History That Doesn't Suck - 123: The Wright Brothers Fly at Kitty Hawk

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

“Not in a thousand years would man ever fly.”   This is the story of two brothers and the dream of controlled, sustained, and powered flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine.   The Wrights are a tight-knit bunch. A supportive family. So perhaps it’s not surprising that, when Wilbur sinks into a deep, dark depression brought on by a terrible beating, his brother Orville is there for him. Just like Will and their sister Kate are there for Orv when Typhoid nearly takes his life. These siblings are thick as thieves, even if Kate opts for college while “the boys” go for starting their own print shop and bicycle company. They also have each other’s backs when Will rediscovers his childhood dream of flight. He and Orv pursue it relentlessly and for years on end among North Carolina’s sandy beaches just outside of Kitty Hawk.   Determination. Failure. Risk-taking. Scientific discovery. Family. This is the story of the Wright brothers. ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and as in the classroom, my goal here is to make rigorously researched history come to life as your storyteller. Each episode is the result of laborious research with no agenda other than making the past come to life as you learn. If you'd like to

help support this work, receive ad-free episodes, bonus content, and other exclusive perks, I invite you to join the HTDS membership program. Sign up for a seven-day free trial today at htdspodcast.com slash membership, or click the link in the episode notes. It's a beautiful day in early October, 1900. We're on one of several thin, long barrier islands encircling the upper part of North Carolina's coast, collectively known as the Outer Banks, where two brothers from Ohio are making adjustments

to a curious looking contraption of their own making. Its wooden frame measures five by 17 feet. It has two satin covered wings in a biplane configuration, which is to say that with proper attachments, one hovers just a few feet above the other. But the bottom wing has one difference. Right in the middle, it has an opening and sticking out in front of it, much like a tongue protruding from a mouth, is another smaller sateen covered rectangular frame. This is a forward rudder, later to be known as an elevator,

and it allows a person lying down on this contraption's bottom tier to navigate this thing up and down as it sails through the air. In other words, you and I would call this a glider. But the two roughly 30-year-old brothers call it a soaring or flying machine, and they're determined to make it work. Having made camp among the sand and dunes just outside Body Island's sleepy town of Kitty Hawk, the brothers spend day after day letting the coastal gales

that attracted them from Ohio work their magic. As the wind strikes their glider, the shape of its wings ensures that the air moves faster above them than below. This phenomenon also creates more air pressure below the wings, producing a force known as lift. And with the beach's 15 miles per hour or stronger winds, well, the lift becomes so strong that the almost 50-pound soaring machine begins to best gravity, rising from the sandy earth and into the breezy air. The brothers, heavily balding Wilbur and mustachioed Orville, or just Will and Orv, as their friends call them, stand on either side, guiding it like a kite. Looks good. It works. But there's still room for improvement.

It's now October 10th. Will and Orv are again adjusting their soaring machine. They're mindful of the calculations of their German aviation hero Otto Lilienthal, but still they're hoping to improve their results. As they continue to examine, alter, and prepare to test again though, a strong wind blasts their way. The unexpected gale lifts the soaring, with Orv still holding on. Rising quickly and falling just as precipitously, the flying craft crashes down twenty feet away. Orv crashes too. Wilbur must be sick to his stomach as he looks at his younger brother. Orv, or Bubbs, as only the family calls him.

Is he okay? Is he alive? Orv stirs. Sand undoubtedly clings to his clothes, dark hair, and mustache as he rises. Dusting off and looking himself over, though, it looks like he's okay. Shaken to his core, absolutely, but somehow entirely uninjured. If only they could say the same for their glider. It lies upside down.

The forward rudder reaches into the sky like a flag of surrender The once beautiful parallel wings are twisted and contorted Their sateen cloth taut here and lax there The sewing machine is collapsed and crumpled It looks hopelessly lost The brothers can't help but wonder Maybe they should just be grateful Orv is still alive and call it. Perhaps it's time to go home, to go back to Ohio,

back to familiarity, to family, to their beloved bike shop. But it's only a fleeting thought. No, they'll repair this glider, their machine, and stay a while yet. For three days, the brothers, or simply the boys, as their sister Kate back in Ohio often describes the two, laboriously repair and rebuild. Now records are incomplete and it's impossible to know everything the boys tried prior to

the accident, but with the repairs completed, they throw themselves into the next stage of testing. This means assessing the machine's ability to be piloted. Someone has to go up. It's now October 19th. A local man named Bill Tate helps the brothers drag their soaring machine to a group of three sand dunes ranging from 30 to 100 feet in height, known as Kill Devil Hills.

Now, Bill's helped the brothers a bit in recent days. He and Orv have held ropes on either side of the glider's wings and flown it like a kite, while Will took the prone pilot's position to get a taste of handling the machine in the safest way possible. But today, it's time to go for the gusto with no strings attached. Bill and Orv stand on either side of the soaring machine's long wings. Will occupies the bottom wing's opening. Jogging downhill and into the wind, the forces of lift come to bear and raise the glider and Will with it right up into the sky. Woo-hoo!

