The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright

by Crouch, Tom D.

  Others waited, eager to take whatever unfair advantage they could. Herring arrived at Fort Myer on October 12 with an assistant, two suitcases, and a small “innovation trunk.” The cases, he informed the Army and the press, contained the parts of the engine and airplane he had constructed to fulfill his contract.4

  The newspapers had a field day. “The Herring machine is packed in a suitcase,” one reporter remarked. “That is the safest way to use it.” Herring could afford to shrug it off. The Wright accident placed the Army in a difficult position. The brothers had been granted an extension of their contract; Herring would gain more time too, time to milk the situation for its publicity value. Few men were more adept at that game.5

  None of this was lost on the Wrights, who felt they had been through such things before. “I presume that poor old Daddy is terribly worried over our troubles,” Wilbur remarked to Katharine after the accident. “He may be sure that, like his Keiter trouble, things will turn out all right at last.”6 They would find few real friends or supporters in the world, but they did have one another.

  Orville and Katharine came back home on November 1. It would be two more weeks before he was strong enough to write to his brother. “I am just beginning to get about the house on crutches,” he explained. “I sit up several hours at a time, though I suffer some from the pressure of the blood in my feet and legs, after so long a period of disuse.” He walked with a cane for months and would never fully recover. For the rest of his life, the slightest vibration set off excruciating pain from an irritated sciatic nerve, occasionally sending him to bed for extended periods. He avoided travel whenever possible, and drove an automobile with a specially reinforced suspension system.7 Air travel, he later complained, was especially painful.

  Will was flying for both of them now—and flying brilliantly. Like his brother during that one short week at Fort Myer, he was setting new records at an astonishing pace. On September 21 he shattered the existing marks for both distance and duration, winning a $1,000 Aéro-Clube de France prize while ten thousand spectators looked on. He flew with the distinguished French physicist Paul Painlevé on October 10, breaking the distance and duration records for flight with a passenger.

  Wilbur went after the altitude prizes as well. On November 18 the Aéro-Club de la Sarthe awarded him the 1,000 franc Prix de la Hauteur for the first flight to an altitude of ninety meters. The Aéro-Club de France altitude competition required an unassisted takeoff, a rule that seemed specifically designed to exclude Wilbur from entering. He won that 2,500 franc prize on November 23, employing an extra long rail that enabled him to dispense with the catapult. As a demonstration of his contempt for the “standing start” rule, he cruised directly above the balloons swaying at the end of ninety-meter cables, refusing to top his own recent record. Finally, on December 18, he set new world marks for distance, duration, and altitude.

  Some of Wilbur’s most newsworthy flights did not involve prizes. On October 7, for example, he granted Mrs. Hart Berg the distinction of being the first woman to fly. Before the month was out he also took up the first English, Russian, Spanish, German, and Italian passengers, and, on October 3, the first reporter—George P. Dicken, of the New York Herald.8

  All told, Wilbur carried more than forty passengers during his stay at Le Mans. Some, like Hart Berg, Arnold Fordyce, Weiller, Deutsch de la Meurthe, Frank Lahm, and Léon Bollée, were old friends or business associates. Others, including Giovanni de Pirelli, the Italian tire manufacturer, and the Marquis de Viana, Grand Equerry to the King of Spain, were people who might someday be useful contacts. Still others, notably Léon Bollée’s eleven-year-old nephew, were invited along purely for their company.

  All were exhilarated. One of them, Baden-Powell, provided a detailed account of his adventure:

  Having clambered in among various rods and wires one struggles into the little seat arranged on the front edge of the lower plane, and places one’s feet on a small bar in front. A string is found crossing just in front of one’s chest, and Mr. Wright gives directions that this must not be touched. It is a simple contrivance for cutting off the ignition and stopping the engine. In event of any accident the body will probably be thrown forward, and pressing against the string, immediately stops the engine…. All being ready, coats are buttoned, and caps pulled down to prevent being blown off….

