Johnny Moore Witnesses History
Johnny Moore was a 16-year-old boy who lived in Nags Head, NC and just
happened to be walking along the beach when he noticed a commotion further
ahead. He walked closer and noticed that several men were working with a
machine.
The several men were Orville and Wilbur Wright, along with three men from
the local life saving station --- Willie Dough, Adam Etheridge, and John
Daniels --- and W.C. Brinkley, who was a lumber merchant.
Johnny decided to join the group.
The date was Dec. 17, 1903. It wasn’t long before the machine’s engine
was started and down the rail and into the air the machine flew with Orville at
the controls.
Johnny was so excited seeing the machine fly that he ran down the beach
shouting, "They done it, they done it, damned if they ain’t
flew!"
Johnny didn’t realize it then, but he would play a very important role in
the history of the Wright brothers.
In 1928, the delegates of the International Civil Aeronautics Conference
decided to dedicate a granite maker to be placed at the approximate site of the
1903 Wright Flyer takeoff to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the
first flight. The National Aeronautics Association (NAA) would provide the
marker.
But there was a problem. The dunes and hills at Kitty Hawk had shifted
considerably since 1903. Where was the location of the first liftoff?
The NAA decided to gather the witnesses to the first flight and have them
provide their best estimate of where it was located.
William Tate of Kitty Hawk, who had originally invited the Wrights to Kitty
Hawk, was asked to recruit the original witnesses to perform the task. He was
able to recruit three of the four surviving witnesses --- Will Dough, Adam
Etheridge, and Johnny Moore.
During the dedication ceremonies on Dec. 17, 1925 of the placement of the
marker, which consisted of a 6-foot-high marker, carved to resemble a boulder,
Tate described how his team found the site.
"Dough, Etheridge, Moore and I assembled here and explained to them the
importance of arriving at a definite conclusion with respect to the spot where
the Wright brothers’ airplane, in making its first successful flight, first
began to move along the ground. We located the four corners of the building in
which the machine was housed. We took into consideration what Mr. Wright said
about it in his article, "How We Made the First Flight."
"We had a compass with us and we were sure of our compass course. After
considering all these things and talking it over, these other three men
proceeded by themselves to come out here on this point and select the spot on
which this magnificent boulder stands and said that this was the spot where the
Wright plane started its first successful flight. After agreeing upon this
exact spot we signed a paper to that effect."
More than 3,000 people attended the event. Orville Wright was there as well
as Amelia Earhart.
Not much is known about Johnny in later years except that he was a
fisherman.
Then on Feb. 28, 1952, there was bad news about Johnny. The following UP
news report was received:
"The last living witness of the Wright brothers’ first
heavier-than-air flight killed himself today with a .12-gauge shotgun blast,
Coroner Marvin Rodgers said. The body of Johnny Moore, 66, was found in his
home on Little Colington Island. From his home, the old fishing guide could see
the Wright Memorial Monument atop Kill Devil Hill, where Wilbur and Orville
Wright first flew on Dec. 17, 1903."
Flying Sideways
"Like a Street Car Flying Sideways"
What does it look like – the flying machine of the Wright brothers?
Imagine a street car, built of light spruce braces, wires and white canvas,
and that with the sides knocked out; then imagine slung in the middle of this a
buzzing gasoline engine about as big as an ordinary chair without the back;
then imagine a light double decked plane thrust out in front.
Add two propellers, each six feet in diameter, whirling at the opposite side
of the contraption from the front, where the light rudder planes are – and
that is the flying machine.
Note: Propellers were 8.5 feet in diameter.
It moves sidewise. When it starts up it looks like a runaway streetcar
moving side forward.
When the engines are started it stands for a moment, humming like a top.
Then slowly it sneaks ahead, and presently it may be seen, about 20 feet from
the earth, slipping along with a noise like a stationary automobile.
The Wrights have made it a rule to keep close to the earth. They do this for
two reasons. In the first place, if they are to fall, they would rather fall a
short distance. In the second place, it is really more difficult to navigate
close to the earth, just as it is harder to navigate a ship close to a
dangerous shore. And they want practice in navigating their machine.
They make flights in circles and curves aiming to return to the starting
point. There is no reason, however, why the machine they have made would not
soar 10,000 feet into the air, and travel on a straight line for 15 or 20 miles
but they have never tried any such spectacular stunts.
The Wrights are well known in this country about Kitty Hawk and the Island
of Manteo.
The life saving patrols who go along the Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil shore
have seen many of their flights.
The Wright brothers began their experiments in aerial navigation in 1896.
They first built a double-decked glider, and, with the help of two men to
launch it, the operator found he could leave the side of a steep sand hill and
slide down hill on the wind.
Note: The first experiment occurred in 1899 in Dayton with Wilbur flying a
box-like kite to test the wingwarping control system.
This machine was 22 feet long and 14 feet wide, including the rudder, and
was about 6 feet high. It carried no engine or motor of any kind, and its
purpose was to fly in the wind more like a man-carrying kite than anything
else.
Note: The machine referred to above was the 1901 glider.
Experiments with gliding machines of this sort lasted from 1900 to 1903.
Then the Wrights decided it was time to take the next step, and add a motor
to their gliding machine.
It was December of that year before they were ready for the first test of
their man-carrying motor driven apparatus. But on Dec. 17 the test was made,
and the machine flew.
That date really marks the beginning of man’s mastery of the air, so long
essayed in vain. The flight was a short one, being about as long as a city
block; but it was enough to show that the principle was correct. It showed the
Wrights that it was possible to build a machine which could carry a man, and
propel itself with its own power, fuel, etc., and be subject to the control of
the operator.
Nearly five years have passed since than. A number of machines have been
built by the Wrights, and flown, some at Kitty Hawk, and some at their home in
Dayton.
