First in Flight Read online

  In his early twenties, Fessenden settled in the New York area and went to work for Thomas Edison’s laboratories, the greatest in the world. His first major assignment for Edison was to come up with a new coating for electrical wires. In those days, poorly insulated wiring buried within plaster walls was starting fires at a rate that threatened to kill a promising new industry. Edison wanted a coating that would not be overheated by electrical current, that would not be affected by oils and acids, and that would be as flexible as India rubber. Fessenden’s laboratory work on the subject involved some basic atomic research well ahead of its time. When he finally delivered what his mentor asked, he earned a place among Edison’s top scientists.

  Ironically, Fessenden next went to work in a New Jersey laboratory controlled by George Westinghouse, where his major assignment was to design a light bulb that would circumvent Thomas Edison’s patent for that device. Successful again, he came up with a bulb that was superior to Edison’s—one that earned Westinghouse the lighting contract for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, a major coup. The Westinghouse lights pioneered by Fessenden were one of the marvels of the exposition, which was attended by tens of thousands of visitors, among them Wilbur and Orville Wright on their first major journey away from home. The event created the first popular market for home lighting.

  The ease and offhandedness with which Fessenden came up with some of his inventions is remarkable. One day, finding that the piles of paper on his desk were becoming unmanageable, he invented microphotography. Another time, frustrated that he had to leave his office to call for workers scattered far and wide over the research complex, he invented the pager. The holder of more than five hundred patents over the course of his career, he invented such things as the electric gyrocompass and silicon steel. He held an American patent on what his supporters say was a workable television system in 1919, but lacked the funds to develop it. It wasn’t until seven years later that television came into being in England.

  But radio—or “wireless telephony,” as he called it—was always his passion. Laid off by Westinghouse in 1892, he took university jobs in Indiana and Pennsylvania, where he finally found the freedom to design his own experiments.

  During most of his work in radio, Fessenden labored in the shadow of Nobel Prize winner Guglielmo Marconi. Unlike the cash-poor Fessenden, Marconi came from a family wealthy enough to support his research efforts. He was also a far more charismatic public personality and a better businessman. Ultimately, however, his theory of wave transmission was inferior to Fessenden’s. Marconi understood electrical waves to be transmitted in short, sharp blasts of energy. He was sending Morse code across the English Channel while Fessenden was still unable to transmit across his laboratory. But once Fessenden arrived at his theory of continuous-wave transmission—in which electrical signals are seen as traveling outward from their source in a continuous flow, like ripples from a stone dropped into a pond—he was on his way to leaving his Italian rival behind.

  Toward the end of 1899, Fessenden’s work came to the attention of the United States Weather Bureau, at that time a division of the Department of Agriculture. A wireless system would be an aid to rapid weather forecasting and would allow easy communication with outlying areas where laying cable was costly. Fessenden conducted a demonstration for representatives of the Weather Bureau. His system of sending and receiving Morse code impressed them so much that they promptly hired him away from his university job.

  Fessenden’s first experiments during his tenure with the Weather Bureau took place on Cobb Island, Maryland, a five-hundred-acre island forty-five miles south of Washington, located opposite Colonial Beach, Virginia. In October 1900, he transmitted such clear Morse messages on Cobb Island that even his employers were startled. Two months later, he transmitted the first intelligible human speech by wireless.

  With results like those, the Weather Bureau was ready to fund a larger operation. Its chosen site was coastal North Carolina.

  A telegraph line was already in place on the Outer Banks, but its performance was not entirely satisfactory. The line stretching down the barrier islands was often knocked out of commission by severe weather and required close maintenance. The cable that stretched under the sound to the mainland was little better, subject as it was to underwater currents, shifting shoals, and saltwater corrosion. In fact, the system was most prone to breaking down exactly when accurate weather information and lifesaving services were needed most: during heavy weather. With the volume of shipping traffic plying the Gulf Stream and the area’s long tradition as a graveyard for unlucky vessels, there was a great deal at stake. A radio mast might blow down in a hurricane, of course, but failing that, wireless transmissions were unaffected by wind and sand, slicing through bad weather as easily as good.

