Will walked into the old camp at the Kill Devil Hills early on the morning of April 11.16 There was not much left. The side walls and south end of the original hangar were still standing, but the roof and north side had collapsed. The floor lay beneath a foot of sand and debris. The “new” building had vanished completely, victim of a recent storm. The lifesavers had pulled the pump out of the sand and reinstalled it near the Kill Devil Hills station.
The skeleton of the 1902 wing protruded from a small dune just east of the original hangar. A crate stored in the rafters of the old structure had crashed to earth when the roof collapsed, spewing the sad remains of the two Chanute gliders onto the sand. An odd assortment of bits and pieces—ribs, spar sections, the cradle of the 1903 machine—littered the surface. Spencer Midgett, who had driven Will down to the camp in a pony cart, explained that a group of boys vacationing at Nags Head had walked down to the site and carried away everything that looked interesting.
Will hired Oliver O’Neal, a relative of Uncle Benny, and one of the Baum boys to help him put up a new building. Bad weather and ill health slowed their progress. Will came down with intestinal flu, and transporting the building materials from the landing at Kitty Hawk to the old fishing dock near the camp proved a problem. Charlie Furnas, a Dayton mechanic who had expressed a repeated desire to fly, suddenly showed up in camp on April 15. Will was pleased to have him and immediately placed Furnas in temporary command of the local building contractors.
Will and Charlie lodged with the Kill Devil Hills lifesavers. The station did not provide the most comfortable accommodations or the best food, but the company was entertaining. Will reported that Bob Westcott, the surf man who had watched the flights of December 17, 1903, through a spyglass, was discussing his plans for a perpetual-motion machine with anyone who would listen. “He did not explain its nature except that it had to do with the boiler or generator of the gas or medium rather than the engine,” Will noted in his diary. “He thinks it will practically eliminate the necessity of fuel or at least reduce the quantity to insignificant proportions.”
By the time Orv arrived with the flying machine on April 25, the new building was fit for occupation. The airplane went together much more quickly than its hangar. It was ready to test by May 1, the day on which the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot announced that the Wrights were back at Kitty Hawk and had completed a ten-mile flight out over the Atlantic.
The report was not unexpected. Newspapers had been covering the story of the Army flying-machine contract for several months and had reported the creation of the French syndicate as well. It was apparent that the mysterious Wright brothers meant to return to the air. The gentlemen of the press were determined to be there.
The New York Herald was first on the scene. The night editor of the Herald had picked up the Viriginian-Pilot story on the telegraph, and prepared a toned-down version for his own paper. He instructed D. Bruce Salley, a Norfolk man who worked as a local stringer for the Herald, to investigate the situation at Kitty Hawk.17
Salley registered at the Tranquil House, a Manteo hotel, on May 4. Early the following morning he hired a gasoline launch to carry him across the Sound to the old boat landing at the Kill Devil Hills. The brothers were polite to the reporter, who strolled into camp at about noon, but they did not offer much information. Convinced that the original Virginian-Pilot story was a hoax and that the Wrights would not be ready to fly for a few days, Salley remained in Manteo on May 6, the day on which Orv flew for the first time since the fall of 1905.
Salley was able to telegraph an account of that 1,008-foot hop to the Herald. Apparently he based his report on a telephone conversation with the men at the Kill Devil Hills station. It appeared on the front page of the paper the next morning, and was carried by the New York Times as well. Rain kept the Wrights, and Bruce Salley, indoors on May 7, but the reporter was back to watch from a safe distance the following day. He arrived too late to see any of the nine short flights made that morning, but he did witness the first hop of the afternoon, a 945-foot effort by Orville. Unable to contain himself, Salley once again rushed straight into camp. As Will put it, he “interrupted the experiments.” Wilbur made the longest flight of the day after his departure, 2,230 feet in 59.5 seconds.
