,
but they were not happy as businessmen and looked forward to the time
when they could retire to devote themselves again to scientific
research.
Orville returned to Kill Devil Hills in October 1911 to
experiment with an automatic control device and to make soaring flights
with a glider. The new device was not tested because of the presence of
newspapermen at the camp each day. Orville set a new world's soaring
record of 9 minutes and 45 seconds on October 24. This remained the
world's record until it was exceeded 10 years later in Germany. On May
30, 1912, Wilbur Wright, aged 45, died of typhoid fever. Orville
survived him by 36 years.
Orville always thought that the National Museum in Washington,
administered by the Smithsonian Institution, was the logical place for
the original Wright 1903 airplane to be preserved and exhibited.
However, for a long time he was unwilling to entrust the airplane there
because of a controversy between him and the Smithsonian in regard to
the history of the invention of the airplane. In 1928, Orville lent the
plane to the Science Museum at South Kensington, near London, England,
with the understanding that it would stay there permanently unless he
made a written request for its return. Finally, in 1942, the dispute
with the Smithsonian was settled to Orville's satisfaction, and the
next year he wrote a request to the Science Museum for the return of
the airplane to this country when it could be safely shipped after
World War II ended.
After Orville Wright's death, on January 30, l948, his
executors deposited the original 1903 airplane in the National Air
Museum. It was formally placed on exhibition on December 17, 1948, in
Washington, D.C., the 45th anniversary of the first flights. The
priceless original airplane now occupies the highest place of honor
among other interesting aeronautical exhibits.
On March 2, 1927, the Congress authorized the establishment of Kill
Devil Hills Monument National Memorial to commemorate the Wrights'
achievement of the first successful flight of a man-carrying,
power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. The area was transferred from
the War Department to the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the
Interior, on August 10, 1933, and on December 1, 1953, the name was
changed to Wright Brothers National Memorial. The memorial contains
about 425 acres. It embraces the actual site of the first four flights
and the sites of most of the glider experiments.
VISITOR CENTER. The visitor center represents the focal
point in the interpretation of the area. In addition to an extensive
series of modern museum exhibits telling the story of the memorial, the
center also houses an information desk, where literature is available,
and the administrative offices of the memorial. From the exhibition
rooms, there is a sweeping panoramic view of the reconstructed
Wright brothers' 1903 camp, the first flight grounds where markers
designate the take-off and landing points of the first flights, and the
Wright memorial shaft atop Kill Devil Hill.
RECONSTRUCTED WRIGHT BROTHERS' 1903 CAMP. About 100
yards southwest of the visitor center stand two wooden structures built
by the National Park Service in 1953 on the 50th anniversary of the
first flight. They are reconstructions of the Wright brothers' 1903
living quarters and hangar based on historical research and photographs
of the originals. The furnishings within the living quarters are of the
1902-3 period, and are almost exact duplications of those used by the
Wrights.
FIRST FLIGHT GROUNDS. Less than 100 feet west of the
camp is a 10-ton granite memorial boulder placed by the National
Aeronautic Association in 1928 on the 25th anniversary of the first
flight. The boulder marks the take-off point of the first flight and of
the three additional flights made December 17, 1903. A reconstruction
of the original single-rail starting track is placed at the north and
south sides of the boulder. Four numbered markers north of the boulder
designate landing points of the powered flights made on December 17,
1903.
KILL DEVIL HILL. About a quarter of a mile south of
the visitor center lies Kill Devil Hill, used by the Wrights for
gliding experiments during the period 1900-1903. The north slope of
this hill was also used for the unsuccessful attempt at flight on
December 14, 1903. Before the Wright memorial shaft was erected,
conservation work was begun in 1929 on the massive 26-acre dune of
shifting yellow sand to anchor the 9l-foot-high dune by seeding it with
special grasses adapted to sandy soil.
WRIGHT MEMORIAL SHAFT. Atop Kill Devil Hill stands
the striking Wright
memorial shaft, a triangular pylon 60 feet high, made of gray
granite from Mount Airy, N.C. Construction was begun February 4, 1931,
and the shaft was dedicated November 19, 1932. Its sides ornamented
with outspread wings in bas-relief, the pylon gives to the eye the
impression of a gigantic bird about to take off into space. Stairs lead
to the top of the shaft and an observation platform which offers a good
view of the surrounding country--magnificent dunes, the Atlantic Ocean,
Albemarle Sound, and even West Hill, a quarter of a mile west of the
shaft, in the direction of the sound. West Hill, the sand dune which
was the scene of many of the Wrights' gliding experiments in 1901-3,
was stabilized by the National Park Service in 1934 to preserve the
historic site.
- U.S. Department of the Interior. National Parks Service.
Wright Brothers
- National Memorial by Omega G. East. Washington:
Government
- Printing Office, 1961. (National Parks Service Historical
Handbook
- Series No. 34). (I29.58:34)
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