WRIGHT,
name of two American brothers who worked closely together
in the early development of aeronautics. The Wrights invented and
flew the first practical airplane.
(1867–1912) was born in Millville, Ind., on April
16, 1867. As boys, he and his younger brother Orville made simple
mechanical toys, and in 1888 they built a large printing press.
The following year they began to publish the Dayton, Ohio, West
Side News, edited by Wilbur. Already successful printers,
the brothers opened a bicycle repair shop and showroom in 1892,
and three years later they began assembling bicycles with tools
of their own invention.
The Wrights were admirers of the writings and feats of the
German engineer Otto Lilienthal, the American engineer Octave Chanute
(1832–1910), and other glider experimenters. In September
1900 at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, N.C., they tested their
own glider. Carefully recording their findings, they concluded that
the previously accepted aeronautical data on which they had relied
were erroneous. In 1901 the brothers tested the effects of air pressure
on more than 200 wing surfaces and in 1902, executing almost 1000
glides in a new glider, they confirmed their Kitty Hawk data. At
Kitty Hawk the Wrights also proved to their satisfaction that planes
could be balanced best by pilots, rather than by built-in engineering
devices; this was the major idea covered by the first Wright patent.
In 1903 the brothers constructed their first propeller, from
original calculations; it was about 35 percent more effective than
other propellers then available. They next built a 337-kg (750-lb)
machine with a 12-hp motor in which, on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kitty
Hawk, first Orville and then Wilbur made the first powered airplane
flights in history. Despite public indifference they dedicated themselves
to the development of better engines and planes. The site of the
first flight, now the Wright Brothers National Memorial, is administered
by the National Park Service.
In 1908 Wilbur Wright set distance and altitude records in
France. That same year the Wrights fulfilled a contract with the
U.S. Army Signal Corps to produce a plane that could fly for 10
min at a speed of 64 km/hr (40 mph). They then toured Europe,
where they were highly honored. Upon their return to the U.S. in
1909 they received further honors. Wilbur became president of the
newly incorporated American Wright Co. He died in Dayton three years
later, on May 30, 1912, of typhoid fever.
(1871–1948) was born in Dayton on Aug. 19, 1871.
His individual contributions to the improvement of aircraft include
the development of the first wind tunnel in 1901 and the discovery,
in 1902, that tailspins could be eliminated by substituting a movable
vertical tail for the stationary one then in use.
In 1903, at Kitty Hawk, Orville Wright made the first successful
flight, which lasted 12 sec, in a self-powered craft. On Sept. 9,
1908, at Fort Meyer, Va., he simultaneously established several
records when he flew the first Wright plane made under government
contract for 62 min, completing 57 circles at an altitude of 36.6
m (120 ft); he became an immediate international celebrity. In 1910
Orville Wright formed the first Wright Exhibition Team, in which
pilots trained by him performed in Wright planes. He also personally
tested each new piece of equipment used on Wright planes and superintended
production at the Wright plants. After the death of Wilbur in 1912,
Orville Wright became president of the American Wright Co. Three
years later he sold his stock in the company for over $500,000.
He subsequently worked as an engineering consultant. He died in
Dayton on Jan. 30, 1948.