The Wright Brothers

by David McCullough

  Since soaring is merely gliding in a rising current, it would be easy to soar in front of any hill of suitable slope, whenever the wind blew with sufficient force to furnish support, provided the wind were steady. But by reason of changes in wind velocity there is more support at times than is needed, while at others there is too little, so that a considerable degree of skill, experience, and sound judgment is required in order to keep the machine exactly in the rising current. . . . Before trying to rise to any dangerous height a man ought to know that in an emergency his mind and muscles will work by instinct rather than conscious effort. There is no time to think.

  A continuing study of soaring birds had convinced him that man could build wings that had as little or less resistance than even the best of birds. But that was not the point, or the lesson from birds. “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.”

  At the close Wilbur declared still again, “The soaring problem is apparently not so much one of better wings as of better operators.”

  Asked during a brief discussion period what he thought of experiments being conducted by Alexander Graham Bell to hoist a man into the air with a giant kite, Wilbur replied, “It is very bad policy to ask one flying machine man about the experiments of another, because every flying machine man thinks that his method is the only correct one.”

  Asked by another in the audience what he thought of the dihedral angle of the wings used by Samuel Langley, Wilbur did not hesitate to point out that Langley’s machine was tested only in dead calms when there were no side gusts to contend with and that it must be remembered “the wind usually blows.”

  Nowhere in the talk had he said a word about the gasoline engine sitting in the back room of the bicycle shop at Dayton; or of his and Orville’s intense, often maddening work on propellers; or of what they would be up to at Kitty Hawk in only a matter of months. When the subject of motors came into discussion, he simply kept to the past tense. “As none of our experiments has been with power machines, my judgment . . . may be of little value.”

  Day after day that June the weather in Dayton remained, as Bishop Wright recorded, “fair and mild.” For him all was much as usual. He went to the library, he wrote letters, attended church, accompanied Katharine at a high school commencement. When she headed off to Oberlin for another commencement, the house on Hawthorn Street grew quieter still.

  At the shop on West Third Street it was a different story. With the help of Charlie Taylor, the brothers were on the home stretch and working harder than ever to get everything right with every piece and part of the new machine.

  From Kitty Hawk Bill Tate sent word that he had installed a gasoline tank at the camp and asked how soon he could expect to see them.

  On July 14 came the news that in a matter of days, Samuel Langley was to test his “latest contrivance” on the mosquito-infested banks of the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia, thirty miles south of Washington. This time it was to be a motor-powered “full-fledged airship” called “The Great Aerodrome,” capable of carrying one operator. It had cost $50,000 in public money—in Smithsonian resources and the largest appropriation yet granted by the U.S. War Department. Professor Langley and several of his friends, including Alexander Graham Bell, contributed another $20,000.

  Reporters rushed to the scene, and in a flotilla of watercraft comprised of everything from catboats to steam launches converged on the giant houseboat, “the ark” as they called it, on top of which perched Langley’s machine, “the buzzard,” poised to go.

  Langley himself arrived from Washington and went aboard the houseboat only to disappear inside, refusing to show himself, despite earnest pleas for interviews. When a storm struck, he and his party of mechanics and scientists went back to Washington. Then, with the storm over, the young man who was expected to fly the machine, Charles Manly, hurried off to Washington, but on returning the next day refused to say anything.

  At last, on the morning of August 8, the air perfectly still, an unmanned, quarter-scale model of the Langley machine was launched and traveled some 1,000 feet before crashing into the river. “AIRSHIP AS A SUBMARINE” ran the mocking headline in the New York Times. Manly went before reporters to declare the flight entirely successful, but beyond that would say no more.

  How Wilbur and Orville felt about all this, just as they were about to attempt the most important step in their own work, what comments were exchanged in the privacy of the workshop or at home, there is no telling. The only comment on record, in a letter Wilbur wrote to Octave Chanute, was largely an expression of sympathy for Langley:

  Professor Langley seems to be having rather more than his fair share of trouble just now with the pestiferous reporters and windstorms. But as the mosquitoes are reported to be very bad along the banks where the reporters are encamped he has some consolation.

  Work on their “whopper flying machine,” as they had come to call it, continued through the mounting heat of summer, the brothers and Charlie seeing to the final touches on every component, every small detail, before departure for Kitty Hawk, where, they knew, still more work would be required for the assembly of it all.

  “We never did assemble the whole machine at Dayton. There wasn’t room enough,” Charlie would explain. Just the center section alone when set up in the shop, so blocked passage between the front and back rooms that to wait on customers he or one or the other of the brothers had to slip out a side door and go around to the street entrance in front.

  Packing everything for shipment so there would be no damage en route became in itself a major task—motor, frame, and parts adding up to an estimated 675 pounds. By September 18, all was crated and on the train.

  There was no ceremony about it or anxiousness, according to Charlie. “If there was any worry about the flying machine not working, they never showed it and I never felt it.”

  Five days later Wilbur and Orville themselves were packed and on board an eastbound train.

  II.

