Wilbur and Orville Wright were born the sons of a preacher man (wasn’t that a 1969 Dusty Springfield hit song?). The Bishop Wright and his wife Susan (She died early from tuberculosis at the age of 58) brought up three other children (Katharine, Reuchlin and Lorin), besides the soon to be famous brothers. All were remarkable human beings in their own right. The Bishop moved the family often, depending on where his preaching was needed, until he settled the family in Dayton, Ohio. Wilbur (a genius) and his brother Orville (a mechanical genius) were enterprising from the get go. They started a Dayton newspaper and then moved on to their own bicycle shop selling their own indigenous brand. In 1899, inspired by the works of European's Lilienthal and Mouillard, Wilbur wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution requesting all the information that they had on human flight. Then they asked the U.S. Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C - Was there a location in the U.S.A. that had constant winds of about 15 MPH? The answer…Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They built a glider and brought it to Kitty Hawk. Once there, the brothers studied the flight of the local birds. The glider had flights as far as 400 feet at 30 MPH. Once November came, the brothers left the glider there and went back to Dayton and their bicycle business.
The world’s leading Authority on aviation Octave Chanute comes a calling after the boys built their first experimental flyer the next year. The brothers continue their trials during 1901 and 1902. Then they go home to perfect their flyer and build an engine. Eureka! On 12/17/1903, they had four successful flights at Kitty Hawk...the longest flight goes a half mile at a height of 852 feet in 59 seconds. They did it. Later that day, while the flyer was on the ground, a gust of wind destroyed the flyer as it rolled over again and again. It will never be flown again. They go back to Dayton in order to build a new and improved flyer and engine. Instead of going back to Kitty Hawk, the brothers rent 84 acres of a pasture from the President of the Fourth National Bank in the Dayton area. They make 50 test flights on the field with no local interest (most of the population thought flying was for birds only). After many failures with the new flyer, Wilbur soars a 1,000 feet. Surprisingly, a rich beekeeper, Amos Ives Root, takes an interest in the Wright brothers and writes an inspiring story about them in his publication, Gleaning in Bee Culture. The Wright brothers contact the U.S. government to see if they have any interest in their flyer. They don’t (they just wasted a ton of money on someone else’s failure). But Britain’s War Department is interested! And so are the French. And so are the Germans. Wilbur contacts the U.S. again and they say that they still have no interest in their flyer.
On May 22nd 1906, a U.S. patent for the flyer’s design is issued to the Wright brothers. Wilbur goes to Paris to negotiate the sale of their flyer to the French. Orville ships the flyer to France. This is where I stop my review, so you can buy your own copy of this wonderful book and find out for yourself what happens next. It’s certainly a matter of history, but do you remember what happens next? Of course not, neither did I. It was a significant eye-opener for me. This kind of writing not only educates the reader, but makes the reader think that he is reading a fabrication. It doesn’t get any better than this. David McCullough has received the Pulitzer Prize for Truman and John Adams (see my guest reviewer, Deron O’s assessment of 12/05/2015). I guess that if I had to be critical of anything pertaining to this book, it would be the profuse amount of pages spent on the laudation of the Wright brothers near the end of the book. The author backs up his facts with 40 pages of source notes.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: There were a lot of sidebar stories in David McCullough’s book, such as, President Teddy Roosevelt wanting to be the Wright brothers first passenger. Luckily for him, Lt. Thomas Selfridge (a member of Alexander Graham Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association and probably a spy for Bell’s group) got the first ride as a passenger. During his flight with Orville, a piece of the prop broke off Orville’s flyer causing a horrific crash. Selfridge was killed. “His was the first fatality in the history of powered flight.” Orville was badly hurt but survived the accident.
Since his career was similar to the Wright brothers, I also enjoyed the pages about Glenn Curtiss. While comparable to the Wright brothers as a bicycle builder, he was also a racer and builder of motorcycles. He later built aeroplanes for the U.S. Army and Navy. His Curtiss Jenny biplane is featured on the first U.S. Airmail Stamp. He won the first international air meet in France (the Wright brothers didn’t register for the race).
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