US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0024/00242.txt

Text File | 1990-12-23 | 34KB | 566 lines

$Unique_ID{USH00242}
$Pretitle{17}
$Title{The Wright Brothers
Powered Flight}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{East, Omega G.}
$Affiliation{National Park Service}
$Subject{machine
first
flight
feet
track
airplane
orville
wrights
wilbur
new}
$Volume{Handbook 34}
$Date{1985}
$Log{Wright Airplane Motor*0024201.scf
The Powered Machine*0024202.scf
Preparing to Make History*0024203.scf
The Very First*0024204.scf
New Distances*0024205.scf
}
Book:        The Wright Brothers
Author:      East, Omega G.
Affiliation: National Park Service
Volume:      Handbook 34
Date:        1985

Powered Flight

The Motor and the Propellers

     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.

[See Wright Airplane Motor: The Wright motor used in the first flights of Dec.
17, 1903, after its reconstruction in 1928.]

     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 1 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 1 1/8 inches thick.
The wood was glued together and shaped with a hatchet and drawshave.

The Powered Machine, 1903

     The 1903 machine had a wingspan of 40 feet, 4 inches; a camber of 1 in
20; a wing area of 510 square feet; and a length of 21 feet, 1 inch.  It
weighed 605 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.

[See The Powered Machine: Plans and photos of the Wright Brothers 1903 plane.]

     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 hand-made
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 takeoffs, 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 3 1/2 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."

December 17, 1903:  The Day Man First Flew

     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 if 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.

[See Preparing to Make History: Getting ready for the first flight, Dec. 17,
1903.]

     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 takeoff
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.

[See The Very First: The first flight, Dec. 17, 1903.]

     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 1500 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 Wright's 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 America, 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 the First Flight

     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 24 1/5 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.

[See New Distances: 1905 flight 41 - Orville's 12 mile flight of September 29.]

     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 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.