_After the First Flight_
After 1903, the Wrights carved brilliant careers in aeronautics and
helped found the aviation industry. The successful flights made at Kill
Devil Hills in December 1903 encouraged them to make improvements on a
new plane called Flyer No. 2. About 100 flights were flown near Dayton
in 1904. These totaled only 45 minutes in the air, although they made
two 5-minute flights. Experimenting chiefly with control and maneuver,
many complete circuits of the small flying field were made.
A new and improved plane, Flyer No. 3, was built in 1905. On October 5
they made a record flight of 24-1/5 miles, while the plane was in the
air 38 minutes and 3 seconds. The era of the airplane was well on the
way. The lessons and successes at Kill Devil Hills in December 1903 were
fast making the crowded skies of the Air Age possible.
Believing their invention was now perfected for practical use, the
Wrights wanted the United States Government to have a world monopoly on
their patents, and more important, on all the aerodynamic, design, and
pilotage secrets they knew relating to the airplane. As early as 1905
they had received overtures from representatives of foreign governments.
The United States Army turned down their first offers without making an
effort to investigate whether the airplane had been brought to a stage
of practical operation. But disbelief was on the wane. In February 1908
the United States War Department made a contract with the brothers for
an airplane. Only 3 weeks later the Wrights closed a contract with a
Frenchman to form a syndicate for the rights to manufacture, sell, or
license the use of the Wright airplane in France.
[Illustration: Orville Wright in 1904 flight 85 at Huffman Prairie
near Dayton, November 16. Distance: approximately 1,760 feet; time:
45 seconds.]
[Illustration: 1905 flight 41--Orville's 12-mile flight of September
29.]
[Illustration: 1905 flight 46, October 4--20.8 miles in 33.3
minutes, the second longest flight of 1905. It was exceeded only by
the 24-mile flight of October 5. The era of the airplane was well on
its way.]
[Illustration: Orville Wright (1871-1948) taken about 1908.]
During their Dayton experiments, the Wrights had continued to pilot
their airplanes while lying prone with hips in the cradle on the lower
wing. Now they adopted a different arrangement of the control levers to
be used in a sitting position and added a seat for a passenger. The
brothers brought their airplane to Kill Devil Hills in April 1908 to
practice handling the new arrangement of the control levers. They wanted
to be prepared for the public trials to be made for the United States
Government, near Washington, and for the company in France.
They erected a new building at Kill Devil Hills to house the airplane
and to live in, because storms the year before had nearly demolished
their 1903 camp buildings. Between May 6 and May 14, 1908, the Wrights
made 22 flights at their old testing grounds. On May 14 the first flight
with two men aboard a plane was made near West Hill; Wilbur Wright being
the pilot, and Charles Furnas, a mechanic, the passenger. Orville and
Furnas then made a flight together of over 2 miles, passing between Kill
Devil Hill and West Hill, and turning north near the sound to circle
Little Hill before returning over the starting point close to their camp
to land near West Hill on the second lap.
[Illustration: Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) taken about 1908.]
Byron R. Newton, a newspaper reporter, was concealed in the woods with
other newsmen near camp to watch the Wrights fly. Newton predicted in
his diary just after seeing his first flight: "Some day Congress will
erect a monument here to these Wrights." Nineteen years later the
Congress established the area as a National Memorial.
Wilbur journeyed to France after completing the tests at Kill Devil
Hills, while Orville returned home to complete the construction of an
airplane for the United States Government. As Wilbur set about
methodically to assemble his airplane at Le Mans, some 125 miles from
Paris, skeptics greeted the delay by accusing him of bluffing. But
Wilbur refused to hurry. "_Le bluff continue_," cried a Paris newspaper.
However, when Wilbur took off on August 8, circling the field to come in
for a perfect landing, the crowd could scarcely believe its eyes.
Skeptics were confounded, and enthusiasm was uproarious.