One minute was a long time to remain in the air in the first flight; 38
minutes is the time record up to date. The distance covered had grown from 852
feet to between 24 and 25 miles. Now the machine will carry two men instead of
one.
During all the time since 1900 the experiments of the Wrights have been
known about and watched with interest by such as Prof. Alex. Graham Bell,
Octave Chanute, and the late Prof. S. P. Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution.
These men have talked to the writer and has assured him of their entire
confidence in the work of the Wrights, and have added their opinion that its
importance will be realized in future years to be as great as that of the
inventors of the steam engine, the locomotive and similar revolutionizing
discoveries.
In reporting their work to the Aero Club of America of which they are
members, the Wright brothers have furnished to the club the names and addresses
of 17 reputable citizens who have the tests and who certify to the truth of the
Wright brothers’ statements. These names may be had on application to the
Aero Club of America.
An extra amount of credit is due the Wright brothers by reason of their
absolute independence in working out the problem of man flight. They are by
trade bicycle mechanics, and have supported themselves while working on flying
machines on the side, by selling and repairing bicycles in Dayton.
They have worked the machine out with their own hands, and without any
subsidy from public or private source."
Reference: Gilson Gardner, San Diego Sun, May 22, 1908.
Home for Christmas
When the Wright brothers left Dayton for Kitty Hawk on September 23, 1903,
they never thought that they would have trouble making it back to Dayton in
time for Christmas. Christmas was a traditional family celebration that they
didn’t want to miss and they had promised the family they would be back in
Dayton for Christmas.
To make it back on time, they took uncharacteristic risks in dangerous
weather conditions. Bad weather and mechanical failure had conspired to delay
their progress.
The brothers arrived at Kitty Hawk on Sept. 25. They planned to build a new
larger hanger in which to assemble and test their new Flyer. The Flyer was
never assembled in Dayton.
They were pleased to find that their tools, provisions and lumber for the
new building had arrived. The parts for the Flyer would arrive later.
They found that the existing building that served as their living quarters
the previous year was wrecked by the winter’s storms. Fortunately, the 1902
glider they had left in the building was undamaged. That was important because
they planned to fly the glider to sharpen their piloting skills.
They hired Dan Tate to help them rebuild the old building into a real home
away from home and build the new hanger. Tate would also help in launching the
glider. They wanted to maximize the amount of practice time in the air before
trying out their Flyer so they worked on the new building on rainy and calm
days and practiced gliding on days when the wind and weather permitted.
They first flew their glider on Monday September 28. They flew some 75 times
off Big Kill Devil Hill that day. The wind was blowing 31 mph at times. The
buffeting gave them good practice in controlling the craft.
In total they made some 300 glider flights. Their best flight lasted over 30
seconds and broke all of their old records. It was fun and they were improving
their piloting skills with each flight. It was a good beginning.
On October 8 the new hanger was completed just in time to receive the last
shipment of parts for the Flyer. Unfortunately, bad weather also arrived. The
driving wind and rain almost blew the roof off of their living quarters. The
storm lasted for four days and then turned cold. Many days were too cold to
work. Their wood-burning stove made things uncomfortable inside, spouting smoke
filled soot. They eventually were able to acquire a stovepipe and vent the
smoke through the roof.
Orville and Wilbur were worried about other things besides the weather. They
knew that Samuel Pierpont Langley was intending to fly his machine in early
October. If successful he would win the race to be the first to achieve manned,
heavier-than-air, powered flight.
They needn’t have worried. Langley’s machine, with Charles Manly at the
controls, crashed into the Potomac River upon takeoff using a catapult system
mounted on a houseboat.
Orville and Wilbur were still concerned about Langley’s effort, so they
planned to launch their new Flyer by Nov. 1 as soon as it was ready instead of
taking the more cautious approach of first flying it as a kite and then as a
glider as they had originally intended.
By mid October the upper wing of the Flyer had been assembled and covered.
On Nov. 5, the machine was nearly completed and ready for the first power plant
test. They needed to confirm the accuracy of their theoretical propulsion
calculations, which couldn’t be confirmed in Dayton. It was doubly important
because they now found that the Flyer weighed 75 more pounds after assembly
than they had originally calculated.
From the beginning, they experienced problems with the engine. It misfired
which caused the propellers to vibrate so severely that the propeller hubs
broke loose from where they were welded to the propeller shafts.
This caused a considerable delay in their plans, because there were no
machine shops at Kitty Hawk, forcing the Wrights to return the shafts to
Charlie Taylor for repair in Dayton. To add to their concern, Octave Chanute
arrived in camp with news that Langley intended to try again to fly in early
December.
The delay caused by repairing the propellers would be 15 days. Chanute added
more cause for concern.
Chanute, with half a century of engineering experience behind him, told the
brothers that no one had designed a flying machine with such small margins of
safety as theirs. He disagreed with their calculations that their chain drive
system would experience only a 5% power loss due to friction. Chanute said that
the loss would be at least 25-30%. He didn’t think the propellers would
receive enough power to achieve flight.
After 6 days Chanute departed camp leaving the brothers doubting themselves.
As was their routine when faced with problems they went to work conducting
tests, going over their calculations and making adjustments.
They tested their launching procedures by laying a 60-foot launching rail on
the side of Big Kill Devil Hill and launching the 1902 glider using the front
elevator control. The glider successfully lifted off the ground 5 out of 6
times.
That was the end of using the aging glider, however. It was beginning to
deteriorate and the wood and the cloth were showing the effects of the heat in
the hanger. It was no longer safe to fly.
They next tested the strength of the front elevator of the Flyer to
withstand strong wind loads. Their test method was to suspend the Flyer by the
wing tips from the rafters of the hanger and add 450 pounds of weight.
The wings passed the weight test but the "Pride of West" fabric on
the wing tips badly wrinkled. The fix was to rearrange the control wires to
maintain aerodynamic efficiency.