Will lies down in the prone piloting position and takes control as best he can with his still developing, uniquely designed technology. He soars up to 400 feet and lands at a speed of almost 30 miles per hour. Will repeats the flight over and over. What a gratifying payoff for years of work. And yet, these gliding distances are a far cry off from the sustained, controlled flight these flight-obsessed siblings really want. Packing up in the days to come to return to Ohio, they know they'll be back. This is but the first of many trips to Kitty Hawk for the Wright brothers. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Music

Music Today, we come to the tale of two close-knit brothers from a close-knit family who give their all to a singular dream. The dream of flight. While one episode is insufficient for a full biography of the two brothers, we'll start with their childhood, following Will and Orv as they grow up alongside their older brothers and beloved sister Kate. We'll see ups and downs, as well as that crucial moment when, as an adult, Will's youthful interest in flight is renewed. We'll then bear witness as that interest becomes an obsession that takes him and his business partner slash brother, Orv, from their bike shop in Dayton, Ohio, to North Carolina's Outer Banks to test their own flying machines. Year after year, we'll see their successes, setbacks, crashes, and more until these high

school dropout brothers achieve sustained, controlled flight in a powered, heavier-than-air flying machine. And while that incredible tale will take the lion's share of our time, we of course won't end without contextualizing their work with other competing claimants for First in Flight. It's a jam-packed and fun story. And we begin by temporarily leaving North Carolina to reconnect with the rights of two decades prior in Iowa. Rewind. It's a late autumn evening, likely September 1878. A train has just arrived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and on board is the small but growing town's bishop from the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Bishop Milton Wright. Pressing 44 years old, he's starting to show his age with a touch of gray in his beard

and a fairly obvious comb over. But never mind that. The bishop's mind isn't on his looks as he descends from the train. It's on his kids. With a skip in his step, he crosses the railroad tracks and is soon at the brick building boarding house on Jefferson Street he and his family call home. And now he can't help but smile. Because in the tradition of many a working and traveling parent, he's returning with

a little gift for his little ones. Hearing the door open, the kids rush forward to embrace their returning dad, or pop as they call him. Yeah, they're still at that age where a returning parent comes home to a hero's welcome, or at least the younger three of the five right children are. Milton tries to hide the toy in his palm, but his kids can see something's there. Maybe it's a late birthday present for little seven-year-old Orville. Well, before the clamoring kiddos can get it, the bishop catches them off guard. He launches it into the air.

It's flying! It's two spinning light propellers take it launches it into the air. It's flying! Its two spinning, light propellers take it right up to the ceiling. The kids love it, especially the two youngest boys. The outgoing and excitable Will and the younger, always tinkering Orv. They call the device a bat

and have it up in the air again and again. It's not long before the delicate, bamboo and paper flying toys and pieces, but rest assured, it's beloved. And rather than move on, the youngest Wright children set to work making their own. This is the Wright family. They're a loving bunch and new to Cedar Rapids.

Actually, they move a fair amount. The family started in Indiana, spent a solid almost decade in Dayton, Ohio, but made the move out here to Iowa this year after Milton's election as a bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. He's only busier now, traveling to attend to the organizational

and administrative duties that come with this new position. But he remains as devoted to his family as he is to that comb-over. His wife, Susan, is likewise a committed wife and mother. Dark-haired with a firm-set jaw, she's brilliant at all things mechanical and construction-oriented. She's passed those abilities to the kids.

Ah, and the kids. With the sad loss of a set of twins shortly after birth, there are five surviving Wright siblings. The oldest is 17-year-old Ruchlin. Ah, and the kids. With the sad loss of a set of twins shortly after birth, there are five surviving Wright siblings. The oldest is 17-year-old Rushland. He's followed closely by Lauren. We then get to 11-year-old Wilbert, 7-year-old Orville,

and bringing up the rear, little Catherine. Though none of these youngest three go by those names. Outside the home, they're abbreviated to Will, Orv, and Kate. Meanwhile, among the family, Will's best early pronunciations dubbed Orville, Bubbo, or Bubbs, while the other two have nicknames that speak to their German heritage. Wilbur is Ulam, and Kate is Sturzins, a rather morphed variation of the German word for little sister. Milton and Susan encourage all five of their children to investigate whatever arouses their curiosity,

even letting them skip school to read books or build various machines. The kids play together too. The older two tend to stick together while Orv pulls little Katie through town in their wagon and middle child Will straddles both worlds. He likes to run with his older brothers, but is also happy to pass

his wisdom and kite flying skills to Orv. The younger brother in turn shows his budding mechanical prowess as he begins making his own kites. Years pass. In 1884, the Wrights depart Iowa and move back to their former clappered two-story home at 7 Hawthorne Street in Dayton, Ohio. This is Will's senior year of high school, and amid the interruptions, he doesn't graduate. Yet, as he watches his older brothers graduate, marry, and move on with life, the middle-right child wants to do the same. He enrolls in postgraduate classes

at Dayton Central High School with high hopes that he can yet get accepted to Yale, then enter the ministry or become a teacher. It's a solid plan, but even the best laid plans can go awry. It's a cold day during the winter of 1885-86. Now a clean-shaven, slick-haired 19-year-old, Will Wright is playing shinny, otherwise known as an informal pickup game of pond hockey. Will flies across the ice. His skating and stick handling demonstrates his athletic prowess. The Wright boys is good on the ice as he is on the football field. Among those playing is Will's 15-year-old neighbor, Oliver Ha. Oliver is a solid player,

but his rotting teeth cause him constant pain. He relies on cocaine tooth drops and alcohol to cope. But be it the drugs or the pain, he's given to lashing out and bullying. In fact, his violence has grown so bad, he spent time at the Dayton Asylum for the insane and was only recently released. He's also as large as a grown man, so Oliver can do serious damage. We don't know what sets him off today, but at some point during the game, Oliver takes his stick and cracks Will across the face. The graceful athlete is reduced to a crumpled mess, his blood pooling as several

teeth fly across the ice. Oliver never overcomes his addictions, and years later, he'll meet his end in the electric chair after being convicted for murdering his own parents and brother. But we won't get distracted by his story. Our focus is Will Wright, and the poor guy is left in miserable pain for weeks. He's fitted with false teeth, but suffers from digestive problems,

heart palpitations, and depression. Sports, his prep courses, all of it stops. The aspiration of Yale dies. When asked about college, he responds that it, quote, might be time and money wasted, close quote. Will turns his energy toward reading and caring for his sickly mother. His older brother, Lauren, worries, writing to their sister, Kate. He, Will, ought to be doing something. Is he still cook and chambermaid? Roughly three years later, in 1889, his younger brother, Orv, is turning into an entrepreneur.

