First in Flight Page 20

  It was Bill Hoster who correctly identified “Furness [sic], their mechanic” as the passenger.

  After dinner, Wilbur made a solo flight that stands as the Wrights’ longest in North Carolina, covering a little over five miles in about seven and a half minutes. Describing the craft on that flight, Bill Hoster wrote of how “her motions were like clock work, and she sailed along serenely under the bright blue skies like a thing endowed with life. Behind her floated a flock of gulls and crows that seemed at once amazed and jealous of this new thing of the air.”

  The flight came to an end when Wilbur, still learning the new control levers, pulled the elevator handle the wrong way and dove when he meant to climb, plowing into the sand at between forty and fifty miles per hour.

  The crash occurred out of sight of the newsmen. Learning of it later through the lifesavers, Bruce Salley took it lightly: “Wilbur Wright … escaped without a scratch, and he has passed safely through other accidents. If a life is ever charmed, his must be.”

  Wilbur himself was less sanguine: “I was thrown violently forward and landed against the top surface…. I received a slight cut across the bridge of my nose, several bruises on my left hand, right forearm, and both shoulders. The next day I felt a little stiff all over.”

  Their upper wing ruined, the Wrights’ season on the Outer Banks was at a close. The career of their 1905 craft—the world’s first practical airplane—was also ended.

  Most of the newsmen checked out of the Tranquil House and headed home. An exception was P. H. McGowan, whom the Wrights discovered in camp on May 15 seeking to photograph the remains of the 1902 glider. With McGowan was a reporter who identified himself as Gilson Gardiner of Washington. The newsmen tried to photograph the Wrights, Orville wearing what he called his “Merry Widow” bonnet and Wilbur hitched in a “dog harness” and pulling a cart bearing the wreck of the 1905 machine. Not dressed to their usual standards, the Wrights declined.

  Also visiting camp that year was J. C. Burkhart of Ithaca, New York, who came “disguised as a native,” in Wilbur’s words. Wilbur took him to be a newsman, though he was apparently affiliated with Cornell University. And Fred Essary, a colleague of Bruce Salley’s at the Norfolk Landmark, is sometimes listed among the Outer Banks press corps of 1908, but his exact role is unclear.

  By now, the Wrights were about as interested in the newsmen as the newsmen were in them. On their way through Manteo on May 17 after breaking camp, they stopped at the Tranquil House and checked the guest register to determine exactly who had been watching them from the woods.

  Traveling from Manteo to Elizabeth City, the Wrights enjoyed their first trip aboard the Hattie Creef, an institution on that part of the North Carolina coast for nearly eighty years. Designed for sail, later fitted with an engine, later sunk in the Pasquotank River and resurrected, the Hattie Creef saw service as an oyster boat, a passenger, mail, and freight vessel, a tugboat, a pleasure cruiser, and a small museum honoring the Wrights, operated by Elijah Tate, Bill’s older son. It lived out its days as part of a restaurant in Avon, on the Outer Banks near Cape Hatteras.

  Unaware of all this pending history, Wilbur Wright misidentified it in his diary as the Hattie Cruf.

  With two sets of government trials facing them, the Wrights decided they had no choice but to work separately. Wilbur would head for France. Orville would return to Dayton, crate up one of the new machines for shipment to his brother, and head to Virginia with a second machine for the American trials.

  The Wrights’ strange relationship with the men of the press on the Outer Banks that year seems to have been mutually agreeable.

  Upon arriving in Norfolk on his way to New York and France, Wilbur took dinner with Bruce Salley at the Monticello Hotel.

  When Arthur Ruhl’s account of the Outer Banks flights appeared in Collier’s later that month, the brothers pronounced it the best thing yet written on them.

  Upon reaching home, Byron Newton wrote the Wrights a personal letter expressing his admiration.

