Wright Brothers

Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948) Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 - May 30, 1912)
The Wright brothers, , are generally credited with making the first controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight on December 17, 1903. In the two years afterward, they developed their flying machine into the world's first practical fixed-wing aircraft, along with many other aviation milestones. Currently, their feat is officially recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) as being the first controlled, powered, sustained (from takeoff to landing) flight involving a heavier-than-air vehicle, using mechanically unassisted takeoff (thrust/lift created chiefly by onboard propulsion). Nevertheless, the Wright brothers' claim to this aviation "first" has been subject to counter-claims by various parties. Much controversy persists around the many competing claims of early aviators. See first flying machine for more discussion.

Childhood and youth
The Wright brothers were the children of Milton Wright (1828-1917); and Susan Catherine Koerner (1831-1889). Wilbur Wright was born in Millville, Indiana in 1867, Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1871. The brothers never married. The Wright siblings were Reuchlin (1861-1920), Lorin (1862-1939), Katharine (1874-1929), and twins Otis and Ida (born 1870, died in infancy). In elementary school, Orville was given to a bit of mischief and was once expelled.[1] In 1878 their father, who traveled often as a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, brought home a toy "helicopter" for his two younger sons. The device was based on an invention of French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Penaud. Made of paper, bamboo and cork with a rubber band to twirl its rotor, it was about a foot long. Wilbur and Orville played with it until it broke, then built their own. In later years, they pointed to their experience with the toy as the initial spark of their interest in flying.[2]

In 1885 or '86 Wilbur was accidentally struck in the face by a hockey stick while playing an ice-skating game with friends. He had been vigorous and athletic until then, and although his injuries did not appear especially severe, he became withdrawn, and did not attend Yale as planned. He spent the next few years largely housebound, caring for his mother who was terminally ill with tuberculosis and reading extensively in his father's library. He drifted into the printing business Orville started, but seemed to have no particular ambitions.


Early career and research
Both brothers received their high school educations, but did not receive diplomas. They grew up in Dayton (but also lived in Iowa and Indiana for a few years), where they ran a printing business and, for a brief time, weekly and daily newspapers, then opened a bicycle repair, design, and manufacturing company (the Wright Cycle Company) in 1892. They used this endeavor to fund their growing interest in flight. In the early or mid-1890s they saw newspaper or magazine articles and probably photographs of the dramatic glides by Otto Lilienthal in Germany. The year 1896 brought three important aeronautical events. In May, Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley successfully flew an unmanned steam-powered model aircraft. In the summer, Chicago engineer and aviation authority Octave Chanute brought together several men who tested various types of gliders over the sand dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan. In August, Lilienthal was killed in the plunge of his glider.[4] These events lodged in the consciousness of the brothers. In May 1899 Wilbur wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution requesting information and publications about aeronautics.[5] Drawing on the work of Sir George Cayley, Chanute, Lilienthal, Leonardo da Vinci, and Langley, they began their mechanical aeronautical experimentation that year. The brothers extended the technology of flight by emphasizing control of the aircraft instead of increased power. They developed three-axis control, a fundamental principle of aviation which is still used.


Replica of the Wright brothers' wind tunnel at the Virginia Air and Space Center.The Wrights had researched and initially relied upon the aeronautical literature of the day, including Lilienthal's tables; but finding that the Smeaton Coefficient (a variable in the formula for lift and the formula for drag) was wrong, they built a wind tunnel and tested over two hundred different wing shapes in it, eventually devising their own tables relating air pressure to wing shape. Their work and projects with bicycles, gears, shop motors, and balance (while riding a bicycle), were critical to their success in creating the mechanical aeroplane.

During their research, the Wrights always worked together, and their contributions to the aeroplane's development are inseparable. Biographers, however, note that Wilbur took the initiative in the early stages and at first wrote of "my" machine and "my" plans before Orville became deeply involved, when the first person singular became the plural "we" and "our". Author James Tobin writes, "it is impossible to imagine Orville, bright as he was, supplying the driving force that started their work and kept it going from the back room of a store in Ohio to conferences with capitalists, presidents, and kings. Will did that. He was the leader, from the beginning to the end." [6]

Their assistant Charlie Taylor helped with construction, especially the engine, which he built in consultation with the brothers. The Wrights did all of the theoretical work and most of the other hands-on construction.


Ideas about control
Despite Lilienthal's fate, the brothers favored his strategy: to practice gliding in order to master the art of control prior to attempting flight with a motor. The death of British aeronaut Percy Pilcher in another hang gliding crash in 1899 only reinforced their opinion that a reliable method of pilot control, not elusive built-in stability, was the key to successful—and safe—flight. At the outset of their experiments they regarded control as the unsolved third part of "the flying problem". They believed sufficiently promising knowledge of the other two issues—wings and engines—already existed.[7] The Wright brothers thus differed sharply from more experienced practitioners of the day, notably Ader, Maxim and Langley who built powerful engines, attached them to airframes equipped with unproven control devices, and expected to take to the air with no previous piloting experience. Though agreeing with Lilienthal's idea of practice, the Wrights saw that his method of balance and control—shifting his body weight—was fatally inadequate.[8] They determined to find something better.

Observation of birds led Wilbur to conclude they changed the angle of the ends of their wings to make their bodies roll right or left.[9] The brothers decided this would also be a good way for a flying machine to turn—to "bank" or "lean" into the turn just like a bird—and just like a person riding a bicycle, an experience with which they were thoroughly familiar. Equally important, they hoped this method would enable recovery when the wind tilted the machine to one side (lateral balance). They puzzled over how to achieve the same effect with man-made wings and eventually discovered wing-warping when Wilbur idly twisted a long inner tube box at the bicycle shop.[10]

Other aeronautical investigators regarded flight as if it were not so different from surface locomotion, except the surface would be elevated. They thought in terms of a ship's rudder for steering, while the flying machine remained essentially level in the air, as did a train or an automobile or a ship at the surface. The idea of deliberately leaning, or rolling, to one side either seemed undesirable or did not enter their thinking.[11] Some of these other investigators, including Langley and Chanute, sought the ideal of "inherent stability," believing the pilot of a flying machine would not be able to react quickly enough to wind disturbances to effectively use mechanical controls. The Wright brothers, on the other hand, wanted the pilot to have absolute control.[12] For that reason, their early designs made no concessions toward built-in stability (such as dihedral wings). They deliberately designed their 1903 first powered flyer with anhedral wings, which are inherently unstable. The design mimicked seagulls, however, whose drooping wings help the birds remain balanced in gusty winds.


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