The next test was a power transmission test to check out Chaunut’s claim
that the Flyer could not develop sufficient power to get off the ground because
of transmission loss.
Their test method was simple but effective. They hung a weight equivalent to
what the engine would exert on the chains on a chain threaded over one of the
sprockets. They were relieved to find that the force required to raise the
weight indicated the power loss was just about equal to their original estimate
of 5%.
They now needed to test the entire propulsion system in operation. The
repaired propeller shafts arrived about noon on Nov. 20. They installed them
and were ready to begin the test that evening.
Then they ran into another problem. The vibration from the engine was so
severe that both sprocket wheels came loose within seconds. Nothing they did to
tighten the nuts that locked the sprocket wheels to the propeller shafts did
any good. Then they turned to a method they had used on bicycles. Glue them.
They had brought Arnstein’s Hard Cement with them. They used it in Dayton to
glue tires to wheels. They were using it at Kitty Hawk to seal letters. They
spread it on the threads of the sprocket and heated the assembly. It worked.
They also found the source of the problem causing the vibration. The
vibration had caused the fuel valve to slip resulting in an uneven flow of
fuel.
At last they were ready to test the entire propulsion system.
First they checked propeller speed. The results exceeded expectations. They
hoped for 305 rpm and got 350 rpm during a one-minute test.
Then they conducted a propeller thrust test. The test method was to set the
Flyer on rollers. A rope was tied to the machine, strung over a pulley and tied
to a 50-pound box of sand.
The engine was started and the propeller pushed the machine forward. The
thrust force was measured by the weight lifted. The brothers found that their
propellers were generating 132 pounds of thrust at a propeller speed of 350
rpm.
Their theoretical calculations predicted a thrust of only 90 pounds. That
was great news. The extra thrust would handle the extra weight of their
machine. Chanute was wrong; the machine would fly.
They performed one more test with the engine running. They again suspended
the Flyer by the wing tips inside the hanger. This time a pilot was aboard
while the engine was running. There were no problems, proving that the
in-flight strength was satisfactory.
They were about ready to fly. Than disaster struck. They found hairline
cracks in one of the propellers.
Orville went back to Dayton on Nov. 30 to make new propeller shafts from
spring steel instead of the hollow steel tubing they had used.
Time was of the essence because they heard that Langley was about to make
another attempt to fly and Christmas was only a month away.
Orville returned to Kitty Hawk on Dec. 12 with the new propellers. He had
good news. On the return train trip he read in a newspaper that on Dec. 7,
Langley had failed again, and for last time, because he had run out of funds.
The evening of Orville’s return they installed the propellers and were
ready for a test flight that evening. They were disappointed; there was
insufficient wind.
Instead, they tested the launching system by running the machine along the
launching rail under its own power. On one of the runs the tailframe snagged
the rail and broke. It was a minor repair and was quickly fixed.
Orville and Wilbur were now anxious to conduct a full flight test. December
13 was a perfect day to fly - warm weather and 18 mph wind. But it was a Sunday
and they didn’t work on the machine or fly on Sundays because of their
religious beliefs.
Dec. 14 was another beautiful day but the wind was only around 5 mph. They
decided to give it a try with the launching rail on a slope of 9-degrees on Big
Hill to provide a downhill start. Gravity would compensate for the light wind.
Five men from the local lifesaving station a quarter of a mile away with two
boys and a dog answered the call to help drag the Flyer to Big Kill Devil Hill.
The engine was started and the 2 boys, startled by the noise, ran off.
A coin was tossed and Wilbur won the first chance to fly a powered flying
machine. The machine, under power, moved down the rail with Orville running
alongside steadying it at the right wing. About 40-feet down the rail the
machine was moving too fast for Orville to keep up and Wilbur turned the front
elevator up sharply, not realizing how sensitive it would be.
The Flyer surged in a steep trajectory upward to about 15 feet where it
stalled and slowly lost altitude, hitting the ground with the left wing tip.
The impact broke a skid and damaged the front elevator. Wilbur attributed the
accident to his inexperience.
They were ecstatic despite the rough flight because they knew the machine
was capable of flight. They just had to learn to fly the machine. Wilbur wrote
his father, "Success assured keep quiet."
The next two days they made repairs to the machine while watching two
beautiful days pass by. On Dec. 16 they were ready to try again, but the
weather wasn’t – there was no wind.
The next day, Dec 17, they got the wind and then some. Puddles from the rain
that fell during the night had frozen and they measured the wind to be blowing
24-27 mph. Even the birds weren’t flying. That should have been an omen.
They did wait until 10 o’clock, but became impatient and with their mind
set on being home by Christmas, decided to give it a try. They hug out the
signal flag to notify the men at the lifesaving station they were going to make
the attempt.
The rest is history. They made four successful flights on the 17th
and became the first to make manned, heavier than air, powered, controlled,
sustained flights. The last flight went 852 feet in 59 seconds.
They sent a telegram home with the exciting news of their success. According
to their niece, Ivonette Miller, who was 7 in 1903, the children were more
excited that Wilbur and Orville would be home for Christmas. She recalled that
they said something like:
"Oh, goody, Uncle Will will be home in time to carve the Christmas
turkey!"
Amanda Wright Lane, the great-grand niece of Wilbur and Orville, speaking at
the Wright Memorial in Dayton on the occasion of the annual Wreath-laying
ceremony commemorating the 102nd anniversary of the first flight
said:
"The Wright family was thrilled to learn about that first flight, but
they were happier yet to know that meant the boys, great cooks, would be home
in time for Wilbur to stuff the Christmas turkey and for Orville to make his
cranberry bunny, served at holiday meals."
They arrived home the evening of Dec. 23 in time for a merry
family Christmas.
1905 Plane Parts
Margaret Hollowell sent to Orville Wright in 1928 a number of items she had
collected from Kitty Hawk and asked him to identify them. He laid the request
aside and forgot about it until nine years later.
