In 1884 Bishop Wright moved his family to 7 Hawton Street Dayton, Ohio. The house had two libraries. At the same time Susan fell ill with tuberculosis. Wilbur who was just out of high school but put off college and nursed his sick mother. Orville lost interest in school and learned the printing business. Susan Wright died in the summer of 1889, the same year that Orville dropped out of high school to open his own print shop.
CAREER CHOICES
When the two brothers were young Orville had experimented with wood graving blocks with various designs. Later on Wilbur and Lorin generously traded a boat they had built for a large printing press, which they gave to Orville. His father then provided the type. 1890, Wilbur joined Orville in the printing business serving as printers for the West Side News. It was moderately successful.
In 1894 Wilbur and Orville were caught up in the bicycling craze that swept the nation. To add to their income from their printing trade, they began repairing and selling bicycles with tools of their own invention. This soon grew to a full time business, and in 1896 they began to manufacture their own bikes. They opened their own shop in Greenfield Village picture right and left. The Wright Cycle Company became a good profit. Now they had the money to furfilled their dreams of flying. They were thinking about planes. Later on however they handed over the running of the cycle business to their mechanic, Charlie Taylor and turned their attention entirely to aviation.
PLANES
The Wright brothers had spent a lot of time writing to people who were making aeroplanes and knowledgeable about them. As they studied aeroplanes they realized that they had very limited control so they started to create a series of gliders with the ability to have control. They did their experiments at Kitty Hawk pictured on the right. They made 1,000s of flights. By the end of 1902 they were ready to begin building a powered machine. With the help of their mechanic, Charles Taylor, they designed and built and an engine with the required lightness and power--12 hp at 1200 rpm, weighing 170 pounds. They also designed propellers. Yet they spent not more than a couple hundred pounds on all their experiments and constructions. Left, making an engine in the Wright Factory. They had a small Hanger, which is pictured with one of the gliders they experimented with. However from this small shed like hanger History was about to be changed.
Progress was made yet it still seemed that Controlled, powered flight was impossible until and then in December 17 1903 at Kill Devil Hills south of Kitty Hawk they try their new plane out. Wilbur Wright tried first but failed. He had lost his nerve so Orville Wright got into the plane and did something that changed history. He flew the plane for only 12 seconds and the plane travelled only 36.5m at an altitude of about 3m but this was not any flight. It was the worlds first powered, manned, self-launching controlled and sustained flight in a heavier than air machine.
So what did they achieve and what records did they gain. By the end 1904 they could keep the machine up for five minutes and fly complete circles. The brothers made more than two hundred flights in 1904 and 1905, and a patent was granted for the plane on May 22, 1906, but it was not until 1908 that they began to receive credit and attention for their invention. In that year Wilbur, flying in France, carried passengers on numerous flights and established distance and altitude records.
However they also set other records that were not so good. In September 17, 1908 Orville, was flying at Fort Myer, was having equal success in the official Army trials, until the failure of a propeller caused the accident that proved fatal to his passenger Lieut. Thomas E. Selfridge, and also Orville broke his left leg and four ribs. However he soon recovered and joined Wilbur in France.
So how did they become so successful in trying to achieve flight? The key to the Wright Brother's success was that their engineering had gone beyond the trial and error methods of their ravails. Having only very limited resources they showed great scientific sense. When their test flights did not produce as much lift as they had expected, they went back to first principles and carried out a series of scientific experiments, starting with the bicycle balance and moving on to their famous wind tunnel experiments. They were the first to understand how the lift from the aerofoil changes in flight, and the first to design their propellers as a form of aerofoil. This was why he was a class above all the other aeroplane builders. Which was why the Wright Brothers was able to invent the plane first.
They succeeded also because as M.J.B Davy, from Interpretive History of flight comments, “They succeeded by their own exertions, in doing what others were mainly thinking and talking about.”