Salley’s account of the events of May 7 was distributed by the Herald to papers across the nation, including, as Milton noted, both of the Dayton dailies and all three Cincinnati papers. As usual, the stories contained only a germ of truth. One of the Cincinnati papers repeated the earlier Virginian-Pilot claims that the Wrights had flown ten miles out to sea at an altitude of 3,000 feet.
Salley no longer had the Kill Devil Hills beat to himself. The editors of the Herald, recognizing that the story was now too hot for a mere stringer, dispatched crack reporter Byron Newton to the scene. Bill Hoster, of the New York American, also checked into the Tranquil House on the afternoon of May 10. Salley’s experience had convinced him that the Wrights would not fly if newsmen were present. The three men set out across the Sound at 4:00 A.M. on May 11, “determined to ambush the wily inventors and observe their performance from a hiding place.”18
Salley led them through “the noisome swamps and jungle, the thousands of moccasins, rattlers and blacksnakes, the blinding swarms of mosquitoes” to a spot where they could keep a surreptitious eye on the Wright camp. There they waited until dawn, “devoured by ticks and mosquitoes, startled occasionally by the beady eyes of a snake and at times drenched by a heavy rain.”19
The reporters watched as the Wrights and their helpers moved the airplane out of the hangar that morning and prepared it for flight. Newton was startled by the loud, staccato popping of the engine (“like a reaping machine”) and by the sight of two propellers as they “began to revolve and flash in the sun.” Then came what he could only describe as the moment of miracle:
The machine rose obliquely into the air. At first it came directly toward us, so that we could not tell how fast it was going, except that it appeared to increase in size as it approached. In the excitement of this first flight, men trained to observe details under all sorts of distractions, forgot their cameras, forgot their watches, forgot everything but this aerial monster chattering over our heads. As it neared us we could plainly see the operator in his seat working the upright levers close by his side. When it was almost squarely over us there was a movement of the forward and rear guiding planes, a slight curving of the larger planes at one end and the machine wheeled at an angle every bit as gracefully as an eagle flying close to the ground could have done.20
The aircraft maneuvered overhead at an altitude of twenty-five to thirty feet. Judging by the speed at which its shadow moved across the sand, the reporters guessed that it must be traveling at perhaps 40 miles per hour. “Certainly,” Newton commented, “it was making the average speed of a railroad train.” The pilot kept the machine close to the ground, skimming up and over the crest of the big dune, then flashing back into view.21
They made three flights before eleven o’clock, then called it a day. On the best of them, Orv covered 2,750 yards in 2 minutes, 11 seconds. The Wrights knew that they were attracting attention. Milton had been sending clippings from the Dayton papers. Alpheus Drinkwater, the Manteo telegrapher, stopped by that afternoon with a Mr. Grant, whom he introduced as the Weather Bureau man from Norfolk. They said they were out to find a break in the telegraph line, but the Wrights noticed that they left when it became apparent that the flying was over for the day. Drinkwater made sure the Wrights knew that Salley and some other reporters had been watching them from the woods that morning.
The crowd at the Tranquil House continued to grow. The bedraggled reporters returning to Manteo that afternoon discovered that P. H. McGowan, chief American correspondent of the London Daily Mail, was now on hand, as were Arthur Ruhl, a freelance writer, and Jimmy Hare, a pioneer news photographer. Both had been sent down to cover the story for Collier’s magazine.
High winds prevented any flying on Ma
y 12, but the growing crowd of reporters was back in place the next day. The Wrights had yet another visitor in camp that morning. The young man, J. C. Burkhart, claimed to be a student at Cornell, but the Wrights pegged him for a newsman. He hung around the camp and watched the first flight of the day, a 96-yard effort by Wilbur, then simply disappeared.
Jimmy Hare caught a picture of the machine in the air on the first flight of the day. It would appear with Ruhl’s story in the next issue of Collier’s on May 30, the first photograph ever published of a Wright airplane in the air. Ruhl could not restrain himself. He had met the Wrights on their return from Europe in the fall of 1907; now he boldly walked out of the woods and into camp to renew the acquaintance. Will and Orv remembered him. They had liked Ruhl in New York, and asked him to stay for lunch. Apparently nervous and guilty about the presence of the other newsmen still hidden in the trees, he declined.
