1904, issue of _Popular Science Monthly_ in which he said: “Now that an
initial success has been achieved with a flying-machine, we can discern
some of the uses of such apparatus and also some of its limitations.
Its first application will probably be military.” He said, too, that
“it may even carry mails in special cases, but the useful loads carried
will be very small. The machines will eventually be fast, they will
be used in sport, but they are not to be thought of as commercial
carriers.” He did not think it would ever be practical to carry loads
“such as a store of explosives, or big guns to shoot them.”)
Almost as surprising as the lack of effort by the usually painstaking
Associated Press to get the facts about the Kitty Hawk event, was the
failure of the AP, or any other press association, or any newspaper,
to rush a staff man to Dayton in an effort to obtain the whole amazing
story of what the Wrights had done.
Desiring to correct the misinformation that had been printed, the
Wrights prepared a statement about their recent flights, and gave this
to the Associated Press with the request that it be published. This
appeared, at least in part, in probably a majority of the Associated
Press newspapers, on January 6; but the initiative, it should be
noted, did not come from the press association, but from the Wrights
themselves. A few editorial paragraphers made derisive comments on one
sentence of the statement which suggested that “the day of flying had
arrived.”
Exactly one month after the Kitty Hawk flights, on Sunday, January 17,
the New York _Herald_, in its magazine section, had an article headed:
The Machine That Flies. Despite the time that had elapsed, affording
opportunity to get the facts, this article not only contained a mass of
preposterous misstatements but even quoted Wilbur Wright for many of
them. The article was accompanied by a drawing, an artist’s conception
of the machine in flight, and a diagram, showing the two “six-bladed
propellers,” one behind the machine and the other beneath it, to give
it elevation!
VII
AFTER THE EVENT
The Wrights felt a glow of pride and satisfaction in having both
invented and demonstrated the device that had baffled the ablest
scientists through the centuries. But still they did not expect to make
their fortunes. True, they had applied, on March 23, 1903, or nearly
nine months before they flew, for basic patents (not issued until May
22, 1906), but that was by way of establishing an authentic record.
Thus far they hadn’t even employed a patent lawyer.
Long afterward, Orville Wright was asked what he and Wilbur would have
taken for all their secrets of aviation, for all patent rights _for the
entire world_, if someone had come along to talk terms just after those
first flights. He wasn’t sure, but he had an idea that if they had
received an offer of ten thousand dollars they might have accepted it.
Since the airplane was not yet developed into a type for practical use,
ten thousand dollars might have been considered a fair return for their
time, effort, and outlay. They had had all the fun and satisfaction
and their expenses had been surprisingly small. Their cash outlay for
building and flying their power plane was less than $1,000, and that
included their railroad fares to and from Kitty Hawk. Of course, the
greater part of their expenses would have been for mechanical labor,
much of which they did themselves. But skilled labor was low-priced at
that time; one could hire a better than average mechanic for as little
as $16 a week. Even if the Wrights had charged themselves with the cost
of their own work, their total expenses on the power plane would still
have been less than $2,000.
Many fanciful stories have been told about the sacrifices the Wright
family made to enable the brothers to fly, and of how they were
financed by this person or that. More than one man of wealth in Dayton
has encouraged the belief that _he_ financed them. One persistent story
is that they raised money for their experiments by the sale of an Iowa
farm in which they had an interest. The truth is that this farm, which
had been deeded by their father to the _four_ Wright brothers, was sold
early in 1902 before Wilbur and Orville had even begun work on their
power plane or spent much on their experiments. The sale was made at
the request of their brother Reuchlin, and had no relation whatsoever
to aviation. Nor is it true that the Wright home was mortgaged during
the time of the brothers’ experiments. Another story was that their
sister Katharine had furnished the money they needed out of her salary
as school teacher. Katharine Wright was always amused over that tale,
for she was never a hoarder of money nor a financier, and could hardly
have provided funds even if this had been necessary. Any rumor that her
brothers could have borrowed money from her, rather than lending money
to her, as they sometimes did, was almost as funny to Katharine as
another report--that her brothers had relied on her for mathematical
assistance in their calculations.
