Historical Biography by Trevor N

Trevor Neuenswander

 

The Wright Brothers

 

“I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly in fifty years.” ~Wilbur Wright. In 1902, October 10, Wilbur Wright pilots the first man-carrying glider. This event was history. It all began in 1878, when Orville and Wilbur Wright’s father brought home a toy helicopter, powered by a rubber band and propeller. This sparked interest in flight for the boys, and when the toy eventually broke, the boys made the own one.

 

In the early or mid-1890s, they saw newspaper or magazine articles, telling the world of the dramatic glides by Otto Lilienthal in Germany. “No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.” ~Orville Wright. Also in 1896, three more aeronautical events occurred. Samuel Langley successfully flew an unmanned steam-powered model aircraft. In the summer, Chicago engineer Octave Chanute brought together several men who tested various types of gliders over the sand dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, in August, Lilienthal was killed when his glider plunged to the ground. This event was lodged in the consciousness of the brothers.

 

May 1899, Wilbur wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution requesting information about aeronautics. Drawing on the work of Sir George Cayley, Chanute, Lilienthal, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Langley, they began their mechanical experimentation that year. “ In just six weeks from the time the design was started, we had the motor on the block testing its power.” ~Orville Wright. Despite Lilienthal’s fate, the brothers favored his strategy: to practice gliding in order to master the art of control. Then another aeronaut died in a glider in 1899, but this didn’t stop the Wright Brothers.

 

On the basis of observation, Wilbur concluded that birds changed the angle of the ends of their wings to turn left or right. The Brothers decided that this is how their plane was going to work. “The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who…looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space…on the infinite highway of the air.” ~Wilbur Wright. After a lot of hard work and pure dedication, the year 1902 came. Many gliders have been flown, but never a motor powered plane with a pilot. “It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge or skill.” ~Wilbur Wright. The plane had been built, and Wilbur was the pilot. With all fingers go, it took off. This was history.

 

The Wright Brothers are known around the world, and will never be forgotten. Without them, air travel would not exist, and getting around the world would be difficult.