  The change from the crowded, stifling hot, noisy confines of the workspace at Dayton to the open reaches of sea and sky on the Outer Banks could hardly have been greater or more welcome. They loved Kitty Hawk. “Every year adds to our comprehension of the wonders of this place,” wrote Orville to Katharine soon after arrival.

  The previous winter on the Banks had been especially severe, one continuing succession of storms, the brothers were told, the rain coming down in such torrents as to make a lake that reached for miles near their camp. Ninety-mile-an-hour winds had lifted their building from its foundation and set it down several feet closer to the ocean. Mosquitoes were said to have been so thick they turned day into night, the lightning so terrible it turned night into day.

  But the winds had also sculpted the sand hills into the best shape for gliding the brothers had seen, and the September days now were so glorious, conditions so ideal, that instead of turning at once to setting up camp, they put the glider from the year before back in shape and spent what Wilbur called “the finest day we ever had in practice.” They made seventy-five glides and with some practice at soaring found it easier than expected. All was looking highly favorable.

  With the help of Dan Tate, a new 16 × 44-foot building in which to assemble and store the new Flyer went up in little more than a week’s time, its doors hung and hinged just as a terrific storm struck, the wind at one point blowing 75 miles per hour.

  Progress on the new machine had to go forward, of course, though indoors. “Worked all day in making connections of sections of upper [wing] surface, putting in wires at rear edge and putting on some hinges,” Orville recorded on October 12 the same day Dan Tate reported that five boats had already been driven ashore between Kitty Hawk and Cape Henry.

  On October 18, as Wilbur wrote to Katharine, “a storm hove to view” that made “the prayers of Elijah look small in comparison.

>   The wind suddenly whirled around to the north and increased to something like 40 miles an hour and was accompanied by a regular cloudburst. In this country the winds usually blow from the north, then from the east, next the south, and then from the west, and on to the north again. But when the wind begins to “back up,” that is, veer from south to east and north, etc., then look out, for it means a cyclone is coming. . . . Maybe it got so in love with backing up that it went forward a little sometimes just to have the fun of “backing up” again. It repeated this process seven times in four days. . . .

  The second day opened with the gale still continuing. . . . The climax came about 4 o’clock when the wind reached 75 miles an hour. Suddenly a corner of our tar-paper roof gave way under the pressure and we saw that if the trouble were not stopped the whole roof would probably go.

  Orville put on Wilbur’s heavy overcoat, grabbed a ladder, and went out to see what could be done. Wilbur, coatless, followed after and, fighting the wind, found Orville at the north end of the building, having succeeded in climbing the ladder only to have the wind blow the coat over his head.

  As the hammer and nails were in his pocket and up over his head [Wilbur continued, delighting in telling the story for those at home once the storm had passed], he was unable to get his hands on them or to pull his coattails down, so he was compelled to descend again. The next time he put the nails in his mouth and took the hammer in his hand and I followed him up the ladder hanging on to his coattails. He swatted around a good little while trying to get a few nails in. . . . 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. Finally the job was done and we rushed for cover.

  The driving wind and rain continued through the night, Wilbur wrote, “but we took the advice of the Oberlin coach, ‘Cheer up, boys, there is no hope.’ ”

  By mail, on October 18, came a newspaper clipping sent by their Hawthorn Street neighbor George Feight reporting the failure of another Langley test flight on October 7, and this time it was the full-sized Great Aerodrome with Charles Manly at what constituted the controls. No sooner had the “buzzard” with a wingspan of 48 feet been launched than it dove straight into the water. Manly, though thoroughly drenched, suffered no injury.

  “I see that Langley has had his fling, and failed,” Wilbur wrote to Octave Chanute. “It seems to be our turn to throw now, and I wonder what our luck will be.”

  In the same letter, Wilbur left no doubt that their confidence was at a new high. “We are expecting the most interesting results of any of our seasons of experiment, and are sure that, barring exasperating little accidents or some mishaps, we will have done something before we break camp.”

  Scratching off a postcard to Charlie Taylor, Orville expressed the same spirit in a lighter vein.

  Flying machine market has been very unsteady the past two days. Opened yesterday morning at about 208 (100% means even chance of success) but by noon had dropped to 110. These fluctuations would have produced a panic, I think, in Wall Street, but in this quiet place it only put us to thinking and figuring a little.

  They proceeded on the Flyer much as if they were building a truss bridge, only with the attention to detail of watchmakers, Orville keeping a day-by-day record in his diary.

  Thursday, October 22 We worked all day on lower surface and tail.

  Friday, October 23 Worked on skids during morning, and after dinner finished putting on hinges.

  Saturday, October 24 We put in the uprights between surfaces and trussed the center section. Had much trouble with wires.

  On Monday the 26th, they worked again on the truss wires until the afternoon, when the wind veered to the north, and they spent two hours at Kill Devil Hills flying the glider and succeeded in breaking their previous record for time five times and covering distances of as much as 500 feet.

  George Spratt had rejoined them, and on October 27 he and Dan Tate started up the engine on the machine.

  Monday, November 2 Began work of placing engine on machine. . . .

  Wednesday, November 4 Have machine now within half day of completion.