He had his secretary Mabel Beck sent a letter to Hollowell to find out if
she still lived at the same address. She did, so he wrote the following letter
to her on December 27, 1937.
Miss Margaret Hollowell
Bay Side,
Elizabeth City, North Carolina
Dear Miss Hollowell
I
am reporting under separate cover all of the material sent to me in 1928 for
identification, excepting two small wooden wheels. I am not returning the
letter because they were never used on any of our gliders or flying machines
and have no value.
The two pieces of cloth were from the covering of the wings of the 1905
motored plane. The unvarnished ash pieces are ribs of the 1902 glider.
The signature to the letter of August 17, 1908 to you was written by my
brother, Lorin.
The paper targets were made in May 1908. The initials W, C and O indicate
Wilbur, Charles Furnas, and myself.
Comment: He is referring to gun targets. The Wrights would set them at 50
yards and compete for who could get the best score. The initials were written
next to the bullet holes. Charles Furnas was a Dayton mechanic who joined the
Wrights at Kitty Hawk in 1908. He became the first airplane passenger while he
was there.
The motored plane, of which you have the parts, was flown at Dayton in 1905.
In 1908 it was taken to Kitty Hawk so we could get practice before attempting
to carry out contracts which we had engaged to fulfill that year.
The wings of the 1905 machine and most of the wooden parts we left in one of
the buildings at Kitty Hawk.
One of the coast guards at the Life Saving Station needing lumber, stripped
the siding off the buildings and left the 1905 plane and our 1902 glider
exposed to the elements.
Sincerely yours,
Orville Wright
Comment: The 1902 glider was left behind after the first flight in 1903.
When the Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk in 1908, they found the skeleton of its
wing sticking out of the sand outside the original hanger. The roof of the
hanger had collapsed spilling the 1902 glider on the ground.
The 1905 Flyer was left to rot in the sand at Kitty Hawk after its last
flight in 1908. It was later salvaged by others and restored under Orville’s
guidance. It now resides in splendor at Carillon Park in Dayton.
Edward Huffaker, A Kitty Hawk Visitor the Wrights
Disliked
Edward Huffaker was another of the young men that Chanute sponsored. He was
building a glider for Chanute and Chanute prevailed on the Wrights to allow
Huffaker to test the glider at Kitty Hawk while the Wrights were camping there
during their own 1901 glider experiments.
It wasn’t long after Huffaker’s arrival that the Wrights found he was a
disagreeable presence, unlike the friendly feeling for George Spratt, another
protégé of Chanute who joined them.
On June 26 and 27, 1901, Chanute visited the Wrights on the way to Chuckey,
Tennessee where Huffaker was building a glider designed by Chanute. Two days
after visiting Huffaker, Chanute wrote Wilbur asking for his permission for
Huffaker to bring the glider to their camp and attend the Wrights’ test
flights at Kitty Hawk. Huffaker could test Chanute’s glider and be of help to
the Wrights. Chanute assured Wilbur that he was reliable.
Wilbur agreed to his attendance as a favor to Chanute.
On paper Huffaker appeared to be a valuable person to have around. He had
attended college at Emory and Henry where he graduated in 1876, and completed a
master’s degree in physics from the University of Virginia in 1883.
He was interested in aeronautics and began making small glider models in
1892. From 1895 to mid 1896 he worked for Samuel Langley at the Smithsonian
Institution, designing wings for Langley’s Aerodromes, and now he was working
for Chanute.
When Wilbur wrote the Smithsonian in 1899 asking for information on
aeronautics, one of the papers he received was "Soaring Flight"
by Huffaker.
Langley praised, "Soaring Flight." In the introduction to
the paper Langley wrote, "I put trust in the good faith with which he
reports his observations and in the conscientious care with which he has made
them."
Langley, who was fastidious, didn’t approve of Huffaker’s habits. He
read documents with his feet on the table and he chewed tobacco and would
squirt a stream of tobacco juice into a spittoon on the other side of the room.
The Wrights arrived at Kitty Hawk on May 10th and established
their camp four miles south at Kill Devil Hills where they were soon plagued by
mosquitoes. When Huffaker arrived one week later, Orville wrote to Katharine,
"He can’t decide which is worse, the mosquitoes or Huffaker."
Orville and Wilbur found it difficult not to laugh when they first saw the
glider Huffaker brought with him.
The wing struts for the 5-wing glider were made of cardboard tubing instead
of wood. The wings were designed to fold for easy storage and the fabric was
attached to the wings so as to automatically vary their curvature with changes
in the wind.
The design was in keeping with Chanute’s idea that a glider could be made
that would provide automatic control in flight.
When Chanute saw that Huffaker had substituted cardboard for wood in the
struts, he was not happy. He decided to go ahead with test flights at Kitty
Hawk anyway.
At Kitty Hawk, the glider was found to be too frail to fly and failed to
survive a heavy rain. Huffaker quickly gave up any attempt to fly before
Chanute even arrived in camp.
Wilbur
took a picture of the rain-soaked remains of the glider and later sent a
picture of it to Spratt with the advisory, "If you feel the you have
not got much to show for your work and money expended, get out this picture and
you will feel encouraged."
During the remainder of Huffaker’s stay in camp he helped launch the
Wright’s glider and took notes. He and Spratt also provided some technical
help when they advised the Wrights that the pitching problem Wilbur was
experiencing during flight might be caused by the sudden reversal of the center
of pressure on the wings.
Overall Huffaker was amazed at what the Wrights were achieving with their
glider. The Wrights didn’t share his enthusiasm. They knew that there were
serious theoretical problems with lift and control yet to be solved. Wilbur was
so depressed on the trip home that he said man might never fly in his lifetime.
Chanute had instructed Huffaker to keep a daily record of the gliding
experiments until his arrival. When the Wrights examined the notes after they
returned home, they found them to be "inaccurate, as the man was
shiftless."