The simple fact is that no one ever financed the Wrights’ work except
Wilbur and Orville themselves. Their bicycle business had been giving
them a decent income and at the end of the year 1903 they still had a
few thousand dollars’ savings in a local building and loan association.
Whatever financial scrimping was necessary came _after_ they had flown;
after they knew they had made a great discovery.
But the Wrights’ belief that they had achieved something of great
importance was not bolstered by the attitude of the general public. Not
only were there no receptions, brass bands, or parades in their honor,
but most people paid less attention to the history-making feat than if
the “boys” had simply been on vacation and caught a big fish, or shot a
bear.
Before the flights, some of the neighbors had been puzzled by reports
that the Wrights were working on a flying-machine. One man in business
near the Wright shop had become acquainted with an inventor who
thought he was about to perfect a perpetual motion machine; and this
businessman promptly sent the inventor to the Wrights, assuming that he
would find them kindred spirits. John G. Feight, living next door to
the Wright home, had remarked, just before the brothers went to Kitty
Hawk: “Flying and perpetual motion will come at the same time.”
Now that flights had been made, neighbors didn’t doubt the truth of
the reports--though one of them had his own explanation. Mr. Webbert,
father of the man from whom the Wrights rented their shop, said:
“I have known those boys ever since they were small children, and if
they say they flew I know they did; but I think there must be special
conditions down in North Carolina that would enable them to fly by the
power of a motor. There is only one thing that could lift a machine
like that in _this_ part of the country--spirit power.” Webbert was a
spiritualist. He had seen tables and pianos lifted at séances!
But even if the boys _had_ flown, what of it? Men were flying in
Europe, weren’t they? Hadn’t Santos-Dumont flown some kind of
self-propelled balloon?
The one person who had almost unbounded enthusiasm for what the
brothers had accomplished was their father. They found it difficult to
keep a complete file of the photographs they had made showing different
phases of their experiments, because the moment their father’s eye
fell on one of these pictures he would pick it up and mail it to some
relative along with a letter telling with pride what the boys had done.
Two brothers in Boston sensed, however, that, if the scant reports
about the Kitty Hawk event were based on truth, then something of
great significance had happened. These men were Samuel and Godfrey
Lowell Cabot, wealthy and influential members of a famous family. Both
of them, particularly Samuel, had long been interested in whatever
progress was being made in aeronautics. On December 19, the day after
the first news of the flights was published, Samuel Cabot sent to the
Wrights a telegram of congratulations. Two days later, his brother
Godfrey wrote them a letter. In that letter Godfrey Cabot wanted to
know if they thought their machine could be used for carrying freight.
He was financially interested in an industrial operation in West
Virginia, he said, where conditions would justify a rate of $10 a ton
for transporting goods by air only sixteen miles.
[Illustration: FIRST FLIGHT. The only picture made of man’s first
flight in a power-driven, heavier-than-air machine, Kitty Hawk,
December 17, 1903. The plane, piloted by Orville Wright, has just taken
off from the monorail. Wilbur Wright, running at the side, had held the
wing to balance the machine until it left the rail.]