  Fessenden set his North Carolina operation in motion in January 1901. His main facility was located at Weir Point on the northwestern shore of Roanoke Island, with outlying stations to the south at Cape Hatteras and to the north at Cape Henry, Virginia.

  Unlike the Wrights, Fessenden took up full-time residence on the coast. He and his staff—those not stationed at Cape Hatteras and Cape Henry—lived in eight or ten rooms on the second floor of a Manteo hotel. His experiments were well under way by the time the Wrights arrived for their second season and were joined by the likes of Edward Huffaker and George Spratt.

  The following year, 1902, was to prove an eventful one both on the shore of Roanoke Island and in the dunes at Kill Devil Hills.

  C H A P T E R 3

  1 9 0 2

  Wireless telephone communication is a fact. Instruments invented by Professor R. A. Fessenden have been installed in homes along the coasts, near Cape Hatteras and Roanoke island and for a distance of 14 miles the ticks from the wireless telephone instruments can be heard over the telephone.

  Elizabeth City North Carolinian,

  July 10, 1902

  The Wright Bros., two young bicycle manufacturers of Dayton, Ohio; Prof. O. Chaneut [sic], a noted scientist and aerialist of Chicago, and Dr. Spratt, a Philadelphian who has delved deep in the mysteries of aeronautics are encamped at Kitty Hawk, in lower Currituck county. On the bleak sand banks they have erected a machine shop and in their secluded quarters are thinking, planning, and perfecting in hopes of some day startling science and the world with a presentation, to mankind, of transportation through space.

  Elizabeth City Tar Heel,

  October 3, 1902

  Radio

  Whether the Wright Brothers and Reginald Fessenden ever met on the Outer Banks is a subject for speculation.

  Among students of Fessenden’s career, it is an article of faith that they did. Fessenden’s supporters suggest they met in Manteo—date unknown—and say Fessenden was an occasional visitor to the Wrights’ camp at Kill Devil Hills. Canadian author Thomas Carpenter describes the Wrights as “two men [Fessenden] befriended” and tells how Fessenden “listened in fascination as Wilbur and Orville Wright described their experiments with aviation at Kitty Hawk.” Fessenden’s wife, Helen, paints it as if the two camps were one in spirit across Roanoke Sound, writing, “It was a companionable thought that in this element, the air, two men not so many miles away from us were achieving mastery in one form while we at Manteo were achieving mastery in another.” But proof of any association has yet to be discovered.

  Among students of the Wrights, who are far more numerous, the subject is a matter of indifference. No biography of the brothers so much as mentions Fessenden. In the two-volume set of the Wrights’ published letters, there is a 1907 letter from Orville to Fessenden, along with an error-filled footnote that identifies Fessenden as an American and has him conducting his advanced radio experiments on Roanoke Island at the age of fifteen, rather than thirty-five. Reginald Fessenden is a small fish in the Wright brothers’ pond.

  The answer may lie in what appears to be an introductory letter Fessenden wrote to the Wrights in April 1907. “When you were in North
Carolina I was at Manteo, working at wireless telegraphy, and became interested in your work,” it begins, before going on to its main purpose of offering advice on acquiring patents. Indeed, with the flight camp lying only about six miles from Manteo, its likely that the Wrights and Fessenden were at least aware of each other’s experiments, even if they weren’t acquainted during their residence.

  The new year showed great promise for the radio workers. By early April 1902, Fessenden was winging musical notes around the Outer Banks as easily as Morse code, and sending clear signals among his stations on only three watts of power. He boasted that he could transmit “across the Pacific Ocean if desired.”

  But Fessenden was not without his problems. The basic difficulty was that, unlike men who built flying machines from inexpensive materials, radio pioneers needed towers and sophisticated electronics in multiple locations, at an expense that was well beyond the private means of anyone poorer than Guglielmo Marconi. As a result, they had to align themselves with companies, government agencies, or wealthy individuals, who often had different ideas about the means and goals of the operation.

  Fessenden was also a poor businessman. Despite his many patents, he lived near poverty until his later years. In fact, what little money he had was generally consumed by patent fees. He was far from alone among the inventors of his generation who made great advances in technology and many millions of dollars for others, but who received little recognition or profit themselves.