With two summers as a print shop apprentice under his belt, he and his lifelong friend, Ed Sines, start a shop of their own, boasting that they, quote, do job printing cheaper than any other house in town, close quote. The shop prospers, and with Will joining in, they start crediting themselves on some publications with a name that might sound familiar to you,

Wright Brothers. Given the printing business's growth and success, Orv decides to bail on his senior year. He had already left the normal school program to take college prep courses, but by 1889, he's giving up on the idea of college. Meanwhile, he also starts a weekly newspaper, the West Side News. It runs all kinds of stories, be that about George LaRue presenting the library with his large collection of bird eggs, a terrible flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, or the completion of the Eiffel Tower in France. Unfortunately, the brothers also have to write a painful obituary that July.

Their mothers. It reads, in part, She was of retiring disposition, very timid and averse to making any display in public. Hence, her true worth and highest qualities were most thoroughly appreciated by her family. Yes, Susan Wright, the loving, supportive wife and mother who encouraged her children's curiosity and mechanical inclinations, lost her years-long fight with tuberculosis on July 4th. The grief is indelible and overshadows Independence Day. The Wright family will never again enjoy the festivities of the 4th of July.

Will and Orv continue living with their newly widower pop, but that's just because they're a close and loving family. While the newspaper side of things soon drops off, they're crushing the printing game. Still, print is Orv's passion, not Will's. His contributions are perhaps less than stellar. But soon, the two brothers find a new passion in a hobby that's sweeping the nation. Cycling. Back in the 1870s and early 80s, the penny Farthing, or High Wheeler, so-called for its

massive, several feet in diameter front wheel that dwarfs its back wheel, was the go-to bicycle. These bikes were known for their bumpy rides and difficulty to steer. But in 1885, England's John Kemp Starley changed the game with his Rover Safety Bicycle. Its two wheels of equal size and pneumatic tubes made for easier handling and a far smoother ride. A craze began. Will likes long country rides. Orv, on the other hand, considers himself a scorcher. That's right, he wins races, though he'll also admit to having eaten his fair share of dust. But let's also remember dearly departed Susan passed her

mechanical ways to these boys, and so, the brothers soon have long lines of friends asking for help with repairs. This is obviously where the money is, so in December 1892, they rent a storefront and open the Wright Cycle Exchange. Things start small, mostly repairs, but after three years, the brothers decide they can edge out the growing competition of Dayton's other 13 bike shops by launching their own brand. The brothers start making and selling their own bikes. A print shop? A successful bike shop? Things are looking good for the Wright brothers. Until Orv gets sick, that is. In the summer of 1896, typhoid strikes the 25-year-old Wright brother. With younger sister Kate home from her studies at Oberlin College, she and Will nurse weeks-long bedridden

Orv back to health. As this process plays out, Will reads to him about a German pushing the boundaries of aeronautics with a gliding machine. This is Otto Lilienthal. It's a gusty late morning, Sunday, August 9th, 1896. Dressed in a flannel shirt and knickerbockers, the well-coiffed, bearded, 48-year-old Otto Lilienthal is hiking up a hill some 50 miles outside Berlin, in Stollen, near Rhenau. It's a lush hill with soft ground and few trees, which makes it perfect for gliding.

It's Otto's favorite spot, even if it's so far away, he can only make it here on the weekends. As he hikes, perhaps his mind drifts to the birds he loves so much. Maybe he's thinking about the Kaiser, who's publicly declared his desire to see Otto fly. What'll he say? Well, no time for that now. He's got some gliding to do.

At the hill's top, Otto slides underneath the wings of his favorite glider, number 11. He works his arms into a set of cuffs to give him leverage and grasps a bar near the forward edge of the wings. Made from bamboo and willow supports and covered by varnished, airtight cotton twill sheets, the apparatus looks like the wings of a wings. Made from bamboo and willow supports and covered by varnished, airtight, cotton-tool sheets, the apparatus looks like the wings of a bird. No surprise there. Osmond

fascinated with these flying creatures since he was a boy. He studied birds fervently in his pursuit of controlled flight. Now, he's already flown today. In fact, he's logged more than 2,000 short flights in his life. This is just what he does on Sundays, and he's got time to sail once more through the skies. Just as before, Otto takes three steps downhill, and then he's up. The intrepid German glides with the wind, shifting his weight from side to side, carefully guiding the wings and himself, feeling just like the birds he so loves. Then, a sudden gust blows right in his face. A thermal pushes him upwards until the glider stalls. Otto's motionless for a moment. He knows this is bad. If he doesn't work fast,

the glider will plummet backwards. He throws his weight forward, trying to get the nose of his monoplane glider back in front of him. He does it! Yes! The glider again points forward, though he is stuck in a dive. If he can just pull up in time... Otto lies motionless. His assistant, Paul Beilich, dashes toward the main glider. Paul's got to be worried. Otto just fell 50 feet. But this isn't the fearless flyer's first crash. So maybe he's okay. Paul pulls the wreckage off of Otto. He's unconscious, but there's no blood.

Thank goodness. Then Otto wakes. Paul asks, what's happened? Otto answers, it happens sometimes. I'll relax a bit and we'll continue. That's Otto. He just wants to fly. But his glider is toast and the daring pilot isn't really moving.

