The Wright Brothers
The Wright Brothers
Wilbur Wright was born on April 16, 1867. his younger brother, Orville Wright, was born on August 19,1871, four years later. Wilbur and Orville Wright never married or attended college, the only two of the Wright family to not do either. Wilbur and Orville opened a print shop and quickly gained a reputation for making and selling high quality presses to other printers. In 1892, the two opened a bicycle shop and in 1896, they began to make their own. The profits that the brothers made off of the print and bike shops, as well as their experience designing and building precision machines, would later assist them in their flight experiments. Following the death of German glider Otto Lilienthal, the brothers began serious work on their experimentation and quickly read all the books about aeronautics from their local library. The first flight experiment would take place in their hometown Dayton Ohio in 1899, but the brothers realized that the low wind and flat terrain was not suitable for their flight experiments. With the help of the U.S Weather Bureau, the Wright brothers conducted their next flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1900. This glider was 290 Square feet and could fly almost 400 feet on a good run. The brothers continued to improve upon their gliders. On September 18,1901, Wilbur accepted an invitation to present his experiments and findings to the Western Society of Engineers and found out that the brothers were already ahead of other aeronautical experiments, despite several setbacks. The main problems the Wright brothers faced,lift and control of the glider, was corrected when the two constructed their own wind tunnel to record the effects of wind on different shape and size wings. By September of 1902, they had begun testing their third glider. After solving their major control problems, the Wright brothers hired Charles Taylor to help with the designing and building of a four cylinder engine to be used to power their airplane. On December 17,1903,after seven weeks of experimentation, the Wright brothers had another day of testing. The best test flight covered 852 feet and lasted 59 seconds. By October of 1905, the brothers could fly for up to 39 minutes and do circles and other aerial maneuvers. In February of 1908,the brothers received a $25,000 contract from the U.S Army for the sale of an airplane that can fly 40 mph for at least one hour. In November of 1909, the brothers created the Wright Company with Wilbur as president and Orville as vice president. However, Orville soon becomes president when his brother dies of typhoid fever on May 30,1912.Orville remained the president of the Wright Company until he sold his shares in 1915. Until he died of a heart attack on January 27, 1948,Orville spent a lot of time defending his and his brother’s rightful claim to being the inventors of the aircraft.