  The operation on Roanoke Island began to fall apart about the time Fessenden was predicting transmission across the Pacific.

  Fessenden had been hired in 1900 with the understanding that he would retain patent ownership of all the devices he invented during his employment, though the Weather Bureau would be free to use the devices themselves. However, once Willis Moore, the head of the Weather Bureau, visited the Roanoke Island facilities in 1901 and began to comprehend the potential of Fessenden’s radio system, he started trying to insinuate himself into the inventive process.

  A former printer from Pennsylvania, Moore had been in charge of the Weather Bureau since 1895. He was the same man who in December 1899 sent Wilbur Wright the packet of weather information that informed him of the existence of Kitty Hawk.

  In early 1902, Moore summoned Fessenden to Washington and demanded to be listed as co-owner of all the patents Fessenden had received since coming to work for the Weather Bureau. Moore made it clear that should Fessenden decline, Marconi’s radio system would be used for all future Weather Bureau operations.

  The experiments on Roanoke Island were by then important enough to merit attention at the highest level. Back in Manteo, Fessenden wrote President Teddy Roosevelt complaining of staff cuts and of Moore’s designs on his patents. Roosevelt reviewed the letter and passed it to the vice president. It later found its way into the hands of Willis Moore, who responded by stepping up the staff cuts. Eventually, Fessenden was left with just two operators, one of whom was trained only in telegraphy and the other of whom was suffering from a bad leg infection. His experiments ground to a halt.

  On July 30, 1902, Moore recommended to Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson that Fessenden be fired for insubordination. The end of his employment with the Weather Bureau in sight, Fessenden tendered his resignation on September 1.

  Biographer Ormond Raby has him leaving Roanoke Island for good in August. According to Raby, the last thing Fessenden did before departing North Carolina was pay a farewell visit to the Wrights’ camp. Actually, Raby has Fessenden loading up his wagon, making a final visit to his radio facilities, and then rolling directly into Kill Devil Hills, a remarkable feat considering that Roanoke Sound lies between Roanoke Island and that portion of the Outer Banks. The Wrights left Dayton for North Carolina on August 25 that year, so it is possible that they arrived shortly before Fessenden’s departure, but no reasonable exit route from Manteo would have led Fessenden through Kill Devil Hills. Such a farewell visit appears to be a fantasy.

  His days with the Weather Bureau a bad memory, Fessenden received a further insult two years later, when Guglielmo Marconi established the first commercial wireless station in the Western Hemisphere near Cape Point on Hatteras Island, not far from Fessenden’s southernmost facility on the Outer Banks.

  Though his fame never approached Marconi’s, Fessenden may have been the ultimate winner. In January 1906, during his tenure with the National Electric Signaling Company, he made the first two-way wireless transmission of Morse code across the Atlantic, between Brant Rock, Massachusetts, and Scotland. This put him well ahead of his rival, who was still having difficulty sending one-way after more than five years of trying.

  That November, as one of Fessenden’s operators was making a wireless voice transmission from Brant Rock to Plymouth, eleven miles away, the message was picked up unexpectedly by the Scotland station—the first voice transmission across the ocean.

  On Christmas Eve, Fessenden made the first radio broadcast in history, a program of music and prayer picked up mainly by a fleet of banana boats belonging to the United Fruit Company, a major purchaser of his wireless sets. For the men crowding the wireless rooms of boats as far away as the Caribbean, it must have been memorable.

  Today, Reginald Fessenden is widely credited with the discovery of amplitude modulation, the principle behind AM radio.

  He and Orville Wright cultivated a friendly, if sporadic, correspondence beginning in 1907. Fessenden sent the Wrights photographs of his wireless facilities and told them how they could receive transmissions aboard their airplanes by pasting tinfoil to the wings, rather than by employing dangling wires, as was being discussed in Europe at the time.

  During Orville’s first public flights, which took place at Fort Myer, Virginia, in 1908, Fessenden was in the crowd of onlookers. He also offered Orville free use of his company’s shop in nearby Washington, going so far as to instruct his staff that “Mr. Wright’s work will take precedence of all my own work except that marked ‘urgent,’ and where Mr. Wright states that he is in a hurry, it will take precedence also of this and you will work overtime and engage additional men, if necessary.” Orville was not to be charged for any services rendered.