With the help of some locals, Paul gets Otto to a doctor at a nearby inn. He has a broken spine. Otto's paralyzed from the waist down, but the doctor doesn't think he's at risk of death. The next day, they get Otto on a Berlin-bound train for further medical treatment. He loses consciousness on the way, and within hours, it's all over. Germany's famed flying man, the one whom the world thought would figure out and perfect controlled flight, is dead. His tombstone is inscribed with a phrase he often repeated throughout his life,

Op Firmus in Gebracht werden. Sacrifices must be made. Yet, in reading about Otto's untimely demise, Will Wright's mind doesn't go to aviation's mortal danger. It returns to the curiosity and wonder he felt back in 1878 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when his pop brought home that little bamboo and paper flying toy, their bat. Something swelling within Will, an excitement and drive perhaps unknown since that terrible hockey game. And soon, he'll answer that inward call.

Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscurity to become the most powerful and significant figure in modern history. Over 200 years after his death, people are still debating his legacy. He was a man of contradictions, a tyrant and a reformer, a liberator and an oppressor, a revolutionary and a reactionary. His biography reads like a novel, and his influence is almost beyond measure. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast, and every month I delve into the turbulent life and times of one of the greatest characters in history, and explore the world that shaped him in all its glory and tragedy. It's a story of great battles and campaigns, political intrigue, and massive social and economic change, but it's also a story about people, populated with

remarkable characters. I hope you'll join me as I examine this fascinating era of history. Find The Age of Napoleon wherever you get your podcasts. When Johann Rall received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was was a warning, delivered to the Hessian colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day, when Rawl lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pocket. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh well, this is The Constant,

a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. From early mythologies of airborne deities to Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine sketches and 18th century France's development of the hot air balloon, humanity has long dreamed of flight. And by the late 19th century, intrepid thinkers and doers the world over are advancing the field of aeronautics. Sometimes that means sacrificing everything, as Otto Lilienthal did. But there are others making advancements with less lethal outcomes. For instance, back on May 6, 1896, only months before Otto's death, the head of the Smithsonian Institute, Secretary Samuel Langley, made aviation history when his

tandem-winged, steam-powered, 25-pound flying machine, the Aerodrome No. 5, sailed over half a mile through the air. Alexander Graham Bell even took a photo of it mid-flight. Impressive! But let's note that although the secretary's machine was powered, it was also unmanned. Further, this flight was neither controlled nor sustainable. With all those elements as our standard, no one has yet achieved the ancient dream of flight as the story of Otto's life and death is rekindling Wilbur Wright's childhood fascination with aviation. Will devours every book on the subject he can find in the next few years. In 1899, he needs more materials. So, on May 30th of that year, the barely 32-year-old Wright brother sits at his college graduate sister's small slate-top desk in the front parlor and writes a letter to

the Secretary Langley-led Smithsonian Institute. He writes, I have been interested in the problem of mechanical and human flight ever since, as a boy, I constructed a number of bats. I am about to begin a systematic study of the subject in preparation for practical work. I wish to obtain such papers as the Smithsonian Institution has published on this subject, and if possible, a list of other works in print in the English language. This is a bold move. Think about it. Will and his converted-to-the-cause brother, Orville, are both high school dropouts,

yet they believe they can figure out flight even as it eludes the most educated minds the world over. But, on the other hand, they, like everyone in the Wright family, are avid readers and autodidacts. They have their mother's gift for mechanics, as demonstrated by their bicycle manufacturing ways. And you know, the era itself might fill them with confidence. From the rise of the incandescent light bulb to those emerging horseless carriages and more, inventing and breaking barriers just seems to be the order of the day. At any rate, the Smithsonian answers, and armed with more books, Will's studies continue as he thinks through the great challenge of equilibrium. Now, I don't mean to downplay the difficulty of getting a flying machine in the air,

but others have figured out the basics of wings, creating lift, and even getting engine-powered propellers to succeed to some degree. Congrats again on that last one, Smithsonian Institute Secretary Samuel Langley. Arguably, the greater challenge right now to achieving powered, sustained, and controlled flight is figuring out how a pilot can maintain equilibrium in the sky. As Will puts it, quote, the problem of equilibrium constituted the problem of flight itself, close quote. The Wright brothers' cyclist background will certainly help them in this regard, but let's not draw a false equivalence. Lacking contact with terra firma, an aviator has far more to worry about than a cyclist. Piloting in the air means dealing with three dimensions.

These are, one, the aircraft's tilt from front to back or the nose to tail. We call this pitch. Two, side to side movement, basically like a left or right turn on a bike or in a car. This is called yaw. And three, that back and forth sideways movement that taken too far, becomes a barrel

roll. Appropriately, this is called roll. And while all of these are issues, roll, Will realizes, is the most pressing problem. How can a pilot roll intentionally, or equally important, avoid rolling unintentionally? The only thing more impressive than Will's ingenious answer is how curiously he comes to it. It's a summer day, July 1899. Will Wright is at his bike shop, the Wright Cycle Company, down on 3rd West Street here in Dayton, Ohio. He's holding down the fort while Orv and their sister Kate show her Oberlin College friend Harriet Silman the town. As the day wears on, a customer comes into the shop looking for an inner tube.

Will grabs one from the shelf. He unboxes it. Sells it. Now, the exact details at this point are unknown. But whether it's while he chats with the customer or perhaps afterward, during a lull in the day, Will begins absentmindedly fidgeting with the now empty, rectangular, and pliable inner tube box. And that's when it clicks. The way the box twists.