  Then the driver bends down and releases the catch which holds the anchoring wire. The machine is off! It bounds forward and travels rapidly along the rail. The foreplanes are meanwhile pressed down to prevent the machine lifting prematurely, but when about half the length of the rail has been traversed, the lever is pulled back, the planes come into operation, and the whole machine rises almost imperceptibly off the track. The ascent must be very gradual. When the machine leaves the track it glides so close to the ground that one often doubts if it is really started in the air, but then it gradually mounts….

  Wilbur took Captain Paul Girardville aloft at Pau in 1909.

  So steady and regular is the motion that it appears exactly as if it were progressing along an invisible elevated track. Only just now and again, as a swirl of wind catches it, does it make a slight undulation like a boat rising to a big wave. Mr. Wright, with both hands grasping the levers, watches every move, but his movements are so slight as to be almost imperceptible. Having soon reached the end of the ground, the machine is guided round in a large semi-circle, gracefully leaning over as it turns…. All the time the engine is buzzing so loudly and the propellers humming so that after a trip one is almost deaf.9

  Tributes flowed in: Crown Prince Frederick Wilhelm of Germany cabled congratulations, while the Dowager Queen Margherita of Italy traveled to Camp d’Auvours to watch him fly. There were days, Wilbur remarked to Orv, when “Princes and millionaires” seemed to be “as thick as thieves” at the flying ground. Wilbur’s social calendar was crowded with testimonial dinners offered by the Aéro-Club de France, the Société Autour du Monde, the Ligue Nationale Aérienne, and the Cercle des Arts et Sports. The French Senate suspended debate to offer him a standing ovation.10

  Other groups offered more substantial rewards. Wilbur was awarded the 5,000 franc Commission d’Aviation prize established by the Aéro-Club de France. In addition, the club gave the Wrights a special gold medal for their combined flights in September. The Académie des Sports, the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, the Aero Club of America, the Society for the Encouragement of Peace, and the Aero Club of Great Britain all awarded gold medals to the Wrights that fall.

  Lazare Weiller’s doubts had vanished. Investors clamored to join his syndicate. Wilbur completed the last of the required demonstration flights on October 10. Eight days later, in accordance with the terms of his agreement, he began to train the first Wright pilot, Count Charles de Lambert. Flight training for a second pilot, Captain Paul N. Lucas-Girardville, began on November 10.

  The members of Weiller’s syndicate, the Compagnie Générate de Navigation Aérienne (CGNA), did not intend to build aircraft. They would function as sales agents, contracting with Société Astra, an airship-building firm, and Chantiers de France of Dunkirk, for airframes. Bariquand et Marre would supply the engines. The firm eventually claimed that it had received fifty orders for flying machines; in fact, probably half that number were constructed. Neither the Wrights nor the investors grew rich through the venture.

  Wilbur dominated the skies that fall. Most of his records for distance and duration stood until the following year. But the Europeans were quick to learn their final lessons in the art and science of flight. The most observant and adaptable of the French airmen recognized that they had rejected three-axis control all too quickly.

  Louis Blériot had struggled with the control issue, moving from early attempts to achieve inherent lateral stability through dihedral to the use of ineffective wingtip ailerons. He was present for Wilbur’s first public flight at Les Hunaudières on August 8—and everything fell into place. “Blériot was all excited,”
Ross Browne, a young American who was there, recalled. “He looked over the machine … he tested the wings, and Mr. Wright showed how the warping was done … how it worked.” He was “just like a young boy.” As they walked away from the flying field, Blériot announced: “I’m going to use a warped wing. To hell with the aileron.”11 His next project, the Blériot XI, did use wing warping. Eleven months later, he flew the English Channel.

  Henri Farman had enjoyed far more success than Blériot. Flying his standard Voisin-built machine at Issy on July 20 that year, he remained aloft for 20 minutes, 20 seconds. For him, as for Blériot, the flights at Les Hunaudières were a revelation. For the first time the absolute importance of lateral control became clear. Farman did not directly copy the wing warping technique; rather, he added the four large down-only flaps to the trailing edges of his wings. Esnault-Pelterie, Curtiss, and Blériot had experimented with ailerons. Farman made them work. Inspired by the sight of Wilbur Wright wheeling in narrow circles over the racetrack at Les Hunaudières, he constructed the first machine to rival the performance of the Wright aircraft.12

  Wilbur had few illusions about the future. The French had seen him in the air; they had studied his technology in detail. Within a matter of months, the best of them would be flying as well as he. Now, while he held an unquestionable lead, Wilbur planned a spectacular performance that would cap the year 1908 and mark it as his forever.

