The brothers who invented the aeroplane and flying 10/3/23
1867 to 1912 Wilber Wright. 1871 to 1948 Orwell Wright
1884 The railway arrived where the lived they lived in Dayton Ohio. This brought potential for development of the area. The father was a preacher and they had a big library collection and the whole family was avid readers.
They read works on religion as well as Origen of Species and Agnostic books.
1889 Orville who had spent a 2 summers working in a printshop started a newspaper and Wilfrid edited it as a local advertiser. They were at school with the black poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar and published his first book of poetry he was know for "I know why a caged bird sings" Later they stopped the newspaper and did printing on contract.
1980 the safety bicycle came into fashion and many used them for country rides and so they opened a bicycle shop.
1893 Charles Duria and J. Frank build the first successful gasoline car.
1896 in Germany the glider enthusiast Otto Lilienthal crashed and died but left a lot of information on gliding. He had started in 1869 and had tried a variety of gliders and had observed bird flight.. At the same time dry plate photography had come into use and the George Eastman box camera. The Singer sewing machine as well as the Otis company lifts. Wilfrid concluded that with all the research done very little practice had been done in the air.
1898 cars were coming into use. A French engineer Clement Alder had tried to fly with a steam engine. At this time along with the cost of the experiments risks of humiliation, failure and death, you could also be mocked as a crank or crackpot.
With the help of the meteorological service Wilber figured out the Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, offered the best area for gliders it was isolated and had constant wind. this was an area of lots of fish available to eat. Long spruce strips were what he looked for to build the glider. A good glider would mean that if it had a motor which failed it would slowly descent to the earth. He had to work to get an equilibrium the correct camber for the wings using a double wing. After their trials they were able to return home with their theories intact.
Octave Chanute an engineer of great repute gave the brothers a portable anemometer to measure wind speed.
1901Back at Kitty Hawk where there was a plague of mosquitoes. First trial of gliding on the Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk in N. Carolina because of the soft sand to crash on and the steady winds plus it was isolated from prying eyes.. The had to figure out the angle of the camber of the wings to get it to work. Till now they used the tables of Lilienthal, Langley and Chanute but realized they were wrong. They took photos themselves.
1901 President William McKinley who came from their state Ohio, was assassinated at the Buffalos World Fair by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz at this time. Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States. Wilber was invited go give a lecture on his work in Chicago." The speech was the Book of Genesis in the 20 C Bible of Aeronautics. It was only now recognized that the concept of flying was no longer a myth. However no less than chief naval engineer Rear Admiral George Melville said flying is going against the natural phenomenon.
1870s Wind tunnels had been used for experimenting in England, and they devised a small scale wind tunnel to test their glider in model.
Octave Chenute suggested to them to apply for a grant from his friend Andrew Carnegie and they refused.
Wilber now realized that the rear rudder must be hinged and not fixed and its control should be connect to the warping to simplify piloting. Now they had mastered gliding and could soar float and dive they needed to build a motor.
1903 Under President Teddy Roosevelt the economy was booming. Of 7 motor manufactures none offered the specification that Wilber described. Only 1 replied so they got a block of aluminum and build an engine. The first they made cracked when the tried it and they made another. They wanted 2 propellers going in different direction to stop the gyro effect. A thousand glides was equivalent to 4 hours of practice. Nod only did they need to get the flyer correct but also had to learn aeronautics along the way.
Samuel Langley was financed by the war dept. to the tune of $50,000 of public money. The Great Aerodrome was launched went 1000 feet and landed in the water and Charles Manley almost drowned. The Wrights never commented on this like the press. The army now lost interest in flying as a result.
The cost of raw material for the Wright flyer was only $4. All their expenses had come to less than $1000, but they had to get back to the shop and keep it running. Terrance Huffman the Dayton bank president allowed them to use his land nearby free. Here because it was not downhill they used a catapult to launch the flyer. They also received the patent rights on Flier no.III
The US army had no interest in their flyer, they must go abroad and the British Army balloon section liked the idea and the French government also. The airship had reached its limit it cost 10 time that of the flyer which was the future. The Wrights had to master their flyer design as well as teach themselves with lots of practice step by step to be pilots, they understood this and advance slowly and carefully.
The flyer was displayed in France as a success but Wilber was not prepared to sell a portion of his rights over it.
For a possible contract they flew for the army at Fort Myer a flyer designed for 2 to ride. Orwell took an officer Thomas Selfridge who weighed 175lbs for a ride the plane vibrated a piece of propeller broke off and it dropped out of the sky at 75 feet. Orwell recovered in hospital but the officer died.
1908 In France the first woman taken up was Edith Berg the wife of his French agent Hart Berg. In France Wilber was a celebrity and there is a long list of people that he met at parties held in his honour including the engineer Gustav Eiffel. Later on in flying test at Mons race track without the catapult he won the prize offered by the Michelin tyre company, where he stayed up for 2 hours twenty minutes.
Orwell and Katherine Wright came to France and she made a point of learning French at this stage they had over $35000 in the bank and went to Pyrenees Mountain resort of Pau to fly. This is where they were introduced to Lord Northcliff the London press magnet, Lord Balfour, Joseph Pulitzer, French PM Georges Clemenceau, King Alfonso XIII of Spain King Edward VII. Katherine went up for several flights. He trained a few army officers to fly and later the same in Italy where he was introduced to King Victor Emanuel III. They were in Europe at a perfect time when peace and prosperity prevailed and they had accumulated from contracts and prizes $200,000
(1909 to 1913) President William Howard Taft. awarded a medal. An enormous parade was put on for them in Dayton.
1909 July First cross channel flight by Frenchman Louis Bleriot. Calais to Dover. 20 miles in 23 minutes.
Instead of wing warping ailerons (flaps) and a hinged rudder was now being used. The Wright manufacturing plant was set up in Dayton. This was also a period of many flying accidents in America and Europe as more enthusiast went into as a sport. Every case of patent infringement they won in the US courts
1912 Wilber died of Typhoid fever. Katherine aged 52 married Henry Haskell but she died in 1929.
1927 Charles Lindberg flew the Atlantic to land in Paris. On his return visited Orwell in Dayton.
1929 Neil Armstrong also born in Ohio took a tribute to the Write Brother to the moon
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