What really infuriated Wilbur was that Huffaker would lay the stopwatches
and anemometers in the sand and use Wilbur’s camera box as a stool.
Also, the Wrights, sons of a Bishop, weren’t appreciative of Huffaker’s
habit of delivering lectures on character building.
Wilbur thought he was "priggish and lazy."
Wilbur thought he looked a bit sheepish when he finally left camp on August
8 with Wilbur’s blanket. He had the habit of borrowing tools and personal
items without permission and not taking care of them.
He was still wearing the shirt he had put on soon after his arrival. On top
of other everything else, Huffaker’s personal hygiene was poor.
The Wrights arrived home on Thursday, August 22. Katharine wrote her father,
"They can only talk how disagreeable Mr. Huffaker was."
A year later the Wrights were still upset. Chanute had written them about
sending another protégé to their camp. Wilbur wrote back, "It was our
experience last year that my brother and myself, while alone, or nearly so,
could do more work in one week, than in two weeks after his (Huffaker’s)
arrival."
George Spratt, A Strange Contemporary of the
Wrights
George Spratt, a young physician from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, was a good
friend of Wilbur and Orville Wright. He was interested in the possibility that
man be able to fly from an early age and found a common field of interest with
the Wrights. He was with the Wrights at Kitty Hawk during 1901, ’02 and ‘03.
They had a falling out in later years when Spratt claimed that the Wrights
didn’t give him sufficient credit for technical suggestions he gave them.
Twenty-one years after they met all communications ceased when Spratt, in a
letter, called the Wrights "secretive, obstructive and lacking in
vision and generosity."
Spratt once wrote that he was fascinated by flying creatures since boyhood. "Flying
has been the dream of my life. I never scared a bird up or saw a valley, but I
longed to go with it and envied it."
The Wrights found Spratt to be a kindred spirit that shared their interest
in the study of aeronautics. He was congenial and liked to tell funny stories.
Unfortunately, Spratt had a tragic downside. He was prone to depression that
seemed to grow worse with age. The Wrights called the affliction "the
blues" and Wilbur on several occasions tried to pull him out of it.
Spratt had a scientific background, having graduated from medical school in
1894. Strangely, the 28-year-old soon after graduating gave up his medical
practice, claiming it was too strenuous on his heart and took up farming, which
would seem to be a more strenuous physical occupation.
Spratt began his involvement with the Wrights when, like Wilbur, Spratt
wrote Octave Chanute seeking information on aeronautics and asked him for a
critique on a paper he authored on the possibility of man-flight.
In his letter of 1898 to Chanute he said, "Being very much
interested in flying machines and fully believing in their economical
practicability, I have had my views on the subject type written and send you a
copy. I wrote them down primarily that I might have clearer grounds for
experimenting, but am getting discouraged accomplishing so little for various
reasons, principally lack of sufficient funds. With the discouragement,
boldness makes itself felt and I take this liberty of addressing you. The
flying machine must come and it will soon come.
He continued, "Studying the subject principally from observation of
birds, etc., in complete isolation from other interest, I am ignorant of the
advance made. --- Will you do me the favor of reading and criticizing the
promises and conclusion? I will surely count it as a favor. Am I on the line of
thought generally accepted as correct? How can I keep in touch with the
advances made? I want to know more
,
I want to do more."
Spratt shared with Chanute that he was studying the movement of the center
of pressure on a curved surface and had designed an apparatus for measuring the
lift on airfoils.
Chanute was impressed with his interest and activity and encouraged Spratt
to continue his study. He further suggested that Spratt devise methods of
testing the lift and movement of the center of pressure on a cambered wing.
Chanute backed-up his encouragement with an offer to pay his expenses for
his experiments, including the construction of a full-scale glider.
Even though Spratt had said that he had accomplished little because of
insufficient funds, he refused the offer of money because he thought he would
"bungle" the job. Apparently Spratt had little confidence in his own
ability to actually construct something.
On June 26 and 27, 1901 Chanute visited the Wrights in Dayton where they had
a good conversation on what the Wrights were doing and the state of aeronautics
in general.
As a result of the visit, Chanute decided that he would provide as much
support for the Wrights as he could.
Chanute believed that the complex problem of flight could best be solved
through a team approach. Several days after their meeting in Dayton he wrote to
the Wrights, offering to send two assistants at his expense to Kitty Hawk for
their 1901 test flights. The Wrights didn’t
want nor need any help, but didn’t wish to offend Chanute so they accepted
his offer but not on the basis of the assistants working for them.
Edward Huffaker, who had worked for Samuel Langley and Spratt, were the two
assistants.
The Wrights brought with them to Kitty Hawk the largest glider ever made.
They hoped to have solved the previous year’s (1900) problem of inadequate
lift. Spratt arrived for his first meeting with the Wrights on July 25, 1901.
While
watching the Wrights assemble their glider, both Huffaker and Spratt warned the
Wrights that they might encounter a pitching problem during flight because of a
phenomenon wherein the center of pressure on a wing quickly reverses itself at
low angles of attack. This could cause the pilot to lose control as the glider
suddenly pitches downward. (Picture is of Spratt at
Kitty Hawk)
The Wrights did experience problems with control and had to reduce the
camber of the wings of their glider in order to minimize the phenomenon. The
Wrights give credit to both men for pointing this problem out to them.
The Wrights returned home disappointed with their glider’s performance.
They began to suspect that there were errors in the lift and drag data in the
Lilienthal tables they were using to design their gliders. They decided to
develop their own data.
During the lull in the activities at Kitty Hawk, Spratt shared with the
Wrights some of his ideas about measuring lift and drift (drag is the modern
term). Determining the value for drag was the most difficult to do. He
suggested measuring drag as a ratio of "drift to lift" rather than
trying to measure it directly.