It's torsion, that is, how pressing on one set of corners warps the others, lifting the one and dropping the other in a single movement. This corresponds to what birds do in flight. In his mind's eye, this flight-obsessed Wright brother no longer sees an empty box. He sees a biplane wing design. Will wonders, can he build a plane with controls that can press the wings in much the same way he's now pressing on and twisting this box? That evening, Will uses the box to demonstrate this principle to Orv, Kate, and Harriet. Orv sold on it. They start building a biplane kite, but theirs is different from other such kites already in existence. Crucially, their biplane design's two stacked wings are trussed

together with six struts and crisscrossing wires. Two lines then run from the kite's two sides to two separate sticks. Only weeks later, in August, Will heads to a field outside Dayton to test it out. Holding one stick in each hand, he pulls, pushes, and sure enough, the kite's wings warp, just like the inner tube box. But since Will's still quite literally learning the ropes, one tug soon sends the five-foot wingspan kite into a dive straight at a group of horrified boys. Yikes. Sorry, kids, but like Otto said,

sacrifices have to be made. Oh, I'm kidding. The responsive group of kids dives to the ground, avoiding the darting kite. Will's wing-warping discovery is a major breakthrough. But he isn't resting on his laurels. It's time to test this more controlled flight on a larger scale. And that means upgrading from kite to manned aircraft.

A glider. Of course, not using an engine yet. That also means that Will and Orb will need consistent winds strong enough to create lift and put their manned aircraft in the air. Yeah, Dayton, Ohio isn't going to do it. Again, Will sends letters seeking help. Now in November 1899, a few months after the successful kite warping experiment,

Will writes to the U.S. Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C. He asks about wind velocities across the U.S. Bureau Chief Willis L. Moore answers by sending August and September's monthly weather review. Ah, excellent. The determined Wright brother scours the pages, looking for a location with strong, consistent winds that will produce lift, offer soft terrain that can minimize the shock when landing or crashing, and ideally won't have too many people. He's drawn to reports from a place on the outer banks of North Carolina known as Kitty Hawk. Several more months

pass. On May 13, 1900, Will sends a letter to a French immigrant and Shakespeare lookalike, a man whose own multi-winged glider managed to fly up to 359 feet for a duration of 14 seconds, and crucially, aided in developing the very equations that Will and Orv are using to design their own wings. Monsieur Octave Chenute. Will is starting an important friendship, and as he does so, he asks Octave for his thoughts on windy places for test flights. The Frenchman responds that Will should look to the coasts, including South Carolina and Georgia. Okay, nearby Kitty Hawk is sounding like a solid choice then, so, that August, Will sends yet another letter, this time to the small town's weather bureau asking for further details on winds.

Receiving not only confirming information, but a kind, encouraging letter from the town's former postmaster, William Bill Tate, Will Wright knows he has his answer. He and Orville conduct their experiments amid the soft sands and strong winds just outside North Carolina's Outer Bank Island town of Kitty Hawk. Departing from Dayton, Ohio, on September 6, 1900, Will travels to North Carolina's coast with relative ease. But as for sailing the final 40 miles from Elizabeth City to Body Island and getting to Kitty Hawk with his dismantled glider, well, let's just say he'll never forget how this became an overnight trip on a vermin-infested

schooner. As his friendship with Bill Tate deepens, Will teases the Kitty Hawk resident from time to time about his letter's lack of directions on how to get to the island. Anyhow, Orv soon follows in late September, and by early October, the beach camping brothers have their soaring machine, that is, their 17-foot wingspan biplane glider, ready for testing. This brings us back to where we started the episode. I trust you recall the Wright brothers flying their soaring machine as a kite, the October 10th gale that carried off Orv and crashed the glider,

as well as Will's successful October 19th gliding. What a moment! As historian David McCullough describes it, After nearly four years of concentrated study and effort by the brothers, it proved a day of days. Four days later, on October 23rd, the brothers leave and abandon their glider to Bill Tate in the process.

They don't need it. They've learned what they can from this model and will return next year with a new and improved design. Back in Dayton, Will and Orv return to their bike shop and make plans for next year's glider. It will be bigger.

Meanwhile, their success draws greater attention from Will's pen pal, the famous aeronautical thinker, Octave Chenute. The following summer, in June 1901, Octave even comes to Dayton to visit. Kate Wright carries the weight of hosting the famous Frenchman. No surprise there, Kate is a crucial aid to her aeronautic brothers, to the boys, but still, as a full-time teacher, she also can't do it all. Perhaps that's why Will and Orv

ask a cigar-chomping young mechanic named Charlie Taylor if he'd like to run the Wright Cycle Company. He takes the gig, and with their bike shop in trusted hands, the Wright brothers are free to head back to the wind and sand of North Carolina's Outer Banks, To Kitty Hawk. The brothers' 1901 trip to Kitty Hawk gets off to a rough start. Arriving in July, they first have to contend with Boddy Island's roughly once-in-a-decade massive mosquito strike. According to Orv, the swarm is so thick they are, quote, almost darkening the sun, close quote. Neither the massive shed they've

built nor their mosquito nets can save them from the small blood-sucking insects. It's so bad the brothers can't even fly. But just as they're ready to give up, the mosquitoes move on. Likely scratching all over, Will and Orv can finally return to the sky. The results, however, aren't quite what they expected. It's now July 27th, 1901. Winds of approximately 13 miles per hour are sweeping over Body Island's Kill Devil Hills, which means the Wright brothers

have nearly perfect conditions to test out their second biplane glider or flying machine. They drag the glider up the sandings, which is particularly easy given they're four visitors. There's good old Bill Tate, his half-brother Dan, and two of Octave Chenute's colleagues, George Alexander Spratt and Edward Huffaker. Though, given what the brothers will have to say later about Edward's general laziness, he probably isn't helping much right now. Still, five sets of hands move this 98 pound glider

and it's 22 foot wingspan with far greater ease than two. They're now atop the hill. Per usual, Will takes the middle of the glider, ready to pilot. Orv and George are at the wing tips. They pick up the flying machine and charge down the hill. Will lifts himself into the prone piloting position, and then, ooh, the glider drops like a rock.

