The Wright Brothers

Once home in Dayton, the brothers had to turn to the upcoming bicycle season, as that was the entire source of their income for work on their plane. To cut expenses, they decided to make future trials at a local pasture just outside the city, called Huffman Prairie. Now that they were using an engine, they also thought it better not to be on the beaches of Kitty Hawk where sand could clog up a motor. Their only reservation about this was being more open to the public and not having the privacy they wanted. However, they hadn’t gotten much publicity, as the press had yet to pay them any attention.

They began flying at Huffman Prairie at the end of May 1904. The first few months were rocky, as several things went wrong. Finally, in mid-August, Wilbur flew over 1,000 feet—farther than ever before. Still, their mediocre success led to their adding a final piece of equipment: a catapult. The main problem at Huffman was the lack of wind, which they hadn’t experienced at Kitty Hawk, so getting airborne was problematic. The catapult used a system of weights, rope, and a simple tower. Dropping the weights from the tower pulled the plane forward quickly, giving it the momentum to get it off the ground.

The brothers tested the catapult on September 7, a day with little wind. It proved successful, and Wilbur flew for half a mile—and for the first time turned in a half circle. Despite their extraordinary achievement, the only person to report on the flights was Amos Ives Root, a local beekeeper and aviation enthusiast who wrote about them in his company’s trade journal. When he sent a copy of one of his articles to Scientific American at the end of the year, urging them to reprint it, the popular magazine ignored him.

Unfazed, the brothers figured that people needed to see their plane in action for themselves. They began contacting governments to try to generate interest. In January 1905, they contacted the US War Department, which promptly sent them a rejection in a kind of form letter. Continuing their improvements on the plane, the brothers created the Flyer III, a version with a larger engine. During the summer and fall of that year, they tested it vigorously at Huffman Prairie and mastered the art of flying. In early October, Wilbur flew continuously for 38 minutes, covering 24 miles—“longer than all the 160 flights of the three previous years combined” (127). At the year’s end, they struck a deal with the French government: They’d receive the astronomical sum of $200,000 for one plane if they met certain demonstration flight requirements.

Negotiations with the French continued in early 1906, and the press was finally realizing what the Wright brothers had accomplished. Fifteen months after it ignored Amos Root’s article, Scientific American published its own article to report on eyewitness accounts of the brothers’ feats the previous year. In May, they received a patent they’d applied for in 1903, for the Wright Flying Machine, and they dedicated the summer and fall to engine improvements and test flights.

The same year, a firm called Flint & Company offered them half a million dollars to represent them for sales outside the US. Both brothers traveled to New York in early 1907 to finalize the deal. Later that spring, the company said that its European agent had reservations and wanted to meet with them in person. Wilbur set sail for Europe in May, and Orville joined him in Paris in late July. Wilbur, who’d never liked or been good at business, was now immersed in it, as he and the Flint agent, Hart Berg, hashed things out in France. While there, Wilbur visited the Louvre several times and walked miles in Paris studying the architecture.

In August, while French officials took their month-long holiday, Wilbur and Berg went to Berlin for discussions with the German government; Orville followed later. However, nothing came of it. After returning to Paris in November, the brothers decided to head home—with or without completing the lengthy negotiations. Before leaving, they attended an exhibition by France’s premier aviator, Henri Farman. They didn’t feel that he was ahead of them in progress, but the French press clearly did. Back in the US, Wilbur made a detour to Washington, DC, where he finally struck a deal with the War Department, finalized the following February. In March 1908, the brothers agreed to terms with a French company contingent on a successful public demonstration in France that summer.

Wilbur returned to Kitty Hawk in April 1908 to practice for his upcoming demonstrations. Between storms and vandals, the place was in shambles, and some of the local helpers from previous years had moved on or died. Orville and a mechanic they’d hired joined Wilbur later that month. They made a major change to the Flyer: The operator sat upright, and it had a second seat for a passenger. In addition, the surroundings had changed: They were now full of press people. Most reporters kept a distance and watched through binoculars.

By the end of May, Wilbur was back in Paris. The French press was still dubious if not outright hostile. One publication ran a photo of their plane in flight at Kitty Hawk, claiming, “Its appearance seems quite dubious and one finds in it every element of a ‘fabrication,’ not especially well done moreover” (160). While Wilbur and Berg began to scout locations for the demonstrations, a man named Léon Bollée contacted them. A car manufacturer and balloon enthusiast in Le Mans, Bollée suggested a place there that might work out, so they went to see him and decided he was right.

Bollée gave Wilbur space at his factory to assemble the plane. When Wilbur unpacked everything, he found that it was horribly damaged and at first blamed his brother’s packing before learning that customs agents had caused it. Repairing it before assembly required much time and effort, and Wilbur had only a few of Bollée’s mechanics to help—who were not only unfamiliar with his requirements but unable to understand much English. The repairs thus fell almost entirely to Wilbur, who won their admiration for his superb artisanship. He did anything necessary to get the plane in the shape he wanted it, even forging his own parts.

On August 8, everything was finally ready. People began gathering early in the day, and the plane rolled out of its shed at three o’ clock that afternoon. Wilbur, however, always working on his own schedule, did not rush things, making final adjustments and double-checking everything until 6:30. He then took to the sky, flying in a circle for about two minutes, covering two miles all together. The crowd went wild, as they finally understood what all the hype was about. Wilbur gave another demonstration two days later, this time dazzling the crowd by flying a figure eight. He continued his performances throughout the month and became the toast of France.