The Wright Brothers

by David McCullough

At times, after an hour or more of heated argument, they would find themselves as far from agreement as when they started, except that each had changed to the other’s original position.

Wilbur was more serious by nature, more studious and reflective. His memory of what he had seen and heard, and so much that he read, was astonishing. “I have no memory at all,” Orville was frank to say, “but he never forgets anything.”

Being the nearest in age, she and Orville were particularly close. They had the same birthday, August 19, and they had both been born there in the same house.

She never would destroy one thing the boys were trying to make. Any little thing they left around in

her way she picked up and put on a shelf in the kitchen.

Dayton had been settled by Revolutionary War veterans at the end of the eighteenth century and named for one of the original investors in the site, Jonathan Dayton, a veteran, a member of Congress from New Jersey, and a signer of the U.S. Constitution.

Bicycles were proclaimed morally hazardous. Until now children and youth were unable to stray very far from home on foot. Now, one magazine warned, fifteen minutes could put them miles away. Because of bicycles, it was said, young people were not spending the time they should with books, and more seriously that suburban and country tours on bicycles were “not infrequently accompanied by seductions.”

Many men are better fitted for improving chances offered them than in turning up the chances themselves.

They would design and build their own experimental glider-kite, drawing on much they had read, much they had observed about birds in flight, and, importantly, from considerable time thinking.

With “wing warping,” or “wing twisting,” as it was sometimes referred to, Wilbur had already made an immensely important and altogether original advance toward their goal.

Wilbur, as George Spratt once told Octave Chanute, was “always ready to oppose an idea expressed by anybody,” ready to “jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up.” And as Wilbur himself would explain to Spratt, he believed in “a good scrap.” It brought out “new ways of looking at things,” helped “round off the corners.” It was characteristic of all his family, Wilbur said, to be able to see the weak points of anything. This was not always a “desirable quality,” he added, “as it makes us too conservative for successful business men, and limits our friendships to a very limited circle.”

“The birds’ wings are undoubtedly very well designed indeed, but it is not any extraordinary efficiency that strikes with astonishment but rather the marvelous skill with which they are used.”

He explained afterward that the wind kept blowing the hammer around so that three licks out of four [he] hit the roof or his fingers instead of the nail.

the brothers’ total expenses for everything from 1900 to 1903, including materials and travel to and from Kitty Hawk, came to a little less than $1,000, a sum paid entirely from the modest profits of their bicycle business.

“I like to think about it now,” he would say in an interview years later. “I like to think about that first airplane the way it sailed off in the air . . . as pretty as any bird you ever laid your eyes on. I don’t think I ever saw a prettier sight in my life.”

It wasn’t luck that made them fly; it was hard work and common sense; they put their whole heart and soul and all their energy into an idea and they had the faith.

on September 15, he not only flew fully half a mile but for the first time succeeded in turning a half circle, a major achievement. Not one reporter bothered to attend during this time. Nor did public interest increase. With few exceptions there seemed no public interest at all, no local excitement or curiosity or sense of wonder over the miraculous thing happening

he said after a moment’s reflection, “I guess the truth is that we were just plain dumb.”

It was to be he of all people, the Ohio bee man, who would recognize as no one yet had the genius of the Wrights and the full importance of their flying machine. He would describe in detail what he saw happen at Huffman Prairie, and further, he would describe it accurately.

with feelings very like those expressed by John T. Daniels after seeing the first flight at Kitty Hawk, he wrote: When it first turned that circle, and came near the starting point, I was right in front of it, and I said then, and I believe still, it was one of the grandest sights, if not the grandest sight, of my life.

“The best dividends on the labor invested,” they said, “have invariably come from seeking more knowledge rather than more power.”

“I have done what I know he would have done if he had been here and understood all the facts. In such cases the man at a distance only does harm by trying to give instructions which do not fit the case.”

“Here on this lonely beach was being performed the greatest act of the ages, but there were no spectators and no applause save the booming of the surf and the startled cries of the sea birds.”

One thing that, to me at least, made his appearance all the more dramatic, was that he was not dressed as if about to do

something daring or unusual. He, of course, had no special pilot’s helmet or jacket, since no such garb yet existed, but appeared in the ordinary gray suit he usually wore, and a cap. And he had on, as he nearly always did when not in overalls, a high, starched collar.

Even Wilbur lost his customary composure, “overwhelmed by the success and unbounded joy which his friends Hart O. Berg and Léon Bollée shared.” Then, “very calmly,” his face beaming with a smile, he put his hands in his pockets and walked off whistling. That night, while the normally sleepy town of Le Mans celebrated, the hero retired early to his shed.

Both men were as amazed as anyone by Wilbur’s figure eight. “Well, we are beaten! We just don’t exist!” Delagrange exclaimed.

A new song, “Il Vole” (“He Flies”), had become a popular hit. Also, much to Wilbur’s liking, a stray dog had been added to his camp life by Hart Berg and christened “Flyer.”

Don’t go out even for all the officers of the government unless you would go equally if they were absent. Do not let yourself be forced into doing anything before you are ready.

That Orville’s passenger that day could well have been Theodore Roosevelt was not mentioned.

Wilbur talked quite as much as most men; the difference was his words were to the point.

one senator, who was heard to say of the brothers, “I’m damned if I don’t admire their independence. We don’t mean anything to them, and there are a whole lot of reasons why we shouldn’t.”