One reason why nearly everyone in the United States was disinclined
to swallow the reports about flying with a machine heavier than air
was that important scientists had already explained in the public
prints why the thing was impossible. When a man of the profound
scientific wisdom of Simon Newcomb, for example, had demonstrated
with unassailable logic why man couldn’t fly, why should the public
be fooled by silly stories about two obscure bicycle repair-men who
hadn’t even been to college? Professor Newcomb was so distinguished an
astronomer that he was the only American since Benjamin Franklin to be
made an associate of the Institute of France. It was widely assumed
that what he didn’t know about laws of physics simply wasn’t in books;
and that when he said flying couldn’t be done, there was no need to
inquire any further. More than once Professor Newcomb had written
that flight without gas-bags would require the discovery of some new
metal or a new unsuspected force in Nature. Then, in an article in
_The Independent_--October 22, 1903, while the Wrights were at Kitty
Hawk assembling their power machine--he not only proved that trying to
fly was nonsense, but went further and showed that even if a man did
fly, he wouldn’t dare to stop. “Once he slackens his speed, down
he begins to fall.--Once he stops, he falls a dead mass. How shall he
reach the ground without destroying his delicate machinery? I do not
think that even the most imaginative inventor has yet put on paper a
demonstrative, successful way of meeting this difficulty.”
[Illustration: THE FIRST POWER PLANE. A side view of the 1903 plane at
Kitty Hawk.]
In all his statements, Professor Newcomb had the support of other
eminent authorities, including Rear Admiral George W. Melville,
then chief engineer for the United States Navy, who, a year or two
previously, in the _North American Review_, had set forth convincingly
the absurdity of attempts to fly.
The most recent Newcomb article was all the more impressive as a
forecast from the fact that it appeared only fifteen days after one of
Professor Langley’s unsuccessful attempts at flight. That is, Langley’s
attempt seemed to show that flight was beyond human possibility, and
then Newcomb’s article explained _why_ it was impossible. Though these
pooh-poohing statements by Newcomb and other scientists were probably
read by relatively few people, they were seen by editors, editorial
writers, and others who could have much influence on public opinion.
Naturally, no editor who “knew” a thing couldn’t be done would permit
his paper to record the fact that it had been done.
Oddly enough, one of the first public announcements by word of mouth
about the Wrights’ Kitty Hawk flights was in a Sunday-school. A. I.
Root, founder of a still prosperous business for the sale of honey and
beekeepers’ supplies at Medina, Ohio, taught a Sunday-school class. One
morning shortly before the dismissal bell, observing that the boys in
the class were restless, he sought to restore order by catching their
interest. Perhaps he wished to show, too, that miracles as wonderful as
any in the Bible were still possible.
“Do you know, friends,” he said, “that two Ohio boys, or young
men rather, have outstripped the world in demonstrating that a
flying-machine can be constructed without the aid of a balloon?” He had
read a brief item about the Wrights in an Akron paper.
The class became attentive and Root went on: “During the past two
months these two boys have made a machine that actually flew through
the air for more than half a mile, carrying one of the boys with it.
This young man is not only a credit to our state but to the whole
country and to the world.”
Though this was several weeks after the Wrights had first flown, no
one in the class had ever heard about it, and incredulously they fired
questions at the teacher.
“Where do the boys live? What are their names? When and where did their
machine fly?”
Root described, not too accurately, the Kitty Hawk flights, and added:
“When they make their next trial I am going to try to be on hand to see
the experiment.”
An important part of Root’s business was publication of the still
widely circulated magazine, _Gleanings in Bee Culture_, and in his
issue of March 1, 1904, he told of the episode in the Sunday-school.
By printing that story, the Medina bee man may possibly have been the
first editor of a scientific publication in the United States to report
that man could fly. (The _Popular Science Monthly_ in its issue of
March, 1904, had an article by Octave Chanute in which the flights were
mentioned.) Root a little later even predicted: “Possibly we may be
able to fly over the North Pole.”
The Wrights were more amused than disturbed by the lack of general
recognition that flying was now possible. They inwardly chuckled when
they heard people still using the old expression: “Why, a person could
no more do _that_ than he could fly!” But they knew they had only begun
to learn about handling a flying-machine.
VIII
EXPERIMENTS OF 1904-’05
In all their work on their power plane the Wrights’ main incentive had
been to gain the distinction of being the first of mankind to fly. They
had not designed the machine for practical use. Now, however, even
though they did not yet foresee many of the uses for which the airplane
was destined, they began to think it could be developed into a machine
useful for scouting in warfare, for carrying mail to isolated places,
for exploration; and that it would appeal to those who could afford it
for sport.