He eats sand. They try again and again and again. Finally, Will positions himself farther back on the glider and has a successful flight. The brothers' visitors are amazed. But not Will and Orv. They still did better last year, and this glider is rough to handle. The afternoon wears on. Will takes a flight that goes a bit too high, then appears ready to stall. This is exactly how Otto Lilienthal died. Down on the ground, Orv screams at Will to push the forward rudder to its furthest

extent. The glider responds, and Will lands on the sand without incidentv screams at Will to push the forward rudder to its furthest extent. The glider responds and Will lands on the sand without incident. That's it. The brothers are forced to conclude last year's glider was better. It makes no sense. See, last year, they didn't have the resources to build quite to the specifications of Otto Lilienthal's tables. This meant a smaller overall glider with a camber, that is, wing curvature, of 1 to 22.

But this year, they're right on the money. They've nailed Otto Lilienthal's ratio of 1 to 12. So what gives? Days pass. On August 4th, Octave Chenute himself comes to Kitty Hawk. He examines the story machine and agrees that the brothers have built this glider precisely to Otto's specifications. Damn, this is a reckoning. As Orv Wright will later recall, and right then, all of us, I suspect, began to lose faith in

Lilienthal and his gospel figures. They alter the glider. They spend days rebuilding and changing the camber to something closer to last year's. But returning to flying on August 8th, they find that now their wing-warping tech isn't working quite right. They're experiencing something future aviators will call adverse yaw. Will suffers through a crash that leaves him with a bruised face and sore ribs. Octav and other Kitty Hawk spectators of 1901 leave, nothing but impressed. But as the Wright brothers pack up, they have a different sense of things.

If Otto's tables are wrong, that means the whole foundation of the world's developing knowledge of flight is wrong. The brothers realize they'll have to make their own calculations. From scratch. Heartbroken, Will turns to his brother Orv and proclaims, Not in a thousand years would man ever fly.

Such is the utter despondency of the Wright brothers as they head back to Ohio. Ever wondered what it's like to be in the room with top Al-Qaeda terrorists plotting their next move? Do you want to know how the history of Islamic fundamentalist thought informs the way the world works today? Well then, dear listener, Conflicted is the podcast for you. I trace the epic battles between Muslims and the West. What are the Houthis' objectives in the Red Sea?

It's a lesson to the rest of the Muslim world and the Arab world. Do not trust the Islamists. Hosted by me, Thomas Small, an author and filmmaker, and my good friend, Ayman Deen, an ex-Al-Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy, Conflicted tells stories of the Islamic past and present to help you make sense of the world today. And now Conflicted Season 5 is being cooked up, coming to you very soon.

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We walk the sacred spirals of the Nazca Lines in search of ancient secrets. And we explore mythology from ancient cultures around the world. Come find us at ancienthistoryfangirl.com or wherever you get your podcasts. from Kitty Hawk to Dayton, Ohio. Kate will remember it differently, though. Ever close to and supportive of her brothers, she'll recall the boys less as defeated and more inclined to talk serious crap about Octave Chanute's lazy, good-for-nothing, worthless colleague, Edward Huffaker. Seriously, would it have killed the guy

to wash one dish just once? Well, regardless of perceptions and realities, the fact is that Kitty Hawk was rough this year. Yet, their courage and determination isn't gone just yet. Will and Orv throw themselves back into their work. Kate reports that all she and Pop ever hear is the boys' incessant jabbering about flying. September soon arrives.

Ohio mourns the assassination of its native son and longtime public servant, U.S. President William McKinley. What an added distress this must be as Will travels to Chicago to speak at the Western Society of Engineers. He gives a humble speech filled with praise for those upon whose shoulders he stands, especially Otto Lilienthal and his now peer, Octave Chenute. His words are well received, but for all his humility, Will also knows that, upon returning to Dayton, he and Will must reckon with the fact that these very intellectual giants got so very much wrong. As Orv later puts it,

it was like groping in the dark. Lilienthal's figures were not to be relied upon. Nobody else had done any scientific experimenting along these lines. The boys face down this challenge upstairs in their bike shop with a six foot long, 16 inch square wind tunnel. Yet to experience the Edison touch, they rely on a gasoline engine to power an electric fan, thus creating their wind.

As October and November pass, the duo laboriously cut and pound old hacksaw blades and bicycle spokes into dozens of model biplanes, then send them through the tunnel. Slowly but surely, they unlearn the errors of Otto Lilienthal and move toward their next iteration of glider. But by December, the boys have to turn their attention back to manufacturing bikes. Yes, even with cigar-loving Charlie Taylor's help, who's still very much employed by the Wrights and doing a great job, despite Cade's dislike of him, Will and Orv can't check out indefinitely. Though, Octave Chenute certainly wants them to.

He's so eager for them to carry on, he offers to ask his friend, Andrew Carnegie, to fund them so they can ignore the bike shop. Will and Orv decline, though. Patiently, they build bikes through the winter of 1901 to 1902, and when spring arrives, they turn their attention from machines with two wheels

to one machine with two wings. Using their own figures and data from the wind tunnel, the boys have high hopes for this year's trip to Kitty Hawk. In late August 1902, Will and Orv undertake what has become their annual pilgrimage to North Carolina's Outer Banks. They arrive at their Sandy Beach camp on the 29th and immediately are in better spirits than last year. For one thing, the camp, which they get back in order over the next week and change, is becoming rather nice. They've built themselves an off-road, sand-tolerant bicycle deep in their water well, and above all else, Will exalts. No Edward Huffaker and no mosquitoes. Yeah, Will throws Edward in the same company as

the mosquitoes. Man, they really hate that guy. Starting on September 8th, they begin assembling this year's flying machine. With a wingspan of 32 feet, it's their biggest yet. In fact, the total wing area is 305 square feet, almost double that of 1900's glider. As they assemble this monster of a soaring machine, they also take apart last year's. There just isn't space to house both. The boys have also added a new feature this time around. A rear rudder. All of this takes a week and a half, but by September 19th, they're ready to fly.