Subsequently the Wrights designed two different clever mechanical balances
for use in their wind tunnel they built. One balance was designed to measure
lift and the other to measure drag. They were unlike anything that Spratt had
suggested.
Calculation of Lift: Their lift balance measured the angle of deflection
resulting from passing air over a sample airfoil and a reference flat surface.
An indicator on the bottom of the device registered the angle of displacement
in degrees caused by the amount of imbalance produced by the wind over the
airfoil.
A mathematical calculation was made to find the value of a lift coefficient
from the indicated angle (the sine of the indicated angle). Knowing the lift
coefficient, the value of lift could be calculated from a lift equation.
Calculation of Drag: The Wrights built a second balance that directly
measured the ratio of drag-to-lift as suggested by Spratt. Knowing the lift
coefficient from the first balance and the drag-to-lift value from the second
balance the coefficient of drag could be calculated.
The calculations were a time consuming job. Chanute spent some of his time
helping them. The experiments consumed three weeks of effort. The development
of the data was a remarkable achievement.
In 1902 Spratt again joined the Wrights at Kitty Hawk for glider trials.
Wilbur told Spratt that the 1902 machine was "an immense improvement
over last year’s machine."
The Wrights continued to enjoy Spratt’s company and their debates on the
finer points of aeronautical theory.
After Spratt returned home, he sent $10 to the Wrights to cover some of his
expenses for his three-week stay in camp.
Wilbur wrote him back, "Moreover we feel that your help was worth more
than your board, so you owe us nothing
anyhow. --- "We owe you, not you
us."
In truth Spratt had contributed little other than the pleasure of his
company and the concept on which the drift balance had been based. The latter
was the year before.
The Wrights continued their lively discussion through the mail.
Spratt was working on his own theories but he became discouraged as he
viewed that his own progress was not proceeding as well as the Wrights. He also
was having trouble coping with the rough and tumble of the Wrights debating
style and the realization that he was losing most of the arguments.
Wilbur wrote, "I see that you are back at your old trick of giving
up before you are half beaten in an argument."
In another letter Wilbur chided him, "I felt pretty certain of my
own ground but was anticipating the pleasure of a good scrap before the matter
was settled. Discussion brings out new ways of looking at things and helps
round off the corners."
Spratt in turn complained that their method of rounding off the corners by
switching sides in the middle of an argument struck him as dishonest.
Spratt was invited back again to Kitty Hawk in 1903 to witness the attempt
for the first manned-flight of the Flyer. Spratt, a good worker, helped
construct the sixty-foot monorail to be used for launching the Flyer.
On November 5, the Wrights started the engine on the Flyer for the first
time. The engine ran, but the vibration from several missed explosions caused one of the propeller
shafts to twist. The shaft would need repair and both of the shafts
strengthened. That would require sending them back to Dayton for repair as soon as
possible.
Spratt decided to leave camp for home. He was upset and convinced that the
Wrights were heading for disaster. He volunteered to take the shafts with him
and arrange to have them shipped back to Dayton from the mainland.
The Wrights didn’t see Spratt again until 1906 although they kept up their
correspondence during the interval. In one letter Orville described his joy at
their accomplishments by writing, "Isn’t it astonishing that all of
these secrets have been preserved for so many years so that we could discover
them!"
In another letter Wilbur tried to get Spratt out of one of his periodic
bouts of the blues: "I am sorry to find you back at your old habit of
introspection, leading to a fit of the blues. Quit it! It does you no good and
it does do harm."
The Wrights were on a business trip in 1906 and stopped by Spratt’s farm
in Coatesville for a side visit on their way from New York to Philadelphia.
Spratt spoke of an airplane he was designing that didn’t need warping of
wings, use of ailerons or a moveable tail to exercise control. He called it the
"Equilibrium Machine."
Spratt believed that the design of the Wrights’ system of control was
unsafe. He believed that a way should be found to design a machine that was
automatically stable. Spratt later complained that Orville and Wilbur didn’t
show any interest in his idea.
By now Spratt was increasingly obsessed with the idea that he hadn’t
received credit for being the one that told the Wrights about the measurement
of the lift/drag ratio.
In 1908 he sent a harsh letter to the Wrights accusing them of depriving him
of the credit for the design of the lift balance used in their wind tunnel
experiments in 1901.
Wilbur answered, "We have not wished to deprive you of the credit
for the idea, and when we give the world that part of our work, we shall
certainly give you further credit." "--- But while we considered the
idea good, I must confess that I am surprised and a trifle hurt when you say
that the advice and suggestions we gave you in return cannot be considered in
any degree a fair compensation." "--- But aside from the ideas and
suggestions you received from us, we also furnished you copies of our tables,
not only those made on the machine ( drag balance) of which your idea
formed a part, but also on the pressure testing machine (lift balance)."
--- "I can cannot help feel that in so doing we returned the loan with
interest, and that the interest many times outweighed in value the loan
itself."
In 1922, Orville was compiling a history of the development of the first
airplane and wrote Spratt asking for copies of letters that Wilbur and he had
written to him about their wind tunnel and propeller experiments.
Spratt responded by repeating his grievance and refused to send the
documents. The friendship soured. Orville never wrote to him again.
One month before Spratt died in November 1934, he flew an airplane that he
built. Spratt claimed that the machine incorporated all of his theories about
airplane stability that he had devoted most of his life discovering.
It was a bizarre airplane. In an old film clip, Spratt is shown suspended
like the weight on a pendulum several feet below the wings of the frail
biplane.
Sprat claimed that the machine incorporated all of his theories about
airplane stability that he had devoted most of his life discovering.
It is a sad commentary on Spratt’s life that a man who had been a
confident of the Wrights and an eye witness to the events at Kitty Hawk, was
featured with his airplane in a humorous newsreel clip called Aeronautical
Oddities.
References: The Bishops Boys by Tom Crouch; Wilbur and Orville by
Fred Howard; "The Forgotten Third Wright Brother" by Joe D’Angelo,
Coatesville Ledger.
