System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Wilbur Wright, Aviation pioneer
April 16, 1867 - May 30, 1912
Bishop Milton Wright and Susan Catharine Wright had four sons, Reuchlin, Lorin, Wilbur, and Orville, and one daughter Katharine. Wilbur, their third son, was born on a small farm near Millville, Indiana April 16, 1867, while Orville (1871-1948) and later Katharine were born at 7 Hawthorn Street in Dayton. A minister in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Milton Wright moved his family to Dayton so he could edit the church newspaper published there. The Wrights stayed in Dayton until 1878, when Milton was elected bishop and moved the family to Iowa. In 1885, they returned to the house at 7 Hawthorn Street.
As youngsters, Wilbur, and his brother, Orville looked to their mother for mechanical expertise and their father for intellectual challenge. Milton brought the boys various souvenirs and trinkets he found during his travels for the church. One such trinket, a toy helicopter-like top, sparked the boys' interest in flying. In school, Wilbur excelled, and would have graduated from high school if his family had not moved during his senior year. A skating accident and his mother's illness and subsequent death kept him from attending college.
Probably during the winter of 1885-1886, Wilbur was hit with in the face with a bat while playing an ice-skating game. The injury at first did not seem serious. In the Bishop's words, "In his nineteenth year when playing a game on skates at an artificial lake at the Soldier's Home near Dayton, Ohio, a bat accidentally flew out of the hand of a young man... and struck Wilbur, knocking him down, but not injuring him much. A few weeks later, he began to be affected with nervous palpitations of the heart which precluded the realization of the former idea of his parents, of giving him a course in Yale College." For the next four years, Wilbur remained homebound, suffering perhaps as much from depression as from his vaguely-defined heart disorder. During this period, Wilbur cared for his mother, who was dying from tuberculosis.
The first time Wilbur and Orville referred to themselves as "The Wright Brothers" was when they started their own printing firm at the ages of 22 and 18. Using a damaged tombstone and buggy parts, they built a press and printed odd jobs as well as their own newspaper.
In 1892, the brothers bought bicycles. They began repairing bicycles for friends, then started their own repair business. They opened up a bicycle shop in 1893, and three years later, made their own bicycles called Van Cleves and St. Clairs. While nursing Orville, who was sick with typhoid in 1896, Wilbur read about the death of a famous German glider pilot. The news led him to take an interest in flying. On May 30, 1899, he wrote to the Smithsonian Institution for information on aeronautical research. They began serious reading and soon obtained all the scientific knowledge of aeronautics then available.
In August of 1900, Wilbur built his first glider. He then contacted the U.S. Weather Bureau for information on windy regions of the country. Reviewing the list, he chose a remote sandy area off the coast of North Carolina named Kitty Hawk, where winds averaged 13 m.p.h. He and Orville then journeyed to Kitty Hawk where they tested the 1900 glider. The following year, they tested a new and improved glider with a 22-foot wingspan. A disappointing performance by the 1901 glider prompted the Wright brothers to construct a wind tunnel to test the effectiveness of a variety of wing shapes. Using the results of the wind tunnel experiments, they constructed their 1902 glider. Testing it at Kitty Hawk in October, they met with success, gliding a record 620 feet. Once again they returned to Dayton and began work on developing a propeller and an engine for their next effort, a flying machine.
By the fall of 1903, they had constructed a powered airplane with wings 40.5 feet (12 meters) long and weighing about 750 pounds (340 kilograms) with the pilot. They designed and built their own lightweight gasoline engine for the airplane. On December 17, 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, they made the world's first flight in a powered, heavier-than-air machine. With Orville at the controls, the plane flew 120 feet (37 meters) in 12 seconds. The brothers made three more flights that day. The longest, by Wilbur, was 852 feet (260 meters) in 59 seconds.
The Wrights believed that airplanes would eventually be used to transport passengers and mail. When the Wrights first offered their machine to the U.S. government, they were not taken seriously, but by 1908 they closed a contract with the U.S. Department of War for the first military airplane.
In 1908 and 1909, Wilbur became a huge celebrity, wowing both audiences abroad and at home. He set records in Le Mans , France. Cartoons and sketches of Wilbur were featured in many French magazines and newspapers. He then returned to the U.S. to captivate a U.S. audience of 1 million as he flew around the Statue of Liberty, and followed the Hudson River to Grant's Tomb.
On May 30, 1912 Wilbur died after suffering from typhoid fever, and just as the airplane was beginning to make great advances. He was 45.
In 1965 Wilbur Wright was selected for the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. The original plane flown near Kitty Hawk is now in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Basic principles of that plane are used in every airplane.