And this time, I really mean they, because Orv is finally taking a crack at piloting. I can't tell you why the mustachioed Wright hadn't done so earlier. Perhaps Will was just more interested, or was taking all the risks to protect his little brother. After all, the dangers of flying are no joke, as Orv soon finds out. It's a late September day, 1902. Orv Wright stands on the sand, ready to pilot the glider just as soon as he gets the needed wind.

And he can hear and see a breeze coming. Soon, he feels it. Reaching 12 miles per hour, the wind is strong enough to produce the lift he needs. Charging forward, he's soon airborne. But to his horror, Orv suddenly realizes this isn't a breeze. He'll later call it a whirlwind. The nose of the glider jerks up hard about 25 feet, so he responds by tilting the forward rudder to descend.

But only a moment later, the capricious wind shifts. Worse, the inexperienced pilot doesn't quite have the skill to handle the needed wing warping correctly in this situation. The glider slams into the ground, spitting Orv out head first. Thankfully, he's all right, not even bruised. But the rookie is a bit shaken, and it takes a few days to repair the glider. Things go smoothly on this trip from here on out, though. On the night of October 2nd,

too much coffee leaves an over-caffeinated Or orb unable to sleep. In this state, he realizes the immovable rudder is a problem. They should add a hinge. Because this isn't a boat, the rear rudder responds differently and could assist with wing warping. Meanwhile, more visitors come, including Kitty Hawk locals, who've really grown to love the Wrights. The boy's older brother, Lauren Wright, George Spratt, Octave Chenute, and Octave's assistant, Augustus Herring. But still no Edward Huffaker. Will and Orv politely suffer through Octave and Augustus testing out a far inferior multi-wing soaring machine, but by mid-October, the boys are back to exclusively testing their own glider.

By the time they depart for home on October 28th, the Wright brothers have logged some thousand flights this summer, are gliding over 600 feet and staying in the air for 26 seconds. As David McCullough so eloquently sums up the Wright brothers' 1902 trip to Kitty Hawk, quote,

they could soar, they could float, they could dive and rise, circle and glide and land, all with assurance. Now they had only to build a motor. Close quote. It shouldn't be that hard to get their hands on a motor in late 1902. As we know from the last episode, gasoline engines have really come into their own,

and many of the nation's new horseless carriage makers are embracing it. In fact, it was only days before this year's Kitty Hawk trip wrapped up that Henry Ford's latest racer, 999, beat Will and Orb's fellow Ohioan, Alexander Winton. It was Henry's second win over him. But the Wright brothers' several inquiries only draw one response, and what's offered is far too heavy. So once again, the boys head to their shop, but this time, they aren't the ones calling the shots. That would be their cigar-chewing mechanic, Charlie Taylor. Charlie has very limited experience with gas motors.

Still, even that limited experience puts him ahead of his two employers, and frankly, he gets engines in a way they don't. To quote Charlie, while the boys were handy with tools, they had never done much machine work, and anyway, they were busy on the airframe. It was up to me. My only experience with a gasoline engine was an attempt to repair one in an automobile in 1901. And so, in the early months of 1903, Charlie works on the engine as the brothers focus on the propellers. Both are major undertakings and, frankly, works of genius. Again with echoes of our last episode, Charlie's engine has no carburetor, per se. The gas sits in a one-gallon tank hanging from a wing strut and relies on gravity to feed the fuel to a shallow chamber

where it can mix with the air, then perform its explosive magic in the four-stroke, four-cylinder, 12-horsepower engine. Brilliantly, they keep its weight well under 200 pounds by having the engine block cast from aluminum. Meanwhile, the boys are crafting the propellers, which, to their surprise, proves to be a less developed technology than they had hoped. It appears that, just like rudders, propellers respond differently to aircraft than watercraft. Yet, it seems no one else experimenting with propellers in the air has figured these details out.

Once again, Will and Orv have to do it on their own. Yet incredibly, they again use a wind tunnel to collect data and sort this out in a mere matter of months. Charlie considers this achievement greatly underappreciated. To quote him again, I think the hardest job Will and Orv had was with the propellers. I don't believe they were ever given enough credit for that development. The outcome is two handcrafted propellers of spruce wood,

each measuring 8.5 feet in diameter and set to spin in opposite directions, one clockwise, the other counterclockwise, so as to equalize the pole they create, otherwise known as gyroscopic action. Oh yeah, and let's not forget, they also build another aircraft. This one is so big, they can't even fully assemble it in Dayton, Ohio. The boys will put it together for the first time on site. But getting to that point is still fraught with difficulty. Though Will and Orv depart for and arrive at their beloved North Carolina Outer Banks Beach

in late September 1903, the disassembled aircraft won't make it until October 8th. It takes almost a month to get it put together, but then disaster strikes when the engine misfires and vibrates so hard it damages the propeller shafts beyond repair. Ultimately, this forces Orv to make a return trip to Dayton where he and Charlie work out replacement shafts made of solid steel. It isn't until December 11th that Orv makes it back to Kitty Hawk with these replacement parts.

But the repairs are soon made, and the boys have finally reached the point to which their work has been building for so many years. It's time to attempt controlled, sustained, and powered flight. It's December 14th, 1903. We're among North Carolina's Outer Banks at the Wright Brothers Beach Camp just outside Kitty Hawk. Will and Orv are just finishing repairs on their flying machine. And what a sight it is to behold.