  Orville’s reply to Newton crystallized the entire affair: “We were aware of the presence of newspaper men in the woods at Kill Devil Hills, at least we had often been told that they were there. Their presence, however, did not bother us in the least, and I am only sorry that you did not come over to see us at our camp. The display of a white flag would have disposed of the rifles and shot guns with which the machine is reported to have been guarded!”

  C H A P T E R 6

  1 9 1 1

  Mr. Lorin Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, one of the Wright brothers, famed for aerial navigation and flying machines, spent Wednesday here the guest of the Southern hotel, and has gone to Kitty Hawk on a little outing. He will be joined there by his brother Orville Wright, who is now returning from Europe accompanied by one of his aviators. Kitty Hawk is the scene of the first successful flight of the Wright brothers. Here they spent a few years ago much time perfecting their invention.

  The words Kitty Hawk and flying machines are very closely associated; and, when the people of this section hear that any of the Wrights are heading for Kitty Hawk, they expect some wonderful developments in flying machines.

  Elizabeth City Weekly Advance,

  September 22, 1911

  Fame

  Seeing an aircraft in flight was once a wonderful, frightening thing.

  There’s a good story from 1783, the first great year of ballooning in France. That August, Jacques Alexandre Cesar Charles constructed an unmanned hydrogen balloon and announced plans to launch it from Paris. Not knowing where the craft would be taken by the wind, and understanding that rural folk would be mystified upon seeing it, the French government issued a proclamation to be delivered to outlying areas: “Anyone who should see in the sky a globe, resembling the moon in an eclipse, should be aware that far from being an alarming phenomenon, it is only a machine, made of taffeta, or light canvas covered with paper, that cannot possibly cause any harm, and will some day prove serviceable to the wants of society.”

  Soon after launching, the balloon rose to an estimated height of three thousand feet and disappeared into the clouds. Forty-five minutes later, it descended in a place called Gonoesse, a farm village that the proclamation had somehow missed. Seeing the craft coming to earth, the local citizens took it to be a monster bird or flying dragon. Coming out of their fields, they surrounded it with scythes and pitchforks, being sure to keep a safe distance. Finally, one man retrieved his trusty fowling piece, crept within range, and fired. The craft writhed about the ground and gave off a foul odor in its death struggle, which further convinced the villagers of its evil nature. They advanced on the balloon and cut it to ribbons with their field tools, then tied the remains to the tail of a horse and sent the animal running across the fields, until the balloon was good and dead.

  Among the scientists of the day, it was believed that ascending in a balloon would result in fainting, hemorrhages, and heart failure. The first “manned” ascents were made by animals, and the historical distinction of being the first human to fly was originally going to be awarded to a condemned criminal.

  Much of that innocence was still intact during the Wright brothers’ day.

  After leaving the Outer Banks in 1908, Wilbur traveled through New York and arrived in Paris near the end of May. The news was all bad at first. The French firm hired to assemble the motor shipped over by Orville had damaged it. The airframe was in even worse condition; French customs officials had gone through the Wrights’ crates, then repacked them so poorly that the wing fabric was torn in various places and just about every other part—from ribs to radiator to seats—was battered in some way. Unable to explain assembly procedures to the French mechanics assisting him, Wilbur had to do most of the work himself. On the Fourth of July, he was badly burned on the arm and side by boiling water sprayed from a radiator hose. It took nearly ten weeks from the time of his arrival to get his airplane in order.

  Wilbur finally flew on Saturday, August 8, at Les Hun
audières, an automobile race course near Le Mans, making two circuits of the field in about two minutes—the Wrights’ first public flight ever. He continued testing the new craft through the following Thursday, achieving a best flight of over eight minutes, then moved his operation to a better facility at Camp d’Auvours, an artillery testing ground, also near Le Mans. Enthusiastic crowds cheered him at both sites.

  Meanwhile, Orville prepared for the American trials at Fort Myer, Virginia, near Washington. Charlie Taylor and Charlie Furnas were on hand to help. Orville first flew on Thursday, September 3, making a circuit of the field in a little over a minute. He progressed rapidly from there, making solo flights of fifty-seven, sixty-two, sixty-five, and seventy minutes and flights with a passenger exceeding six, then nine minutes by September 12. Reaction was initially more subdued in the United States than in Europe, but Orville, too, was drawing large crowds by the time of his long flights.