The camp came alive early on the morning of May 14. At eight o’clock Will made a short hop of 656 feet with Charlie Furnas aboard. He had some difficulty with the controls and set the machine down as it approached the side of the West Hill. It was the first time two men had ever flown together aboard a Wright machine.
Orville took Charlie up a few minutes later. They remained aloft for 4 minutes, 22/5 seconds, covering 4,506 yards over the ground. An overheated bearing compelled them to set down about halfway through their second lap of the camp area. Now it was Will’s turn again, but the wind had shifted and he had trouble getting off the track. After three false starts, they retired to the hangar for lunch.
Having repositioned the track that afternoon, Will set off on a long solo aerial circuit of the Kill Devil Hills. About seven minutes into the flight, the reporters noted that the sound of the engine ceased rather abruptly when the airplane was out of sight on the far side of the Little Hill. They assumed that the pilot had simply brought the machine back to earth at some distance from the camp, as Orv had that morning, and that there would be no more flying that day.
They did not learn that there had been a serious accident until they returned to Manteo that afternoon. Drinkwater had gotten the story over the telegraph from the Kill Devil Hills lifesavers. After covering 8,909 feet, Will had become confused while operating the elevator control, and dived the machine straight into the sand at 41 miles an hour. He had suffered nothing more than severe bumps and bruises, but the airplane was a wreck. Angered at missing the big story of the day, the reporters made the best of what they had. The crash was front-page news across the nation the next morning. There was talk of the Wright brothers having destroyed their only machine, coupled with dire predictions about their ability to fulfill the Army contract or their obligations in France.22
It was not that serious. Will, Orv, and Charlie hauled most of the heavy bits of wreckage, including the engine and transmission, a mile and a quarter back to camp that evening. “The heat had become almost unbearable,” Will recalled, “and we barely escaped collapse before reaching camp.” They went back out to retrieve the rest of the equipment early the next morning. Struggling into camp, they discovered P. H. McGowan and a second unidentified reporter setting the remains of the 1902 wing against the side of the hangar for photos. The newsmen asked if they could snap a picture of the brothers as well. Orv, wearing his “Merry Widow” bonnet as protection from the sun, and Will, encased in a dog-collar arrangement used to manhaul the sand sledge, declined. “It would have been an amusing picture for private use,” Will thought, “but not such as we cared to have spread broadcast.”23
Throughout the last two weeks at Kitty Hawk they had received one communication after another from Flint & Company officials. The French syndicate was showing signs of collapse even as it was being organized. It was clear that the brothers would have to provide the promised demonstration flights as soon as possible.
With two contracts to worry about, the Wrights had little choice but to divide the workload and the responsibility. Will would leave for France immediately; there would not even be time to return to Dayton for a visit—Katharine sent his bags directly on to New York. Orv would have to complete the preparations for the U.S. Army trials on his own.
Will was uncomfortable with the situation. Leaving camp for New York on the morning of May 17, he urged his brother to complete the work on the Army machine as quickly as possible and join him in France. He very much hoped that the two of them could participate jointly in both the European and American demonstration flights. Ever the elder brother, he was leery of Orv’s impetuosity. “If at any time Orville is not well, or [is] dissatisfied with the situation at Washington, especially the grounds,” he told Katharine, “I wish you would tell me. He may not tell me such things always.”24
* Pronounced Ben Vreeah—Gallic for Beautiful Mountain.
chapter 26
THE UNVEILING
June 1908~September 1908
Will reached New York on May 19. He wrote to Katharine at once, thanking her for forwarding his clothing, though next time he hoped she would “raise the lid of my hatbox … and put some of my hats in before sending it on.”1
He had scarcely a minute to himself during his two days in New York. Reporters were everywhere, plying him with questions about the Kitty Hawk trials and the upcoming trip to France. Flint kept him busy, too. He scheduled Wilbur and Wu Ting Fang, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, for a visit to Thomas Edison’s laboratory at East Orange, New Jersey. Fortunately, the trip was rained out, enabling Will to conduct one important piece of personal business.