From forward to rear rudder, it's wrapped in a beautiful and strong white muslin cloth. Spanning 40 feet, the biplane's wings are securely trussed with the same type of wire used on the Brooklyn Bridge. That's right, roebling wire. Two spruce propellers are affixed just behind the wings, while the motor powering them is located on the bottom wing, just off center right, to counterbalance a piloting Wright Brothers body weight as he lies next to it just off center left. And as the afternoon comes, the boys find themselves content with their last adjustments. It's time to test it out. With the help of John T. Daniels and two other locals, Will and Orv move their over 600-pound

flying machine on skids more than a quarter mile to Big Hill Devil Hill. They next get the aircraft on their 60-foot launching track, then start the engine. Curious but now terrified local boys run off as it roars to life. Finally, it's time to decide who gets to make this historic flight in the fairest way possible. A coin toss. Big Brother Wilbur wins. He lies prone in the pilot's position.

His hips rest in a cradle that allows him to warp the wings by swaying his body as he also grips a bar before him that controls the forward rudder or elevator. And finally, he's off. Will shoots down the track and right into the air, but just as he gets off the ground, he overcorrects his ascent. Almost immediately, he slams hard into the sandy earth only 100 feet from the launching track. Hardly a sustained or controlled flight, and repairs will be needed. Yet, the brothers are overcome with joy. This was a user error.

They know that, and after some minor repairs, they're sure they've got this. It's now December 17th, a cold winter's morning at Kitty Hawk, and once again, John Daniels and a couple other locals have helped the Wright brothers get their flying machine into place on Big Hill. The engine's engaged. It starts warming. Since Will had his chance three days ago, it's Orv who takes the prone pilot position, at 10 35 a.m he starts down the track a headwind slows him down but at the track's end he launches into the air it's choppy wavy but orv's in control the gas engine powers the propellers pushing the heavy machine with such force it can sustain lift that's it they've done it And John Daniels even manages to use a camera

for the first time in his life to snap a photo of the plane in air. It's only 120 feet and lasts a mere 12 seconds. But Orv's flight was powered, controlled, and sustained, as are that afternoon's three increasingly farther and longer-lasting flights, the last of which is 59 seconds. Flight is now a reality. And yet, there are those who question the Wright brothers' claim as the first in flight. Some believe German immigrant Gustav Whitehead beat them to the punch, that he built his own powered flying machine and soared through the skies of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1899 and 1901, respectively.

The assertion will drive Orville mad for the same reason Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough later dismisses it. Quote, The problem with that whole Whitehead claim is that there's no evidence. Close quote. True. Historians can't work in hearsay. Now, what about Brazil's Alberto Santos Dumont? Using his box kite-styled flying machine, 14 bis, Alberto flies publicly in France in 1906. On his second such flight, he achieves a distance of 726 feet. And public is important since the secretive Wright brothers have kept their flights out of

the public eye while awaiting their patent, which isn't awarded until that same year. Thus, even as Octave Chenute writes from France to tell the brothers that Alberto is impressive, but behind them, I fancy that he is now very nearly where you were in 1904, the Frenchman writes. Aviation-loving France mocks the Americans, questioning if they are, quote-unquote, flyers or liars. But the French stop laughing when Will Wright does some exhibition flights in France in 1908.

Forget staying in the air for a few hundred feet. He does full-on circles and figure eights over his spectators' heads. That said, some, including most Brazilians, will point to the Wright brothers' initial secrecy and use of a launching track, not wheels, to claim that Alberto, not Will and Orv, was the first in flight. Well, perhaps the most amusing claim comes from a very serious place, the Smithsonian. Remember Secretary Samuel Langley? He too produced a manned aircraft, the massively expensive government-funded tandem-winged aerodrome. It failed spectacularly, most recently just days before the Wright brothers' December 17, 1903 success. Yet, Sam's Smithsonian successor calls him the first in flight after his death.

With Will dead as well, Orv answers this insult in 1928 by sending his and Will's original 1903 flyer to the Science Museum in London, clearly passing over the venerated American Museum. Yikes. The feud only starts to cool in the 1940s when the Smithsonian acknowledges Sam's machine only flew with modifications and after his death. The 1903 Flyer does eventually return home to the States, and even goes to the Smithsonian, but not until after Orb's death and the museum's agreement to credit the rights, not its former director, as the first in flight.

Both of these things happened in 1948. It's certainly fun to look at all the first in flight claimants, and there are still others. But at the end of the day, the importance of the Wright brothers' accomplishment can't be understated. While they graciously acknowledged the intellectual giants who helped pave their way, Otto Lilienthal, Octave Chenute, and yes, Samuel Langley, these brothers with little formal education advanced humanity's knowledge of aeronautics in unfathomable, wing-warping ways. No one moved the needle on flight more than Will and Orv. They didn't just prove flight was possible, they mastered it, making sustained, controlled, powered flight

in a heavier-than-air vehicle practical and usable. If I may make one last allusion to ancient mythologies, you might say the Rites reached into the heavens, wrested flight from the gods, and gifted it to humanity. Icarus need fear the sun no longer, and as I I'm sure you know further advancements in aeronautics followed

rapidly. Indeed less than 70 years after that fateful flight at Kitty Hawk, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. A small piece of muslin cloth accompanied him on that incredible voyage. Yeah, it came from the Wright Brothers' 1903 flyer. What an appropriate homage to his predecessors, his fellow barrier-breaking, soaring Ohioans, Wilbur and Orville Wright. HTDS is supported by premium membership fans. You can join by clicking the link in the episode description. My gratitude to you kind souls providing additional funding to help us keep going. And a special thanks to our members whose monthly gift puts them at producer status. Pullman, David DeFazio, David Rifkin, Denke, Durante Spencer, Donald Moore, Donna Marie Jeffcoat, Ellen Stewart, Bernie Lowe, George Sherwood, Gurwith Griffin, Henry Brunges, Jake Gilbreth, James G. Bledsoe, Janie McCreary, Jeff Marks, Jennifer Moods, Jennifer Magnolia,

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