Wright Brothers, Wrong Story

by William Hazelgrove

  The picture would cement into history the notion of the brothers being equal and inviolate. Clearly, there is Orville on the plane. There is Wilbur running beside and behind it. Need we say more? Orville and Wilbur together solved the problem of flight at Kitty Hawk, and here is proof of that plurality. But the visionary is really the man on the right, not the man on the plane. We know that Orville will hit the sand after maybe twelve seconds in the air. The real flight that day occurred after the picture was taken—when Wilbur managed to fly for almost a minute. That was the first controlled flight of a man in an airplane, and it was done by the man who invented the airplane.

  You cannot have coauthors. Not really. Someone is always leading the way, and someone is always following. Someone has the whole thing in his or her head, and someone else has a part. If the author who is following drops off, then another author will be hired. The visionary alone is the indispensable one who must have the entire world in his or her head. If that person quits, then the story, the novel, the film, the inventing of an airplane would truly end right there. This is because the coauthor or mechanic cannot see the next step in the same way that the luminary can. That other person simply doesn't have the vision.

  If Orville had gone back to the bicycle business, could he have been replaced? Yes. If Wilbur had been killed or had died of natural causes or had been drafted, could he have been replaced? Would the work go forward on solving human flight without Wilbur? No. There were no other Wilbur Wrights in the world. There were men like Lilienthal, Langley, Chanute, even Curtiss, who had the parts of the problem solved but never the whole. Wilbur Wright not only saw the problem of flight in a unique way, but also solved it intuitively, much like the writer who must finish a very long book and knows where it will end up even as he sets his pen on the first page.

  This is genius. This is the flash of insight, which is never taught and never known, but is recognized years later. We can call it destiny, brilliance, genius, or whatever term we can ascribe to what we don't understand. It is the musician who writes the incredible hit, the writer who formulates the bestseller, or the poet who wows the world with three lines. How do they do it? The best we can surmise is that it is something from the heavens.

  And then of course the great tragedy occurs. The genius is struck down. Wilbur died in 1912, and that left Orville and the vacuum of history. There was no one else to interpret what really happened at Kitty Hawk before, during, and after. There was only Orville Wright and his friend Fred C. Kelly, and there are the intervening years between the first flight and the first biography describing what happened. There was the long-standing fight with the Smithsonian and the counterclaims that try to take away the very status and credit for the invention of the airplane. But the inventor had died, and that left the brother in the driver's seat.

  For thirty-six years, he alone was the voice of the Wright brothers; and the story that he told needed to be airtight because the sharks were circling. As far as Orville knew, Milton was right. The world out there was dangerous and duplicitous, and the Wrights must circle the wagons. Men like Curtiss, Zahm, Walcott, and Langley were the enemy. And so the story was written during this thirty-six-year siege. The war against the Wright brothers brings about the desperate step of taking the very evidence of that flight and holding it hostage unless the story is corrected. That story was being dictated by Orville Wright to Fred Kelly, and it would be an undisputed story of two brothers equally talented, equally driven, and equally qualified to solve the problem of flight. It is telling that in the heat of the battle with the Smithsonian, the history of the Wright brothers, the bible of the Wright brothers, was being formulated as if to button up all loose ends. It would be the undisputed truth of the Wright mythology. And it is fitting that that bible would end the decades-long feud.

  When all was said and done, the 1903 Flyer ended up in the Smithsonian and the story of the Wright brothers was published by Kelly. And there it has remained, unquestioned, like a bible that historians consult, then maybe write a few variations on, but basically retell the same story. It was a story told by one man to another, and it was written during a time of immense stress—a time in which truth was under assault by an array of people and institutions. Orville would risk nothing to chance and, like the situation where the bombs rained down on the Flyer during the blitz of London, the truth would be buried deep underground.

  The Wright brothers were two fascinating, talented men. They did have an idiosyncratic family whose lifestyle raised more questions than it provided answers. They did have a hostile view of the outside world. They were both mechanically inclined to a very high degree. They both were remarkably inventive, determined, and resourceful. But Orville Wright operated on a linear plane, whereas Wilbur saw beyond it to the existential moment he discovered while in a dark journey that was brought on by a freak accident and the death of his mother. Somewhere along the way, he had a vision that wedded him to solving the problem of manned flight. His brother would come along for the ride, quite literally, on December 17, 1903, and eventually that brother would write their history.

  The Wright brothers were similar in many respects, but it is the difference between the pilot and the mechanic, the visionary and the assistant, the poet and the scribe, that sets them apart. And that is all the difference in the world.

  Bishop Milton Wright, Wilbur and Orville Wright's father. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. Photograph by Harris & Ewing.

