by James Tobin
“almost as much superior in skill”: SPL to Robert Ridgway, 3/29/1900, reprinted in Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, pt. 2, 285–89.
Langley watched the great carrion-eaters: SPL’s study of the Jamaican turkey vulture, SPL’s “Notes on the soaring of the ‘John Crow’ made principally during a journey to Jamaica, in March, 1900,” box 40, RU 31, SIA.
Specimens of “John Crow”: SPL to Richard Rathbun, 3/30/1900, box 56, RU 31, SIA; R. Ridgway to SPL, 5/26/1900, box 40, RU 31, SIA; Abbot, Adventures in the World of Science, 21.
“I have been noting this ability to guide”: SPL to Manly, 4/16/1900, reprinted in Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, pt. 2, appendix, 293.
He was the son of learned: “Octave Chanute: A Biographical Sketch,” Cassier’s Magazine, March 1898; Tom D. Crouch, A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875–1905 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), 22–26.
Chanute had begun to pursue an interest: Chanute’s entrance into aeronautical studies, Chanute, “Experiments in Flying,” McClure’s Magazine, June 1900, 127; Crouch, A Dream of Wings, 22–27; WW to MW, 10/24/1901, FC, WBP, LC.
Yet anyone who skimmed: Samples from Chanute’s Progress in Flying Machines (New York: The American Engineer and Railroad Journal, 1894), 33, 35–37, 64.
“question can be answered in the affirmative”: Chanute, Progress in Flying Machines, preface.
“only after Lilienthal”: Chanute, “Experiments in Flying,” McClure’s Magazine, June 1900, 127.
“With every gust of the wind”: “Men Fly in Midair,” Chicago Tribune, 6/24/1896.
A second machine: For Chanute’s glider experiments of 1896–97, see Chanute’s own “Recent Experiments in Gliding Flight,” James Means, ed., The Aeronautical Annual, 1897 (Boston: W. B. Clarke & Co., 1897); and “Experiments in Flying,” McClure’s Magazine, June 1900, 127–33; and Tom D. Crouch, A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875–1905 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), 175–202. Quotations from Chanute’s writings in this section are taken from both articles above.
But a letter that came to him: WW’s first letter to OC, 5/13/1900, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. I, 15–19.
Chanute immediately wrote: OC’s first response to WW, 5/17/1900, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. I, 19–21.
“experiments upon experiments”: SPL to Manly, 4/6/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 62–63. See also Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, pt. 2, 218.
Finally, Balzer got the engine: George Wells diary, entry of 5/15/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 64.
Balzer’s machinists: George Wells diary, entry of 5/21/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 65–66.
Manly advanced money: George Wells diary, entry of 5/30/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 66.
“very discouraging and exasperating delays”: George Wells diary, entry of 6/3/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 66.
“not to over-tax your strength”: SPL to Manly, 6/15/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 69; George Wells diary, entry of 6/3/1900, ibid., 66.
“very encouraging” performance: Manly to SPL, 6/13/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 67–68.
“was in itself such a conclusion”: SPL to Manly, 6/15/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 69.
“that the engine will be successful”: Manly to SPL, 6/19/1900, Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 73.
“The chief object of your visit”: SPL to Manly, 7/11/1900, Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 78.
he finally dashed off notes: For a description of WW’s lost letter to the Kitty Hawk weather station, see Fred C. Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur & Orville Wright (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1951), 25n. The report of a Wright letter to Myrtle Beach was given by William Tate to his son, E. W. Tate, who told it to a newspaper reporter much later. See “Tar Heel’s Courtesy Appealed to Wrights,” Durham Morning Herald, 5/10/1970, North Carolina Collection Clipping File through 1975, UNC Library, Chapel Hill. See also Stephen Kirk, First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina (Winston-Salem, N.C.: John F. Blair, 1995), 25–27.
“You would find here”: William J. Tate to WW, 8/18/1900, in Kelly, Miracle at Kitty Hawk, 25–26.
“My imagination pictures things”: WW to KW, 6/8/1907, FC, WBP, LC. This capacity “to think pictorially and spatially,” to have “a vision of what the object or structure should look like and how it will work,” is at the center of Peter L. Jakab’s analysis of the Wrights’ creative process in Visions of a Flying Machine: The Wright Brothers and the Process of Invention (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), 4–5.