  When Orville suffered a bad crash during his Virginia trials, Fessenden wrote with his sympathies. Always free with his money when he had some, he went so far as to offer a loan.

  In 1911, Fessenden’s attention turned to developing an airplane motor. He wrote Orville on December 22 of that year to ask him to evaluate his drawings and determine whether the Wrights might be interested in buying the motor. This venture came to nothing.

  As for Willis Moore, the man who ranks as a footnote to the Wright brothers’ career and a villain of the first magnitude in Reginald Fessenden’s, his tenure with the Weather Bureau came to an ignominious end. Moore was hounded by allegations of misuse of government funds beginning in 1904. His Weather Bureau dispensed pay raises sparingly and harsh reprimands liberally, and was fond of transferring employees to distant locations on short notice.

  Moore became the subject of public scorn in 1909 when, in the time-honored weatherman’s tradition, he personally issued a forecast of “clear and colder” for William Howard Taft’s inauguration, only to have a snowstorm blanket the festivities.

  When a government investigation descended on his office in 1913, a wheelbarrow bearing incriminating documents was supposedly disappearing out the back door as officers entered the front. He tendered his resignation shortly afterwards, only to have President Woodrow Wilson fire him before it took effect.

  Off-Season

  Experts agree that the Wright brothers’ best work was not done on the Outer Banks. In fact, their best work wasn’t done in Virginia or France or at any of the other sites of their great flights. It didn’t involve engines, propellers, or gliders. It took place in their bicycle shop in the winter between the 1901 and 1902 seasons and involved materials no more grand than a wooden box, a fan, some cut-up hacksaw blades and bic
ycle spokes, and six-inch pieces of sheet metal shaped with tin shears.

  One of the greatest services Octave Chanute ever performed was bringing Wilbur Wright out of his depression following the 1901 season. Understanding less about the flight problem than the Wrights but being more intimately acquainted with the failure of a variety of other experimenters, Chanute remained highly impressed with the brothers’ accomplishments. In August 1901, he invited Wilbur to speak the following month in Chicago before the Western Society of Engineers, one of the most prestigious engineering organizations in the country. A speech on the subject of flight would be educational for the members and would also bring Wilbur the wide exposure he deserved.

  Wilbur prepared a draft of a speech, only to have Orville criticize it for asserting that the Wrights had been led astray by the inaccurate data of other experimenters. That judgment should be reserved until the brothers could prove their predecessors wrong, Orville felt. Wilbur deleted the negative references and resolved to do just what Orville suggested: build a body of accurate aeronautical data.

  Wilbur’s presentation that September included a slide show featuring his craft in flight. He defined the basic elements necessary for powered flight and touched on some of the high points reached by previous experimenters. He discussed his own tests on the Outer Banks, a sampling of the engineering problems he’d encountered, and the conclusions he’d reached thus far. Bill Tate would have been pleased to hear himself credited by name before such an august body. And given the state of his reputation, Edward Huffaker would have been happy to hear himself described as simply “an experienced aeronautical investigator,” with no commentary on his character flaws. Slightly revised and widely reprinted under the title “Some Aeronautical Experiments,” the speech exerted a major influence on the aeronauts of the day.

  When Wilbur arrived back home, the Wrights set about designing their own laboratory experiments to assess the lift and drag of wing surfaces. First, they tested the accuracy of Otto Lilienthal’s tables, which all serious students of flight took as their starting point. Their method was to mount two opposing surfaces, one a miniature wing and the other a flat plane, on the rim of a bicycle tire in such a way that the lift of the wing should have matched the resistance of the plate. They then mounted the rim—lying flat and free to turn—above the handlebars of one of their bicycles and pedaled up and down the street. They discovered that, instead of remaining stationary as it should have, the rim rotated toward the flat plate, meaning that its resistance was greater than the wing’s lift. In other words, the wing was generating less lift than Lilienthal’s tables said it would. This test, simple as it was, served to prove that all of aeronautics rested on a flimsy foundation.