Wright, Orville and Wilbur

Wright, Orville and Wilbur, name of two American brothers who worked closely together in the early development of aeronautics. The Wrights invented and flew the first practical aeroplane.

Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) was born in Millville, Indiana, 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, which Wilbur edited. 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 19th-century German engineer Otto Lilienthal and the American engineer Octave Chanute, experimenters in gliders and flight. In September 1900, at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, they tested their own glider. Carefully recording their findings, they concluded that the previously accepted aeronautical data on which they had relied were incorrect. In 1901 the brothers tested the effects of air pressure on more than 200 wing surfaces and in 1902, by executing almost 1,000 flights 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 became the major idea covered by the first Wright patent.

In 1903 the brothers constructed their first propeller from original calculations. It was about 35 per cent more effective than other propellers available at the time. Next, they built a 337-kg (750-lb) machine with a 12-hp motor in which, on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, they made the first powered aeroplane 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 new distance and altitude records for flights in France. That same year the Wrights fulfilled a contract with the United States Army Signal Corps to produce a plane that could fly for 10 minutes at a speed of 64 km/h (40 mph). They then toured Europe, where they were highly honoured. Upon their return to the United States in 1909, they received further honours. Wilbur became president of the newly incorporated American Wright Company. He died in Dayton three years later, on May 30, 1912, of typhoid fever.

Orville Wright (1871-1948) was born in Dayton, Ohio, on August 19, 1871. His individual contributions to the improvement of aircraft include the development of the first wind tunnel in 1901. He also discovered, in 1902, that tailspins in aeroplanes 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 seconds, in a self-powered craft. On September 9, 1908, at Fort Meyer, Virginia, he established several records simultaneously when he flew the first Wright plane made under government contract for 62 minutes, completing 57 circles at an altitude of 36.6 m (120 ft). This flight made Orville an immediate international celebrity. In 1910 Orville Wright formed the first Wright Exhibition Team, in which pilots he had trained performed in Wright planes. He also tested personally 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 Company. 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 January 30, 1948.