  But when the next day they started up the motor, the magneto—a small generator utilizing magnets—failed to deliver a spark to ignite the gas and the vibrations of the misfiring engine tore loose and badly twisted the propeller shafts.

  With little chance of more flight tests anytime soon, George Spratt chose to go home, taking with him the damaged shafts as far as Norfolk to be shipped back to Charlie Taylor in Dayton.

  Two days later Octave Chanute appeared. The weather turned miserably cold and rainy, and there was little to do but sit around the stoves and talk. Chanute told the brothers it was as if they were “pursued by a blind fate” from which they were unable to escape.

  “He doesn’t seem to think our machines are so much superior as the manner in which we handle them,” Orville wrote to Katharine and their father after Chanute had left. “We are of just the reverse opinion.”

  Days passed still too cold to work. Puddles about the camp turned to ice. All the same, the brothers were entirely comfortable and had no trouble keeping warm, as Wilbur wrote reassuringly in another letter home, cheerful as ever and off on another of his wry renditions of coping with the travails of camp life.

  In addition to the classifications of last year, to wit, 1, 2, 3 and 4 blanket nights, we now have 5 blanket nights, and 5 blankets and 2 quilts. Next come 5 blankets, 2 quilts and fire; then 5, 2, fire, & hot-water jug. This is as far as we’ve got so far. Next comes the addition of sleeping without undressing, then shoes & hats, and finally overcoats. We intend to be comfortable while we are here.

  In the last days of November, snow fell, something they had not seen before on the Outer Banks. Water in their washbasin froze solid. Cold or not, they succeeded meantime in getting the engine to run with practically no vibration even at high speed. The Flyer would be launched on a single wooden track, to serve like a railroad track 60 feet in length on which it would slide. The total cost for materials for this innovation was all of $4.

  By all evidence the brothers had suffered in spirit not in the least. “After a loaf of 15 days, we are down to work again,” Orville wrote to Charlie on November 23. “We will not be ready for a trial for several days yet on account of having decided on some changes in the machine. Unless something breaks in the meantime we feel confident in success.”

  New propeller shafts made of larger, heavier steel tubing arrived from Charlie, only to crack during an indoor test. With no delay, Orville, the better mechanic of the two, packed his bag and on November 30 left for Dayton to see what could be done, with Wilbur remaining behind “to keep house alone,” in his words.

  In Washington, by the morning of December 8, the cold wind eased off, and to Charles Manly and the Smithsonian technicians working with him, conditions for another test of Samuel Langley’s much publicized, much derided aerodrome looked as favorable as could be hoped for given the time of year.

  Cakes of ice could be seen riding with the current on the Potomac, but the day was bright, the air calm, and given that money for the project was nearly gone by now, any further postponement seemed out of the question.

  The brave Manly was again to be the “steersman,” the only one to risk his life, and it was he who made the final decision to proceed. As he saw it, it was “now or never.”

  The giant airship, with its wings again set at a pronounced dihedral angle, was to be launched as before by catapult from atop the same monstrous houseboat, tied up this time just four miles below the city at Arsenal Point. Some five hours of frantic effort went into the final preparations. Not until four in the afternoon did everything appear ready, and by then it was nearly dark and the wind was rising.

  Professor Langley and a few of his associates were watching from small boats. Other boats of every sort were filled with reporters, and crowds of spectators lined the length of the Arsenal seawall.r />
  Having stripped down to a union suit, Manly put on a jacket lined with buoyant cork, climbed aboard the aircraft, and fired up the gasoline engine.

  At exactly 4:45 he gave the signal to release the catapult. Instantly the machine roared down the track and leaped 60 feet straight up into the air, only to stop and with a grinding, whirring sound, hang suspended momentarily, nose up, then, its wings crumbling, flipped backward and plunged into the river no more than 20 feet from the houseboat.

  Manly, who had disappeared into the river, found himself trapped underwater, his jacket snared by part of the wreckage. Tearing free, he fought his way up through tangled wires only to hit a sheet of ice before at last breaking through to the surface.

  He was pulled from the water, uninjured but nearly frozen. After being quickly wrapped in blankets and administered a shot of whiskey, he broke into what one of the Smithsonian staff would describe as “the most voluble series of blasphemies” he had ever heard in his life.

  As the newspapers reported, the failure was worse by far than that of October 7, as was the humiliation for Langley and nearly everyone connected with the costly, long-drawn-out project. Halfhearted and unconvincing explanations were offered by Langley and others, fixing the blame on flaws in the launching apparatus. Few were convinced. Langley was compared to Darius Green, the comic fool of the famous poem whose ludicrous machine flew in one direction only, downward.

  The government, said the Washington Post, should promptly sever its relations with the experiment that had covered eight to ten years and involved a very large outlay of public money without disclosing a single ground for hope.

  The whole thing had been a colossal failure, to be sure, but as the Chicago Tribune said, it was impossible not to feel some sympathy for Langley.

  He has constructed his aerodrome on scientific principles so far as he understands them. He has spent much money, he has shown great patience and perseverance, and he has labored hard. . . . Evidently something is wrong with the scientific principles or the professor’s application of them.