“inability to balance and steer”: WW, “Some Aeronautical Experiments,” McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 99–100. This account of the theory and calculations that entered into the design of the 1900 glider is drawn from WW to OC, 11/16/1900, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 40–44; Nick Engler, “Lift and Drift: The Story of the Wright Brothers’ Wind Tunnel” (Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company, 2002; also available at www.wright-brothers.org); Tom D. Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: Norton, 1989), 175–180; and Jakab, Visions of a Flying Machine, 63–82. The author is grateful to Nick Engler for assistance and clarification.
“We are getting even”: KW to MW, 8/22/1900, FC, LC.
“added one more year”: KW to MW, 9/5/1900, FC, LC.
“I am intending to start”: WW to MW, 9/3/1900, Kelly, Miracle at Kitty Hawk, 27.
Will promised he would be careful: KW in 1900, WW to KW, 9/20/1908, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 925–27.
“It is neither necessary nor practical”: quoted in Valerie Modman, The Road to Kitty Hawk (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1980), 68.
his application was denied: Hiram S. Maxim, letter to The Times of London, “Flying Machines,” 6/16/1896.
Hearing Langley tell: SPL’s meeting with Hiram Maxim, SPL, memorandum, 7/10/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 77.
But in Paris, de Dion: SPL’s meeting with Comte Albert de Dion, SPL, memorandum of 7/30/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 79.
Large reputations weighed: Abbot, Adventures in the World of Science, 19.
“In view of the advice”: SPL to Manly, 7/30/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 80.
and tested the engine: Manly to SPL, 8/21/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 80–83.
“I should be disposed to begin afresh”: SPL to Richard Rathbun, 9/3/1900, box 40, RU 31, SIA.
“I regret that you have: Richard Rathbun to SPL, 8/14/1900, box 56, RU 31, SIA.
As Will arrived: The great hurricane of 1900 is recounted in Erik Larson, Isaac’s Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History (New York: Crown, 1999).
“I supposed you knew”: WW to MW, 9/9/1900, FC, LC.
Finally Will found: WW’s 1900 boat trip to Kitty Hawk, “Fragmentary Memorandum by Wilbur Wright,” circa 9/13/1900, Papers, vol. 1, 23–25.
The Tates lived: WW to MW, 9/23/1900, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 25–27.
“about as desolate a region”: OC, “The Wright Brothers’ Flights,” The Independent, 6/4/1908, 1287–88.
Now, three weeks later: William J. Tate, “With the Wrights at Kitty Hawk: Anniversary of First Flight Twenty-Five Years Ago,” in Jakab and Young, eds., Published Writings, 280.
On Wednesday, October 3: This account relies on John R. McMahon, The Wright Brothers: Fathers of Flight (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1930), 83–85. After conversations with Orville Wright some twenty years after the fact, McMahon reported that Orville also boarded the glider on the first day of trials. But Tom Crouch and Peter L. Jakab suspect this claim. In their Kitty Hawk trials of 1901, when the Wrights began to make exact records of every flight, includ
ing the operator, Wilbur was the operator in every recorded gliding experiment except one flight on July 29, 1901. It seems likely—though not certain—that Orville began to share the operator’s work fully only in 1902. Thus it seems unlikely that he made a flight in 1900. This account also draws on the author’s experience in assisting with tests of Nick Engler’s authentic replica of the 1900 glider, with Dudley Mead as operator, at Jockey’s Ridge State Park near Kitty Hawk in September 2000.
The kite had lessons to teach: Nick Engler to the author, 10/1/2000. The brothers said little about giving up the tower. In 1903, WW received an inquiry from an experimenter named Merrill, who planned to experiment with a “soaring tower.” Apparently referring to the Kitty Hawk experiments of 1900, WW told OC: “Our plans for experimenting without forward motion all failed on account of lack of suitable winds. Possibly Mr. Merrill intends to use lighter load per sq. ft. of wing area. If so he may succeed.” WW to OC, 9/9/1903, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 2, 353.
“the strip of beach”: Arthur Ruhl, “History at Kill Devil Hill,” Collier’s Weekly, 5/30/1908.
“that flight represented only a small part”: H. H. Brimley, “Market Gunning,” reprinted in David Stick, ed., An Outer Banks Reader (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 29–32.