  Wilbur (left) and Orville Wright (right). Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Wright family home in Dayton, Ohio. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. George Grantham Bain Collection.

  Orville (second from the left), Wilbur (third from the left), and Katherine Wright, with others. Photo and caption courtesy of the Library of Congress. George Grantham Bain Collection.

  Captain William J. Tate, the Wrights’ first host in Kitty Hawk, and his family on the porch of their home, the Kitty Hawk Post Office. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  The Wright brothers’ camp near Kitty Hawk (photo taken from the north). Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Wilbur (left, background) and Orville (right, foreground) attempting to fly their glider. Photo and caption courtesy of the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Wilbur Wright in a prone position on one of his gliders just after landing. Its skid marks are visible behind it and, in the foreground, skid marks from a previous landing are visible. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Wilbur gliding down the steep slope of Big Kill Devil Hill. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Crumpled glider wrecked by the wind on the Hill of the Wreck (named after a shipwreck). Photo and caption courtesy of the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Octave Chanute, 1832–1910. Photo and caption courtesy of the Library of Congress. Photograph by Waldon Fawcett, Washington, DC.

  Glenn Curtiss at the pilot's wheel of his biplane. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. George Grantham Bain Collection.

  Samuel Pierpont Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. Photograph by Harris & Ewing.

  Experimental tandem biplane embodying Langley principles on the Potomac River. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Photograph by Harris & Ewing.

  Langley airship. Photo and caption courtesy of the Library of Congress. George Grantham Bain Collection.

  Kitchen of the camp building at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with neatly arranged wall shelves holding dishes, canned foods, and other provisions. Photo and caption courtesy of the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Wilbur in his glider, turning ra
pidly to the left, with Dan Tate running alongside on Big Kill Devil Hill. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Left rear view of glider at a high altitude. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Rear view of Wilbur making a right turn in a glide from No. 2 Hill, with the right wing tipped close to the ground. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Wilbur gliding in level flight, with the single rear rudder clearly visible. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Orville making a right turn, showing wing warping, with a hill visible in front of him. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Rear view of the Wright brothers’ four-cylinder motor as installed in their 1903 airplane. Photo and caption courtesy of the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  The Wright brothers’ 1903 flying machine at Kill Devil Hills, with camp buildings to the right. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Kitty Hawk Life-Saving station crew that assisted in the 1903 flight. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  The 1903 flying machine on the launching track. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Wilbur in a prone position in the damaged machine, on the ground after an unsuccessful trial on December 14, 1903. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  The first flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Close-up view of the damaged 1903 machine, with its rudder frame broken in landing, on the ground at the end of its last flight. Photo courtesy of and caption adapted from the Library of Congress. Wright brothers collection.

  Wright brothers’ Type A plane in flight at Fort Myer, Virginia. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. Photograph by Harris & Ewing.

  Fred C. Kelly had his book, and the Smithsonian would get the Flyer. On May 13, 1943, The Wright Brothers: A Biography Authorized by Orville Wright was published. History followed. On October 10, 1947, Orville Wright suffered a heart attack while running up the front steps of a building to keep an appointment. On January 27, 1948, he had a second heart attack, and he died three days later. He was seventy-seven years old, and he never again saw the 1903 plane that had flown in Kitty Hawk. John Daniels, the man who had snapped the famous picture of the first flight in 1903, died the day after. Eighteen years earlier, in 1930, Glenn Curtiss had died while going to court in upstate New York. He was on his way to court, responding to a lawsuit brought by his business partner.

  In 1948, the Wright Flyer of 1903 was loaded on to the ocean liner Mauretania in London and shipped to Halifax, Nova Scotia. A representative of the Smithsonian arranged for the rest of the Flyer's journey to Washington on a flatbed truck. On December 17, 1948, a ceremony was held in the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building. Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis was moved from its suspended position to the back of the hall to make room for the new centerpiece. The 1903 Wright Flyer now hung front and center with a plaque that read:

  THE ORIGINAL WRIGHT BROTHERS AEROPLANE

  THE WORLD'S FIRST POWER-DRIVEN HEAVIER-THAN-AIR MACHINE

  IN WHICH MAN MADE FREE, CONTROLLED, AND SUSTAINED FLIGHT

  INVENTED AND BUILT BY WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT

  FLOWN BY THEM AT KITTY HAWK, NORTH CAROLINA, DECEMBER 17, 1903

  BY ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH THE WRIGHT BROTHERS DISCOVERED THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN FLIGHT

  AS INVENTORS, BUILDERS, AND FLYERS THEY FURTHER DEVELOPED THE AEROPLANE, TAUGHT MAN TO FLY, AND OPENED THE ERA OF AVIATION1

  When Charles Lindbergh was told that his plane was moved back, he said he didn't mind. The first true plane was back in America, but heirs of the Wright brothers put a condition on the returning Flyer. If the Smithsonian ever recognized any other aircraft “as having been capable of powered, sustained and controlled flight with a man on board before December 17, 1903, the executors of the estate would have the right to take possession of the machine once again.”2 In other words, the Flyer could be shipped away again. Orville's final threat would ensure that no one questioned the Wright brothers again. No one in the Smithsonian, at least.