Roller Coaster Flight
When Wilbur made the first attempt to fly a powered machine on December 14,
1903, the Flyer rose in the air steeply to about fifteen feet, stalled and
crashed into the sand. He blamed the crash on his unfamiliarity with the
sensitive elevator control.
Forewarned, the four successful flights on December 17 were handled better
but still resulted in roller coaster rides that could have flown farther if not
for the sensitive elevator control.
This wasn’t the first time that they experienced problems using the
elevator for pitch control. The elevator on their 1901 glider hardly worked at
all. This was an unexpected result that they didn’t understand because they
hadn’t experienced this problem with their previous year’s glider.
E. C. Huffaker and George Spratt, two of their visitors, suggested that the
problem might be the reversal of the center-of-pressure on the wings. They had
experienced similar problems in their own work.
The brothers didn’t think this was their problem because they were using a
wing camber similar to what Otto Lilienthal had used successfully and they didn’t
think he had run into this problem.
At this point in time the Wrights didn’t understand the true nature of the
center-of- pressure on a curved wing and what was happening as the angle of
attack changed.
Here is a brief explanation. When a flat surface is at right angles to a
stream of air, the center of this pressure lies exactly at the center of the
surface. As the angle of the surface is reduced (smaller angle of attack) the
center-of-pressure moves forward toward the leading edge. It continues moving
forward as the angle is reduced until the surface is parallel to the stream of
air. The center-of-pressure is now directly against the leading edge.
The behavior of a curved surface operates differently. As the angle of
attack decreases, the center-of-pressure moves towards the leading edge as
before.
However, when the angle of attack nears zero, the center of pressure
reverses and moves rearward on the surface. In the case of a cambered airplane
wing, this movement of the center-of-pressure forces the rear of the wing
upward and consequently the airplane into a sudden dive.
The Wrights decided to test the wing of their glider to determine what was
happening. They removed the top wing of their glider and affixed two lines to
the front edge. They flew the wing as a kite under a variety of wind
conditions.
They observed that in light winds the wing pulled upward on the lines
indicating that the center of pressure was in front of the center of gravity
and the leading edge was forced upward.
In stronger winds the wings were forced down at a smaller angle of attack
and pulled down on the lines. This demonstrated that the center of pressure had
moved behind the center of gravity toward the trailing edge of the wing.
The brothers now knew that the control problem with the 1901 glider was
caused by the sudden reversal of the center of pressure at low angles of
attack. These sudden reversals required frequent movements of the forward
elevator to maintain stability in pitch.
The back-and-forth center of pressure travel produces what is called a
"pilot induced oscillation," in which the pilot’s efforts to
control pitch might actually make it worse.
Fortunately the Wrights had made the wings on the 1901 glider so that the
camber could be easily adjusted. They reduced the camber from 1 in 12 to 1 in
19. The glider handled much better after the change.
The problem of pitch control returned in 1903. Part of the problem this time
was that the elevator was hinged at its center. With this configuration, the
airflow forced the elevator to sharply deflect on its own after only a small
movement away from the neutral position. Once the oscillation started it was
very difficult for the pilot to regain control of pitch, resulting in a roller
coaster ride that ended with a premature crash into the sand.
The brothers had lengthened the lever that operated the elevator by four
inches after Wilbur’s control problems on December 14th. It did
provide 65% more leverage but it is doubtful that it did much good.
Despite their problems on December 17, 1903 – Orville described the
machine’s performance as a cross between a bucking bronco and a roller
coaster -- the Wrights were the first to demonstrate that man could fly. The
solution to some of their control problems would have to wait until 1904/1905.
Fly Like an Eagle
Wilbur used to sit along the Miami River south of Dayton in a place called
the Pinnacles and observe the birds flying. In his notes of 1900 he wrote,
"The buzzard that uses the dihedral angle (v-shaped) finds greater
difficulty to maintain equilibrium in strong winds than eagles and hawks which
hold their wings level."
The Wrights would remember that observation in designing the 1903 Wright
Flyer. The Flyer had wings that drooped like an eagle in what is known as the
anhedral configuration.
During their first flights of the 1902 glider on September 19, 1902 they
found that while gliding down the slope of a sand dune, crosswinds would upset
the glider. Orville first used the anhedral on the 1902 glider on the occasion
of his first flight. (Wilbur didn’t let his younger brother fly before this
time because he felt responsible to not let him hurt himself). This change,
Orville said, would reduce the effects of unexpected winds that struck the
glider from the side.
The brothers re-rigged the wings with a slight anhedral by trussing them so
the wing tips drooped about 4 inches lower than the center of the wing.
They tried out the new configuration by flying the glider as a kite and
found that it seemed to solve the problem. The glider-kite flew in crosswinds
without an upset.
What they didn’t know was that they had created another problem. The
anhedral configuration magnified the gliders already poor roll characteristic.
The next day Orville crashed when the glider suddenly rolled, turned up
sidewise and slid into the sand in spite of all the warp that was applied. This
happened on several occasions for no apparent reason. The brothers flew
relatively low to the ground, so it didn’t take much of a loss of altitude
for the lower wing to hit the sand and dig a small hole. Wilbur gave it the
name, "well digging."
Orville gave the following explanation of what occurred:
When the machine became tilted laterally it began to slide sidewise while
advancing, just as a sled slides down hill or a ball rolls down an inclined
plane, the speed increasing in an accelerated ratio. If the tilt happened to be
a little worse than usual, or the operator were a little slow in getting the
balance corrected, the machine slid sidewise so fast that this movement caused
the vertical vanes to strike the wind on the side toward the low wing, instead
of on the side toward the high wing, as it was expected to do. In this state of
affairs the vertical vanes did not counteract the turning of the machine about
a vertical axis caused by the difference of resistance of the warped wings on
the right and left sides. On the contrary, the vanes assisted in the turning
movement, and the result was worse than if there were no fixed vertical tail.