[Illustration: Orville and his passenger, Lt. Benjamin D. Foulois,
round the captive balloon which marked the turning point of the Army
speed test flight from Fort Meyer, July 30, 1909. The flight was
just under 43 miles an hour. _Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution._]
Wilbur's complete lack of conceit, together with his decency and
intelligence, won from the French people a hero-worship attitude, while
the press was unsparing in its praise and lamented having called him a
bluffer. The _Figaro_ commented, "It was not merely a success but a
triumph; a conclusive trial and a decisive victory for aviation, the
news of which will revolutionize scientific circles throughout the
world." It was a statement to the press by a witness, Maj. B. F. S.
Baden-Powell, president of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain,
that is most often quoted: "That Wilbur Wright is in possession of a
power which controls the fate of nations is beyond dispute." One of
Wilbur's sayings in France became famous: "I know of only one bird, the
parrot, that talks," he said, "and it can't fly very high."
Orville's first public flight was on September 3, 1908 at Fort Myer. He
circled the field one and one-half times on the first test. "When the
plane first rose," Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., recorded "the crowd's gasp
of astonishment was not alone at the wonder of it, but because it was so
unexpected." Orville's final flight at Fort Myer in 1908 ended in
tragedy. The airplane crashed, killing Lt. Thomas Selfridge, a passenger
flying with Orville. Orville suffered broken ribs, a fractured leg, and
hip injuries.
In 1909, Orville completed the Government test flights by flying 10
miles in 14 minutes, or just under 43 miles an hour. The United States
Army formally accepted its first airplane from the Wrights on August 2,
1909. During the same year both brothers made further flying triumphs in
Europe where they became famous flying in France and Italy. While
Orville was making sensational flights in Germany (as required for the
formation of a Wright company in that country), Wilbur, in America, made
spectacular flights at New York City where more than a million New
Yorkers got their first glimpse of an airplane in the air.
Commercial companies were formed in France and Germany to manufacture
Wright planes before the Wright Company was organized in the United
States with Wilbur as president and Orville vice president. In financial
affairs the Wrights were remarkably shrewd--a match for American and
European businessmen. They grew wealthy as well as famous, but they were
not happy as businessmen and looked forward to the time when they could
retire to devote themselves again to scientific research.
Orville returned to Kill Devil Hills in October 1911 to experiment with
an automatic control device and to make soaring flights with a glider.
The new device was not tested because of the presence of newspapermen at
the camp each day. Orville set a new world's soaring record of 9 minutes
and 45 seconds on October 24. This remained the world's record until it
was exceeded 10 years later in Germany. On May 30, 1912, Wilbur Wright,
aged 45, died of typhoid fever. Orville survived him by 36 years.
_The Original Airplane Exhibited_
Orville always thought that the National Museum in Washington,
administered by the Smithsonian Institution, was the logical place for
the original Wright 1903 airplane to be preserved and exhibited.
However, for a long time he was unwilling to entrust the airplane there
because of a controversy between him and the Smithsonian in regard to
the history of the invention of the airplane. In 1928, Orville lent the
plane to the Science Museum at South Kensington, near London, England,
with the understanding that it would stay there permanently unless he
made a written request for its return. Finally, in 1942, the dispute
with the Smithsonian was settled to Orville's satisfaction, and the next
year he wrote a request to the Science Museum for the return of the
airplane to this country when it could be safely shipped after World War
II ended.
After Orville Wright's death, on January 30, 1948, his executors
deposited the original 1903 airplane in the National Air Museum. It was
formally placed on exhibition on December 17, 1948, in Washington, D.C.,
the 45th anniversary of the first flights. The priceless original
airplane now occupies the highest place of honor among other interesting
aeronautical exhibits.
_The National Memorial_
On March 2, 1927, the Congress authorized the establishment of Kill
Devil Hills Monument National Memorial to commemorate the Wrights'
achievement of the first successful flight of a man-carrying,
power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. The area was transferred from
the War Department to the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the
Interior, on August 10, 1933, and on December 1, 1953, the name was
changed to Wright Brothers National Memorial. The memorial contains
about 425 acres. It embraces the actual site of the first four flights
and the sites of most of the glider experiments.
_Guide to the Area_