On May 30, 1899 an impecunious 32-year-old man who, along with his brother, ran a small bicycle shop in Dayton Ohio wrote to the Smithsonian Institution, with a request:<\/p>\n
\u201cI have ben interested in the problem of mechanical and human flight ever since as a boy I constructed a number of bats of various sizes . . . . .I am about to begin a systematic study of the subject in preparation for practical work to which I expect to devote what time I can spare from my regular business. I wish to obtain such papers as the Smithsonian Institution has published on this subject . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
Four and a half years later, toward the end of 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright completed their first flight in a \u201cflying machine\u201d at Kitty Hawk, a windy, isolated, desolate expanse of sand dunes on North Carolina\u2019s outer banks. By 1906 the Wright Brothers were global celebrities. They took up residence in the luxurious Hotel Meurice in Paris, where they consulted with military officials and cut deals with European capitalists.<\/p>\n
The Wright Brothers\u2019 historic triumph, we learn in David McCullough\u2019s superb new book, was the result of concentrated effort by exceptionally smart, determined, resourceful, courageous and yet humble Americans. To crack the code of manned flight, they intently studied birds in flight, built increasingly sophisticated \u201cflyers,\u201d created their own wind tunnel, devised a gasoline engine for their flying machine, developed a weight-driven catapult to launch the flyer, and methodically overcame a host of other technical, practical, and theoretical challenges. They did all this while running their bicycle shop. While camping at Kitty Hawk they braved at various times clouds of voracious mosquitoes, hurricane-force winds, frigid temperatures and a near shipwreck while traveling to Kitty Hawk. Theirs was dangerous work; a crash in 1908 permanently disabled Orville and killed the soldier who was flying with him. The one thing these unlikely capitalists lacked was capital; their project cost all of $1,000, versus $70,000 spent by Samuel Pierpont Langley in a failed attempt at manned flight.<\/p>\n
The Wright Lessons<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Copyright Thomas Doerflinger 2015. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On May 30, 1899 an impecunious 32-year-old man who, along with his brother, ran a small bicycle shop in Dayton Ohio wrote to the Smithsonian Institution, with a request: \u201cI have ben interested in the problem of mechanical and human … Continue reading \n