“the sand is the greatest thing”: OW to KW, 10/14/1900, FC, LC.
“No bird soars in a calm”: WW’s Notebook A[1900–] 1901, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 34–37.
Otto Lilienthal and Octave: WW’s defiance of Lilienthal’s and Chanute’s warnings about large gliders, Nick Engler to the author, 9/12/2000. Engler said he was especially struck by WW’s courage when he, Engler, made glides in his authentic replica of the Wrights’ 1900 machine. He noted the experiments of 1900 as characteristic of Wilbur’s supreme self-confidence, once he had convinced himself of a truth. For Wilbur, Engler said, “truth trumped authority.”
Will had hoped for hours: WW’s glides of 1900, WW, “Some Aeronautical Experiments,” Papers, vol. 1, 105–07.
“with the experience I have acquired”: SPL to Rathbun, 9/21/1900, box 40, RU 31, SIA. For SPL’s visit to the French Military Balloon Park, see also SPL, memorandum, 9/20/1900, box 40, RU 31, SIA.
now felt entirely convinced: Manly to Stephen Balzer, 9/28/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 88–89. See Meyer’s footnote; he believed Manly “had devised an erroneous theory to explain the operation of the rotary engine.”
Immediately he got: Manly to SPL, 9/11/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 86–87.
“either. . .that he will build something”: SPL to Rathbun, 9/29/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 90–91.
“Manly can build here”: Rathbun to SPL, 10/9/1900, in Meyer, ed., Langley’s Aero Engine of 1903, 91. Meyer identifies this as a cable from Manly to SPL, but the author is more likely Rathbun.
Chapter Four: “Truth and Error Intimately Mixed”
“my. . .ideas”: “I” versus “we” in WW’s correspondence—there is a notable exception to Wilbur’s use of the first person singular in the early months of his project. On November 27, 1899, writing to the Instrument Division of the U.S. Weather Bureau to request data on wind velocities, Wilbur wrote, “We have been doing some experimenting with kites, with a view to constructing one capable of sustaining a man. . . . We expect to carry the experiment further next year. . . . We would like to learn if possible . . .” Wilbur wrote the letter on stationery headed “Wright Cycle Co.,” whereas his other early correspondence was usually written on plain paper. Possibly it struck him as more credible to imply to the Weather Bureau that this unusual undertaking was a corporate matter rather than an individual quest. WW to Instrument Division, U.S. Weather Bureau, 11/27/1899, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 12.
“often chided Wilbur”: Fred C. Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur & Orville Wright (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1951), 8. The statement is Kelly’s. He interviewed OW extensively in preparing the only biography that OW authorized, The Wright Brothers (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1943). In One Day at Kitty Hawk: The Untold Story of the Wright Brothers (New York: Crowell, 1975), John Evangelist Walsh made a pointed case for WW’s primacy, and noted that “ ‘I’ becomes ‘we’ and ‘my’ becomes ‘our’” in WW’s letters after the trip to Kitty Hawk in 1900. See especially Walsh’s long footnote, “The Kelly Biography,” 251–52. Walsh argued that OW, after WW’s death, tried, through his influence on Kelly’s book and in other ways, to encourage the inaccurate view that “it was not Wilbur but Orville himself who had supplied all the initial theorizing, the original scientific insight, by means of which the elusive principles of flight had been uncovered.” Walsh’s case, if not conclusive, is carefully documented and worth considering. He appears to go too far when he says: “Judging from the brothers’ subsequent extreme care in maintaining a united image, some sort of pact or agreement may have been made at Kitty Hawk—the advantage to Wilbur of having the close assistance of his brother’s considerable mechanical skills and the alert sympathy growing from long association is obvious.”
“From the time we were little children”: McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, v.
had the habit of solidarity: For a discussion of forces encouraging unity within the Wright family, see Adrian J. Kinnane, “A House United: Morality and Invention in the Wright Brothers’ Home,” Psychohistory Review, Spring 1988, 367–97.
“I love to scrap with Orv”: “Wright Cycle Shop,” Oral history interview with Harold S. and Ivonette Wright Miller, 9/17/1989, 57–58, E.I. #186, Henry Ford Museum &Greenfield Village Research Center.
“No truth is without some mixture of error”: WW to George Spratt, 4/27/1903, GC, WBP, LC.