  Clearly, one impressive flight lay within the reach of contemporary technology. On October 5, Arthur Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe, publisher of the London Daily Mail, announced a $5,000 prize to the first man to fly an airplane across the English Channel. Like so much else that was happening that fall, the new prize was inspired by Wilbur and Orville’s performances. Northcliffe had visited Orville in the hospital at Fort Myer, and fully expected Wilbur to snatch the Daily Mail prize. He had already flown further and remained in the air longer than would be required to cross the Channel.

  Characteristically, Wilbur weighed the risks with great care. Failure carried a high price—forced landing in the water would destroy the only Wright Flyer in Europe. The accident at Fort Myer made it all the more important for Wilbur to maintain a record of unalloyed success.

  The Coupe Michelin offered an acceptable, and much safer, option. Established by the industrialist André Michelin, the prize consisted of an enormous trophy and a check for 20,000 francs to be awarded for the longest flight of 1908. As the year drew to a close, Wilbur already held the world’s duration record of 1 hour, 31 minutes, and 254/5 seconds. His closest competitor, Henri Farman, had remained aloft for 44 minutes, 31 seconds on October 2. Wilbur was determined to extend his lead even further. His own goal for winning the Michelin prize—two full hours aloft.

  It would not be easy. Winter had set in at Camp d’Auvours. By December 28, when he submitted his 50-franc entry fee and announced that he would try for the prize on the last day of the year, snow covered the ground and the temperature was well below freezing. Bundled in coat, cap, and gloves, he flew for 1 hour and 53 minutes on December 30. A broken fuel line brought the first flight of December 31 to an end after 43 minutes. He took off again that afternoon in a freezing mist and flew round and round the prescribed triangular course for as long as he could stand it—2 hours, 18 minutes, 333/5 seconds.13

  While not as spectacular as a Channel flight, the Coupe Michelin accomplished Wilbur’s goal. Not given to grand, crowd-pleasing gestures, this flight was in character—a straightforward, no-frills demonstration of his absolute superiority in the air.

  Wilbur made five more flights at Camp d’Auvours. Each was a short hop of less than three minutes, giving him an opportunity to offer a few additional rides to friends and workmen from the Bollée factory. Between August 8, 1908, and January 2, 1909, he completed 129 flights—nine from Les Hunaudières, the rest from Camp d’Auvours. During those five months he established nine world records.

  Wilbur’s newest student, the balloonist Paul Tissandier, persuaded him to establish winter quarters at Pau, in the south of France. Nestled at the foot of the Pyrenees, Pau had begun to lose some of its appeal as a winter resort in recent years when Edward VII moved his holiday headquarters to Biarritz. Recognizing the publicity value of Wilbur’s presence, the city fathers of Pau provided him with a luxurious hangar, complete with living quarters and a fully equipped shop. His meals were prepared by a chef selected by the mayor. The flying field, the Pont-Long, was a flat, open plain some six miles from Pau; 165 acres in extent, it was completely open and unobstructed.14

  Wilbur would no longer be alone. Early on the morning of January 12, he met Orville and Katharine at a Paris train station. Back on his feet now, though still walking with two canes, Orv deserved to share the European triumph. It would have been unthinkable to leave Katharine behind.

  She had prepared for the trip with some care, ordering two evening gowns in Dayton, one rose and one black. She also bought a neatly tailored traveling suit and a new hat. Her only piece of jewelry was a small diamond ring that had special significance—Orville had presented it to her on the day she graduated from Oberlin. While in Paris the year before, Wilbur had joked with his sister about spinsterish schoolteachers touring the Louvre. She spent her time in Paris shopping, getting two more suits and some stylish hats.15

  Katharine and Orville, still recovering from the crash at Fort Myer, joined their brother in France.

  Wilbur moved south to Pau on January 14, allowing Orville and Katharine two extra days in Paris before joining him. He made sixty-four flights at Pau between February 3 and March 20. His first task was to complete flight training for Count de Lambert, Lucas-Girardville, and Tissandier. Ultimately, however, the sense of spectacle overwhelmed everything else. For a time Pau once again became a winter mecca attracting the cream of European society.