G.S.Rools also stated about the Wrights achievement and how they succeeded by saying, “These remarkable brothers have achieved their results entirely through their own work. Their machine is built on data and formula established by their experiments.” This was certainly true because the information available at that time about flying were very unreliable so that it was because the brothers made their own data that they were able to succeed in flying a plane. This is also good evidence to prove that the Wright brothers did not just copy someone else’s work.
Another reason for their success was because of the attitude they had. M.J.B Davy also comments that, “ The attitude adopted by the Wright Brothers was that every theory previously made must be tested and proved by practical experiment.” This was certainly true because with their attitude they changed history with their experiments.
Four years later after the first flight was made Wilbur died of typhoid fever in Dayton, May 30, 1912, in the morning at 3:15, Wilbur passed away, aged 45 years, 1 month, and 14 days. At the height of his career he had made his last flights in May 1910. Orville continued flying actively until 1915 when he sold his interest in the Wright Company. His last flight was made in 1918. Bishop Milton Wright said this in his diary about the death of Wilbur Wright, “A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadily, he lived and died.
HOW THE WRIGHT BROTHERS CHANGED HISTORY
The Wright Brothers changed history in many ways. A quote from Fred C.Kelly from his biography “The Wright Brothers” comments “Every plane that flies in any part of the world, even today does so by use of devices and discoveries first made by the Wright Brothers.” They history mainly by what they had invented. They also got the first records of flight. However they did much more than just invent flight they changed the lifestyle of every person. Today we think very little about getting on a plane and traveling several hundred miles in just a couple of hours. We take it almost for granted that we can just take off in a plane when it way several hundred tonnes. The way we get around has been dramatically changed.
Other things have also been changed. Like most good invention they are used in a negative way. We now have very different wars, now that we have planes. Now it is possible to bomb any place with a plane. This came about in a small way in World War I. However when World War II arrived more technology had been added and now planes played a large part in the War.
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS NATIONAL MEMORIAL
The Wright Brothers National Memorial is located near Kill Devil Hills, in eastern North Carolina, the site of the brothers’ experiments with flight. In 1903, they experienced their first successful airplane flight here in a plane of their own construction that was powered with a 12-hp motor. Replicas of some of their early “flying machines” are on display at the memorial.
The Wright Monument bears this inscription:
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR BY THE BROTHERS WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT. CONCEIVED BY GENIUS, AND ACHIEVED BY DAUNTLESS RESOLUTION AND UNCONQUERABLE FAITH.
FAMILY TREE
Samuel Wright (b. 1613, d. 1665) _ Margaret (d. 1681)
James Wright (b 1639 d. 1725) _ Abigail Janes (m. 1665)
Samuel Wright (b. 1674 d. 1734) _ Rebecca Sykes (m. 1704)
Benoni Wright (b. 1761) _ Eliza Smith (m. 1742)
Dan Wright (b. 1757 d. 1832) _ Sarah Freeman (m. 1785)
Dan Wright (b. 1790 d. 1861) _Catherine Reeder (b. 1800 d. 1866 m. 1818)
Milton Wright _ Susan
IMPORTANT DATES
1867 April 16: Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) was born in Millville, Indiana
1871 August 19: Orville Wright (1871-1948) was born in Dayton, Ohio.
1889 Summer time: Susan Wright dies of tuberculosis’s.
1892 Wilbur and Orville set up their Wright Cycle Company in Dayton, Ohio.
1900 The Wrights’ first glider trials are held at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1903 December 17: At Kill Devil Hills south of Kitty Hawk, Wilbur and Orville Wright make the worlds first powered, manned, self-launching controlled and sustained flight in a heavier than air machine.
1908 September 17: Orville is hurt in a demonstration to the army. His passenger, Thomas Selfridge, is killed: the first fatality in aeroplane flying.
1909 November: In the United States, the Wright Company is set up to make aeroplanes and is immediately successful.
1912 May 30: Wilbur Wright dies of typhoid.
1948 January 30: Orville Wright dies.
BIBLIOGRAPY
Books
The Wright Brothers Russell Ash
The Wright Brothers and the Aeroplane Anna Sproile
Internet
Encyclopaedias
Encarta 2001