Their niece, Ivonette: “Wright Cycle Shop,” Oral history interview with Harold S. and Ivonette Wright Miller, 9/17/1989, 58, E.I. #186, box 4, Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village Research Center.
Every day at lunch: Carrie Kayler’s memory of WW and cap, Kelly, ed., Miracle at Kitty Hawk, 19.
he had somehow mastered the harmonica: “At the Wright Home . . . ,” Oral history with Harold S. and Ivonette Wright Miller, 9/19/1989, 16–17, E.I. #186, Henry Ford Museum &Greenfield Village Research Center.
“placing his hands on the seat of a chair”: MW, “Wilbur Wright Born in Henry County,” New Castle (Ind.) Daily Times, 6/1/1909, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
Orville’s “peculiar spells”: WW to MW, 7/20/1907, FC, WBP, LC.
“Orville never seemed to tire”: Ivonette Wright Miller, comp., Wright Reminiscences (Air Ford Museum Foundation, 1978), 2–3.
“placing his hands on the seat of a chair”: MW, “Wilbur Wright Born in Henry County,” New Castle (Ind.) Daily Times, 6/1/1909, scrapbooks, WBP, LC.
Orville’s “peculiar spells”: WW to MW, 7/20/1907, FC, WBP, LC.
“Orville never seemed to tire”: Ivonette Wright Miller, comp., Wright Reminiscences (Air Ford Museum Foundation, 1978), 2–3.
Orville was perhaps the better mathematician: “Wright Cycle Shop,” Oral history interview with Harold S. and Ivonette Wright Miller, 9/17/1989, 63, E.I. #186, box 4, Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village Research Center.
“Wilbur was good at starting things”: “Wright Cycle Shop,” Oral history interview with Harold S. and Ivonette Wright Miller, 9/17/1989, 63, E.I. #186, box 4, Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village Research Center.
“Orv seems to be”: KW to WW, 6/1/1907, FC, WBP, LC.
“When I learned that you intended”: WW’s letter to Lou Wright regarding Herbert Wright, 6/18/1901, FC, WBP, LC.
“a sort of tournament”: OC to Edward Huffaker, 6/1/01, Chanute papers, LC.
“extract instruction from its failure”: OC to WW, 6/29/1901, McFarland, ed., Papers, vol. 1, 57–58.
“the leading authority”: WW to Reuchlin Wright, 7/3/1901, FC, WBP, LC.
“We are of course delighted,”: WW to OC, 7/6/01, McFarland, ed., Pa
pers, vol. 1, 67.
“As the Wrights approached”: Timing of SPL’s trip and talk with Chanute, OC to James Means, 6/23/1901, letterbook, 9/25/1900–1/20/1902, Chanute papers, LC.
a monthly payroll of more than: Costs of aerodrome staff, Tom D. Crouch, A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875–1909 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), 273.
For weeks that spring Manly raced: Manly to SPL, 6/4/1901, box 45, RU 31, SIA.
“showed conclusively that the balancing”: Charles M. Manly, Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, Pt. II, 232.
“engineering knowledge . . . is of less consequence”: Quoted in Tom D. Crouch, A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875–1905 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), 281–82.
“I am now, as I have been”: Manly to SPL, 6/1/1901, box 45, RU 31, SIA.
“I could not doubt”: SPL’s account, “The Fire Walk Ceremony in Tahiti,” appeared first as a letter in Nature, 8/22/1901, 397–99, then as an article, with photographs, in Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1901 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902), 539–44.
“nourished a scientific passion for doubt”: Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 377.
he wrote a short essay: SPL’s essay, “The Laws of Nature,” was read to the Philosophical Society of Washington on May 10, 1902, and appeared in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1901 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902), 545–52.
Huffaker was a farm boy: Crouch, A Dream of Wings, 85–86.
“Well, Huffaker is as God made him”: Cyrus Adler, I Have Considered the Days, 251.
“one of the most acute observers”: SPL introduction to E. C. Huffaker, “On Soaring Flight,” Smithsonian Report, 1898.
“Their work is done”: Entries of July 19, 20, 22 and 23, Chanute-Huffaker diary, LC.
“in a mighty cloud”: War with mosquitos, OW to KW, 7/28/01, FC, WBP, LC.
“The mosquitos have been almost unbearable”: WW to MW, 7/26/1901, FC, WBP, LC.