If their machine was capable, as they had demonstrated, of flying by
its own power for 852 feet against a 20-mile wind, there was no reason
why it shouldn’t go many times that far. But if the machine was to be
practical, many improvements would be necessary, and they would need
more experience in flying. Much practice would be required, and that
would mean more expense in proportion to income, for they would have
less time for building and repairing bicycles. But they decided to
devote to aviation whatever amount of time seemed necessary. A number
of bicycles at their shop were in various stages of completion. But
no new ones were started after the Wrights’ return from Kitty Hawk,
though some of those on hand were completed and sold. The brothers now
began to turn over to Charlie Taylor, their chief mechanic, most of the
routine work of the shop.
In January, 1904, the brothers began building a new plane. It was
similar to the one flown at Kitty Hawk, but there were a number of
changes, including more sturdy construction throughout. The weight
exceeded that of the original plane by about eighty pounds. (In flight,
the weight, including the pilot, and 70 pounds of iron bars carried
on the framework under the front elevator, was 900 pounds.[5]) The
wing camber was changed from 1-20 to 1-25--that is, the curvature was
decreased; and the ribs were tapered from front to rear spar instead
of being of uniform depth, as in the earlier model. An entirely new
engine went into the 1904 machine. In fact, the Wrights started to
build three new engines. One of these had four cylinders of 4⅛-inch
bore; another, four cylinders of only 4-inch bore, as the one used at
Kitty Hawk; and the third was a V-type, of eight cylinders. The 4⅛-inch
bore was the one installed in the 1904 plane and gave a satisfactory
amount of power--but not so much as the Wrights later developed in
the other four-cylinder motor of only four-inch bore. That motor they
kept in their shop and used for a kind of guinea pig, trying various
improvements and refinements until it produced as much power as they
had expected from the V-type motor of eight cylinders and twice as much
as the original motor used at Kitty Hawk. They then gave up the idea of
completing the V-type motor.
Another change in the 1904 machine was using white pine instead of
spruce for the front and rear spars in the wings. Spruce was not
available in Dayton at that time, and tests the Wrights made at their
shop, in the manner usually employed for ascertaining the strength of
woods, indicated that the two woods were about equally strong. (But
in actual use, when stresses came suddenly, as in landing, the white
pine spars snapped “like taffy under a hammer blow,” though spruce had
always withstood such shocks. The brothers rebuilt the wings, with all
spars of spruce.)
To obtain practice, their first need was a suitable field, not too
far from home. They found a cow pasture, fairly level, handy to an
interurban railway, at Simms Station, eight miles from Dayton, toward
Springfield. This field, often called the Huffman prairie, was part of
a farm belonging to a Dayton bank president, Torrence Huffman. Compared
with a modern flying-field the area of sixty-eight acres they wanted to
use was not quite ideal. It contained a number of trees, besides being
near power wires and poles. But it was as good as they could find
and without delay the Wrights introduced themselves to Mr. Huffman to
ask if they might rent his pasture for their experiments. He granted
the request and told them they were welcome to use the field free of
charge. But he said he hoped they would drive his cows to a safe place
and not run over them.
By April 15, 1904, the Wrights had built a rough wooden shed at the
Huffman pasture, in preparation for their experiments.
Even if they had tried, the Wrights could hardly have kept secret what
they were doing here at the Huffman prairie, with an interurban car
line and two highways passing the field they were using. But they took
special precautions against being thought secretive, for they knew that
the best way to avoid being bothered by newspaper people or others was
to make no mystery of what they were doing. Before they had attempted
even one trial flight at the Huffman pasture they wrote letters to each
of the Dayton papers, as well as to each of the Cincinnati papers,
that on May 23 they would attempt to fly and would be glad to have any
newspaper representative who felt interested come and watch them. Their
only request was that no pictures be taken, and that the reports should
not be sensational. This latter stipulation was to avoid attracting
crowds, but as it turned out there was no need to be concerned about
curiosity-seekers.