Wilbur knew the time had come to violate his longstanding policy of avoiding publicity. On his first day in New York he noticed a newspaper article describing the use of ailerons on the AEA White Wing. “Selfridge,” he informed his brother, “is infringing our patent on wing twisting…. It is important to get the main features originated by us identified in the public mind with our machines before they are described in connection with some other machine. A statement of our original features ought to be published and not left covered up in the patent office.” A magazine article explaining what they had accomplished in simple, straightforward terms should do the trick.2
The rainy day gave him a chance to propose such an article to the editor of the Century magazine, who was interested. But rather than undertaking the work himself, Will “strongly advised” his brother to “get a stenographer and dictate an article.” Katharine would help in “getting it in shape if you are too busy.”3
It was not like Wilbur to slide an unexpected project off onto his brother—particularly as he had always been the author and speaker in the family. Orville hated to commit himself to paper. The episode indicates the pressure Wilbur was feeling as he faced public demonstration flights on which the outcome of all their work would depend.
It seems not to have occurred to him that Orville, who remained behind at Kitty Hawk to close down the camp and finish the packing, would be just as busy. A complete airplane was waiting for Will in the customs shed at Le Havre, and the workmen at Bariquand et Marre should have finished at least one experimental power plant over the winter. Orv, on the other hand, would have to construct an entirely new airplane and engine and undertake all the preparations for the Army trials.
Orville traveled from Kitty Hawk to Washington in early May to inspect the proposed airplane test ground at Fort Myer, Virginia. The drill field just inside the main gate, was much smaller than Huffman Prairie, but it would do.
Fortunately, the Wrights already had a friend on the scene. Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm, Jr., back from Paris, had been detailed to take part in the trials; he could promise Orv a crew of eight or ten experienced soldiers. The Wright tests would cap a busy season. Captain Tom Baldwin and Glenn Curtiss would be on the site sometime late that summer. The Army would also be purchasing the SC-1, a Baldwin-built dirigible balloon powered by a Curtiss engine, providing that it passed the operational tests. Presumably, Herring would be there with something to test-fly, although Lahm did not seem
to be taking him very seriously.
Orville finally returned home to Dayton on May 23, and immediately set to work on the Army machine. “I have had all the lumber sawed up into front framing & spars,” he told Wilbur. “We will be in pretty good shape as far as engines are concerned. We have the two extra bodies, with cylinders, pistons, valves, camshafts, etc. complete. About the only things lacking are the cranks.”4
Orv also kept busy writing. It was a task he hated, but the Wrights were about to fly in public for the first time, and it was important to build up enthusiasm while at the same time underscoring what they had already achieved.
He first sent copies of a detailed letter describing the recent activity at Kitty Hawk to Scientific American, Aeronautics, the Aero Club of America, L’Aérophile, and Mitteilungen. But the piece for Century, “The Wright Brothers’ Aeroplane,” was his triumph. Wilbur wrote on June 28 offering a string of suggestions—Orville must be certain to mention that the “Flying Man” story published in The Independent had been a hoax. He should also stress that serious European interest in aeronautics dated from Chanute’s lecture of 1903, and that the machines flown by Voisin, Farman, Delagrange, and others “trace their ancestry” to the drawings of the 1902 glider subsequently published in L’Aérophile.5
The advice came too late—Orville had sent his finished article to the Century six days before. It was not cluttered with the sort of details Wilbur requested, nor burdened with partisan claims. Step by step, Orville walked the reader through the process of invention from that day in 1878 when their father had given them the little toy helicopter to the present.
He was uncertain about its quality and offered to return part of the $500 fee paid by the Century. He need not have worried. The article was so well written that it remains one of the best short descriptions of the birth of powered flight.
The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright Page 41