  The newsmen and members of the aeronautical crowd who had filled the spectator seats at Les Hunaudières and Camp d’Auvours were replaced by kings and queens, captains of industry and heads of state, who trekked to Pau to witness the miracle for themselves. Alfonso XIII of Spain came with a camera slung over his shoulder, as though hoping to be mistaken for a tourist. Edward VII watched two flights, on one of which Katharine flew as a passenger.

  Lord Arthur Balfour, once prime minister of England, requested the honor of “taking part in the miracle” by helping to hoist the catapult weight. Lord Northcliffe, noting that a young British lord was also assisting, remarked to Orville: “I’m so glad that young man is helping with the rope, for I’m sure it is the only useful thing he has ever done in his life.”16

  The great and near-great of Europe were fascinated and impressed by the Wrights. There was a straightforward honesty about them, coupled with rare poise, common sense, and wit. Men of wealth and power would never turn the heads of these three American heroes. “Kings,” Katharine remarked to a reporter, “are just like other nice, well-bred people.” She praised King Alfonso as a “good husband” for keeping a promise to his wife that he would not fly, and found J. P. Morgan and his sister to be “very pleasant people.”17

  Privately, their reactions were a bit more acerbic. Wilbur described “His Gracious Majesty &c.,” King Victor Emmanuel, as so short that “his feet failed to reach the floor by at least a foot when he sat down.”18

  The Wrights were the first great celebrities of the new century. No newspaper or magazine seemed complete without a story on the three Americans. The popular appetite for images—photographs, sketches, caricatures, and motion pictures—was insatiable. Milton saw Wilbur for the first time in over a year on April 19, 1909: a local vaudeville house was headlining films of the flying at Camp d’Auvours.19

  The smallest details of their lives seemed endlessly fascinating. It was reported that the frying pan on which Will had done his cooking in the hangar at Camp d’Auvours would be displayed at the Louvre. Wilbur did most of his flying in a soft cloth cap that Orv had bought in France the year before. Now “Veelbur Reet” caps
appeared on heads all over France.

  Stories about Katharine abounded. She was said to have financed the work on the airplane, solved abstruse mathematical problems for her brothers, and to be familiar with every inch of the machine. It mattered little that none of it was true. They admired Katharine for her wit and honesty, not for her supposed contributions to the invention of the airplane. King Alfonso pronounced her “the ideal American.” Most of Europe agreed.

  Wilbur made his last flight at Pau on March 23. Giovanni Pirelli, who had flown as a passenger at Le Mans, offered a $10,000 contract for a series of demonstration flights in Rome and flight training for two Italian pilots. Wilbur turned the airplane flown at Le Mans and Pau over to Lazare Weiller and the members of the syndicate. A new machine, its parts shipped from Dayton and partially assembled in Pau, was sent on to Rome.

  Wilbur and Hart Berg arrived in the Eternal City on April 1. He would fly at Centocelle, an open plain near a military fort some twelve miles from the city. “There is a beautiful big shop here,” Wilbur told his brother. “It makes a splendid place to set up the machine.” The grounds were splendid as well, with a marvelous view across an ancient aqueduct toward the campagna and the city of Rome and the Alban Mountains in the distance.20

  Lieutenant Mario Calderara of the Italian Navy was his first student. Neither Wilbur nor Orville was particularly fond of him. He smoked cigarettes, a vice they could not abide. Still, Calderara was an apt pupil. Wilbur did not begin training the second student, Army Lieutenant Umberto Savoia, until April 26, his next-to-last day at Centocelle. He trusted Calderara to finish the job after his departure.

  The level of excitement was as high in Italy as it had been in France. Wilbur missed only three days of flying between April 15 and 27. Newsworthy onlookers, from the king and the dowager queen to cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and the great J. P. Morgan, were on hand to cheer each takeoff. Wilbur did not attempt any record flights, but he did accomplish one important first. On April 24 he took up a Universal newsreel cameraman who returned with the first motion-picture footage ever taken from an airplane in flight.