About a dozen newspapermen showed up. Also on hand were a number
of friends and neighbors of the Wright family. Altogether perhaps
thirty-five persons were present--all by invitation.
The Wrights dragged their machine out of the shed to wait for a
suitable wind before launching the machine from the short stretch of
wooden track. As it happened, the wind was unusually high that day,
about twenty-five miles an hour, and the Wrights said they would wait
for it to die down a little. When the high wind did cease, it went
suddenly to an almost complete calm, and a wind of at least eleven
miles an hour was needed to take off from so short a track. The Wrights
said they would try a flight if the wind picked up. But the wind failed
to do so. The crowd waited and two or three of the reporters--too
experienced to be easily fooled--began to make comments to one another.
They hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. Why had they been asked
to waste time on such an assignment? Most of the guests, though,
had only sympathy for the brothers. They actually seemed sincere in
thinking they _could_ fly.
Though sorry to disappoint the spectators, the Wrights showed no
signs of embarrassment. They had learned to take events as they came.
Finally, after the day had dragged on with no sign of a more favorable
wind, one of the brothers announced:
“We can’t fly today; but since you’ve taken the trouble to come and
wait so long, we’ll let the machine skim along the track and you’ll get
an idea of what it’s supposed to do. With so short a track, we may not
get off the ground, but you’ll see how it operates.”
Then the engine misbehaved. It worked all right in the warming-up
period, but began to skip explosions as soon as the machine started
down the track. This was caused, the Wrights soon learned, by the flow
of air over the mouth of the intake pipe--a trouble never experienced
with the engine used at Kitty Hawk.
After running the length of the track, the machine slid off the end
without rising into the air at all. That wasn’t much of a story for the
reporters. Their assumption that they had been sent on a wild goose
chase seemed to be confirmed. Would there be a flight the next day?
The Wrights couldn’t be sure. First of all they must find out what
ailed that engine. They might be able to do that overnight, or it might
take longer. However, all who wished to return the next day would be
welcome. Indeed, the Wrights said, any newspaper representative would
be welcome at _any_ time.
Two or three of the newspapermen did return the next day. The engine
still sulked, but the wind was a bit more favorable and the Wrights
decided to show the reporters what they could. This time the machine
rose five or six feet from the ground and went through the air for
nearly sixty feet before it came down. An electric contact point in
one of the engine cylinders had worked loose, and only three cylinders
were hitting. The few reporters present, though now convinced that
the age of flying had not yet come, wrote friendly articles and made
the most of what they had seen. The versions differed widely. One
report had the machine rising to a height of seventy-five feet. In the
Cincinnati _Enquirer_ account was a comment that the machine “is more
substantially constructed _than other machines of its kind_.”
None of those newspapermen ever returned. During all their experiments
that year and the next, the Wrights had about all the privacy they
needed. They used to smile over a comment by Octave Chanute: “It is a
marvel to me that the newspapers haven’t spotted you.”
Having disposed of the reporters, the inventors resumed their work.
Almost as soon as the new trials began, the brothers encountered a new
difficulty. A track 60 feet long had been adequate for launching the
machine in the wind at Kitty Hawk; but a track of 160 feet, or even one
of 240 feet, was not long enough for use at Huffman field where the
winds were usually light.
The Huffman field was covered with hummocks from six inches to a foot
high. Only a few spots free from hummocks were suitable for a 240-foot
track. And landing wheels, such as were used later, would have been
impractical on that uneven ground. Laying 240 feet of track, after
finding enough ground space free from hummocks, was a considerable
job. But frequently, after the track was laid, the wind would change
its direction, and then all the work had to be done over. After a
few times, the brothers gave up trying to use so long a track, and
ordinarily used one of only 160 feet.