  In fact, enthusiasm grew to such a level that it didn’t dampen even when tragedy struck. Orville was flying with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge of the United States Army on September 17 when he heard tapping sounds coming from the rear of the airplane. Unknown to Orville, his right propeller had developed a crack, which flattened the blade slightly and created unequal thrust between the left and right blades. Sensing something was wrong, he began making preparations to land. Next, the right propeller brace deformed, throwing the blade out of its proper rotation; it cut through a wire bracing the rudder at the rear of the craft, causing the rudder to twist and sending the craft into the ground at a speed approaching fifty miles an hour.

  As fate would have it, the crash occurred along the border of Arlington Cemetery, where Thomas Selfridge was buried a few days later. Selfridge, the victim of severe head injuries, was the first fatality in a powered, heavier-than-air machine. Orville, knocked unconscious, counted a broken leg, broken ribs, a cut head, and a hurt back among his injuries. His leg and back troubles stayed with him the rest of his life.

  Having seen a Wright airplane fly, and understanding that the crash was more the result of misfortune than unreliability on the part of the inventors, the American government didn’t hesitate in granting the brothers until the following summer to fulfill their contract.

  Still in France, Wilbur was in a position where he had to fly absolutely safely, yet spectacularly enough to overshadow Orville’s crash. Performing under considerable pressure, he did the best flying of his career. Just four days after the tragedy, he set world records for distance flown and time aloft. On December 31, he made a flight lasting two hours and eighteen minutes.

  In early 1909, he relocated his operation and made numerous flights at Pau, a resort in the south of France, where he was joined by the recuperating Orville and their sister, Katharine.

  Orville was back in the air in late June 1909 for the rescheduled American trials at Fort Myer. On July 12, he stayed aloft with a passenger for an hour and twelve minutes. On July 30, he fulfilled the last requirement of the Wrights’ contract by covering a ten-mile course at an average speed in excess of forty miles per hour.

  The upshot of all these public flights was a level of fame beyond anything the Wrights had ever imagined.

  Among the first crowds at Les Hunaudières were some of the most sophisticated flight observers in the world, men who understood Wilbur’s tight figure-eights and steeply banked turns to be qualitatively different from anything they’d ever witnessed. Upon seeing Wilbur in the air, many of the French aeronauts who had previously denounced the Wrights as fakes issued apologies in the newspapers, declaring the brothers to have brought the aeroplane and the art of flying to perfection.

  Hard-bitten newsmen in the crowds found tears streaming down their cheeks. Other spectators fell to their knees and prayed.

  The citizens of the world had been given a great gift.

  That was only the beginning. Wilbur Wright dominated the news in France. The kings and millionaires of Europe came calling. Never having claimed expertise in anything but aeronautics, he suddenly found his opinions sought on art, literature, medicine, and world affairs.

  Songs, poems, and plays were written about the Wright brothers.

  Women sent descriptions of themselves and proposals of marriage.

  A frying pan in which Wilbur did some of his cooking in France was supposedly displayed in the Louvre.

  His manner of dress spawned a line of commercial clothing.

  When Wilbur, Orville, and Katharine returned to the United States in early 1909, a flotilla awaited them in New York Harbor. A major civic celebration was scheduled in Dayton.

  Upon the brothers’ arrival in the Washington area for Orville’s second attempt at fulfilling their American contract, one of their first stops was the White House, where President William Howard Taft spoke in their honor. One day, the entire United States Senate adjourned and made the trip across the Potomac in hopes of seeing Orville fly. President Taft came another day. When Orville crashed into a bush during one trial, the crowd rushed forward to strip its branches for mementos.

  Many experts consider the Wright brothers the first great international celebrities of the twentieth century. Biographer Harry Combs is of the opinion that their first public flights had a greater effect on human consciousness than Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.