  Katherine Wright finally married in her fifties and left the mansion Orville had built in his later years. He never forgave his sister for marrying and never spoke to her again. On her deathbed in 1929, he relented and visited her. Milton Wright had died in 1917. Orville's final letter directing the return of the Flyer to the Smithsonian was in Mabel Beck's possession, and she finally gave it up two weeks after the funeral. The will provided a few surprises. As cited by Roz Young in the Dayton Daily News:

  Among his bequests was $300,000 to Oberlin College, Katherine's alma mater, and with the requirement [that] the trustees should pay out of the interest annual stipends to some of his relatives, to one friend Ed Sines, to his mechanic Charles Taylor, to his housekeeper Carrie Grumbach, to his laundress Charlotte Jones and to “my trusted secretary” Mabel Beck. He left her $4,000 annually. The others who worked for Orville received less.3

  The Dayton Daily News reported that “Mabel outlived Orville by 11 years, dying in August 1959, at the age of 68. She had suffered from hypertension and cerebral arteriosclerosis for three years and died three days after a cerebral hemorrhage. She left her estate to her sister Edna.”4 After Orville's death, Mabel Beck and her sister continued to live in her house in Dayton until 1959, and then the house was turned over to the bank.

  A woman from the bank and Mabel's friend Mary Francis found a box of letters in a cupboard over the fireplace. The box was tied with a ribbon. Inside were letters from Orville Wright to Mabel Beck. They were the closest thing to love letters that Orville Wright would ever write. The two women read them and then decided to burn them in the fireplace to protect the reputations of Ms. Beck and Mr. Wright.5 The box returned to its hiding place. History was altered one last time.

  In 1985, Professors Fred E. C. Culick and Henry R. Jex analyzed the aerodynamics of the 1903 Flyer and declared it to be unflyable by anyone but the Wrights, who had trained themselves on the 1902 glider. On December 17, 2003, Kevin Kochersberger flew an exact replica of the 1903 Flyer, but he failed to keep it in the air as Wilbur had done one hundred years before.6

  Some men are just born to fly.

  Following the footsteps of the Wright brothers involves several well-trod trails. First I would like to thank the good folks at the Wright Memorial in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Then, of course, the staff of the manuscript division of the Library of Congress, for access to the papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright. The Dayton Public Library and the archivist at the National Air and Space Museum. The Smithsonian, for allowing me to examine the Wright Flyer from 1903, and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, for an amazing visit to the Wright family home and Wright bicycle shop. Of course to Steven L. Mitchell and the good folks at Prometheus Books, for having the vision that a book on the Wright brothers requires. To my family, for support and everything else that keeps a writer above his garage. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, for taking their recalcitrant son to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, for many family vacations, which included numerous trips to see where the Wright brothers flew. My fascination began there.

  Preface: The Wright Myth

  1. David McCullough, The Wright Brothers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016), p. 6.

  2. Lawrence Goldstone, Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies (New York: Ballantine, 2015), p. 36.

  3. Tom D. Crouch, The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), p. 163.
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  4. Fred Kelly, The Wright Brothers: A Biography Authorized by Orville Wright (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943).

  5. Ibid., p. 26.

  6. Ibid., p. 38.

  7. Ibid., p. 39.

  8. Marvin Wilks McFarland, The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: Including the Chanute-Wright Letters and Other Papers of Octave Chanute, vol. 1, 1899–1903 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), p. 3.

  9. Crouch, Bishop's Boys, p. 118.

  10. Kelly, Wright Brothers, p. 43.

  11. Ibid., p. 45.

  12. Ibid., p. 69.

  13. McCullough, Wright Brothers, p. 6.

  14. Crouch, Bishop's Boys, p. 117.

  15. Ibid., p. 118.

  16. Ibid., p. 115.

  17. Ibid., p. 118.

  18. Rosamond McPherson Young, Twelve Seconds to the Moon (Dayton, OH: United States Air Force Museum, 1983), p. 152.

  19. Crouch, Bishop's Boys, p. 117.

  20. Ibid.