  But the Wrights quickly lost their edge.

  One of the principal reasons was their involvement in lawsuits. The Wrights’ patent was unusually broadly drawn. Rather than patenting a particular system for presenting an airplane’s wings at different angles to the wind, they had effectively been allowed to patent the general principle behind such systems. But it wasn’t long after the Wrights started flying publicly that aviators like Glenn Curtiss began expanding on their wing-warping system with ailerons—moveable surfaces usually placed at the trailing edges of the wings, designed to control the craft in the roll axis.

  In the Wrights’ view, mastery of the roll axis was absolutely vital to controlling an airplane, and as they were solely responsible for solving the problem, they deserved compensation for any system growing out of their work. But as their competitors saw it, ailerons were qualitatively different from the Wrights’ wing-warping system, and the brothers were merely seeking financial gain from the ideas of others, as well as impeding the progress of aviation. There was no doubt that ailerons were an advancement. The Wrights’ system was well suited for slow speeds, but the brothers could not build wings that were both flexible enough to permit warping and strong enough to endure the stress of great speeds. Ailerons allowed the use of more rigid wings.

  Public opinion generally favored the Wrights. The courts invariably did. The primacy of the brothers’ control system was upheld both in the United States—most notably in a suit against the Herring-Curtiss Company, a principal figure of which was 1902 Outer Banks camper Augustus Herring—and in Europe. The Wrights’ opponents generally managed to circumvent injunctions and continue flying while their suits were pending, but all the same, the Wrights were publicly vindicated. They were ultimately compensated for the use of their patents through fees and royalties.

  Having instigated numerous patent suits, the Wrights found them to be an extraordinary drain on their time. While other men were busy advancing the science of aviation, they found themselves preparing legal actions.

  The formation of companies to produce Wright airplanes placed additional demands on their time. The Wright Company, organized in 1909 and backed by such powerful men as Cornelius Vanderbilt and August Belmont, was easily the best of the lot, producing new designs and quality-built planes at a plant in Dayton. But the various Wright companies in Europe were a constant source of concern. Workmanship was sometimes shoddy. Unauthorized modifications were made to the Wrights’ designs. And business practices were even worse. It was an important point for the Wrights that their participation in the companies allow them ample time for pursuing new design ideas, but as matters developed, overseeing business operatio
ns became a full-time source of worry.

  After introducing a major new industry to the world, the Wrights found they exercised little control over its direction. There was as yet no practical use for airplanes, which severely limited sales of the craft manufactured in their plants. The short-term market lay in exhibition flying, a pastime the Wrights had always scorned. Keenly aware of the prize money Glenn Curtiss and other aviators were earning at staged events, the Wrights organized an exhibition team, Orville assuming the responsibility of training new pilots.

  Their worst fears proved true. Seeing an airplane perform low-altitude laps of a field was enough of a spectacle for people witnessing flight for the first time, but crowds soon began to develop a thirst for steep dives and the pursuit of speed and altitude records. The Wrights had always emphasized safety in their own flying, and Orville tried to impress the same attitude on the members of their exhibition team. Instead, the Wright pilots, in direct competition with Glenn Curtiss’s men, grew into daredevils of the highest order. Many paid with their lives. Five of the nine original members of the Wright team perished in crashes in the first two years of exhibition flying. Wright airplanes began to get a poor reputation for safety, though that was mainly a problem with craft of European manufacture and those that had been modified.

  Despite these setbacks, the Wright brothers enjoyed their share of triumphs after their French and American contract trials of 1908 and 1909. Orville flew for crowds of nearly a quarter of a million people in Germany in September 1909. That same month, on September 29, Wilbur took off from Governors Island and buzzed the Statue of Liberty. The word of his takeoff was sent by wireless to many of the ships crowding New York Harbor by Guglielmo Marconi. On October 4, Wilbur flew ten miles up the Hudson River to Grant’s Tomb and back, a flight witnessed by a crowd estimated at a million people.