Orville thought of a solution one night when he had trouble falling asleep.
He reasoned that making the stationary vertical tail movable would allow the
pilot to turn the tail as a rudder to assist in making a controlled turn.
Wilbur liked the idea and improved on it by suggesting that the rudder be
connected to the wing warping controls so that when the pilot warped the wings,
the rudder would automatically move in the appropriate direction. The change
significantly improved controllability, but did not solve it completely. That
would have to wait until 1905.
The 1903 Flyer continued to use the anhedral design by incorporating a
10-inch droop in the wings.
The Wrights flew in a straight line into the wind on Dec. 17th.
Their major control problem during their four flights that day was maintaining
pitch.
It wasn’t until 1905 that the Wrights solved their major control problems
and produced a practical airplane. By then they had made a number of design
changes to their machine including eliminating the anhedral wing configuration.
The Wrights were never interested in designing a machine that was inherently
stable. They wanted a machine that they could control in flight.
Flying like an eagle with drooping wing tips may have worked for their 1903
machine. They would later learn at Huffman Prairie during 1904/1905 that flying
like an eagle was not the best configuration for handling pitch, roll and yaw
and they produced the first practical flying machine in the world.
Unstable by Design
The Wright Flyer has very unstable flying characteristics because of its
canard design (elevator in front). Even the Wright Brothers had trouble flying
the machine and they had plenty of practice.
At Kitty Hawk Wilbur stalled the machine on his first attempt to fly on
December 14, 1903. Three days later Wilbur and Orville were able to fly, but it
was an undulating ride as the machine pitched up and down.
On the fourth flight that day Wilbur flew a distance of over 800 feet,
but the machine was capable of flying all the way to the village of Kitty Hawk
except that it pitched down and hit the sand which ended the flight
prematurely.
The Wrights had good reason to select the canard design. They feared the
life-threatening stall that killed Lilienthal in 1896. The stall is a condition
when the wing ceases to have lift at a high angle of attack and the airplane
dives and rolls.
If one is flying close to the ground as the Wrights were, there is no
time to recover from a stall before crashing into the ground.
The canard design mitigates this condition. The small wing of the canard
design stalls first while the main wing still retains some lift. The machine
tends to sink flatly instead of diving steeply.
Another advantage of the canard is that the front elevator acts as a
shock-absorber bumper. When Wilbur stalled the machine on December 14th,
he broke the front elevator but he himself was unharmed.
The Wrights did not appreciate the aerodynamic forces that produced the
instability of the canard design. They were well aware of the four basic forces
of flight - lift, weight, thrust and drag - and that flight involved a
balancing act among these forces.
What they did not take into account was how this balancing of forces
changed when an airplane was flying. Changes in direction caused either by the
pilot or the wind introduce rotational torques or moments that act upon the
airplane.
Every lifting surface on an airplane can be considered to have a point
where the lift and drag forces are focused. Aeronautical engineers call this
the "aerodynamic center" and it is usually located approximately
one-fourth back from the leading age of a lifting surface.
The total effect of all lifting surfaces on an airplane is centered at a
point called the "neutral point."
Without getting too detailed, here is what all this means.
An inherently stable airplane is one in which the "center of
gravity" is located in front of the neutral point.
An inherently unstable airplane is one in which the "center of
gravity" is located behind the "neutral point." This is the case
of the Wright Flyer with its canard design.
When the Wright Flyer is in flight, a rise of the nose, increases its
lift and the "pitching moment" reinforces the upward movement of the
nose.
In a stable configuration, the "pitching moment" resists the
upward pitching movement.
An unstable machine requires the pilot to continually make adjustments to
maintain pitch. The Wrights desired a machine that was unstable because they
wanted to control it. They got more than they wished for.
In 1904 the problem of undulating flight at Huffman Prairie was causing
them a lot of problems. They tried changing the center of gravity by moving the
pilot position and the engine to the rear. That made things worse. They then
moved the center of gravity forward by adding 20 pounds of ballast beneath the
front elevator. That helped some
In 1905, they were still having undulation problems. The situation came
to a head on July 14 when Orville lost control of the elevator and crashed at a
speed of 30 mph. He was lucky not to have been badly injured. When he hit the
ground, he was thrown through a broken section of the top wing and ended up in
a tangle of the broken elevator dazed and bruised.
They then modified the machine by enlarging the elevator and moving it
some four feet further out from the wing. The changes made a significant
improvement in the flying ability of the airplane.
On October 5, Wilbur flew thirty circles over Huffman Prairie, landing
only when his plane ran out of gas. He had been in the air over 39 minutes. It
was the world’s first practical airplane.
The Wrights can’t be faulted for not understanding all the dynamic
forces that were present while flying. It would be another two decades before
aeronautical engineers began to understand them.
Wright Brothers Liked To Take Pictures
Wilbur and Orville were camera enthusiasts. Even before they got serious
about flying, they loved to take pictures of family and home, bicycles,
neighbor kids and events. In 1896 they wrote a weekly publication called
Snap-Shots. Their father was interested in genealogy and had the children
photographed several times as they grew up. So it was only natural that when
the brothers began their flying experiments they would take lots of pictures.
Prior to 1902 they used a 4 x 5 camera.
For their later experiments they
used one of the best cameras on the market, a "5 x 7" Korona-V made by Ernst
Gundlach of the Gundlach Optical Company, Rochester, N.Y. It was a dry glass
plate camera mounted on a tripod. Orville paid $85 for the camera, which was a
fairly expensive investment for the penny-pinching Wrights.
The Korona-V camera used at Kitty Hawk is on display at the Carillon
Historical Park in Dayton.
The Wrights didn’t bother with making detailed engineering drawings, so
the best record we have of the invention of flight is revealed in the many
pictures they took of their gliders and airplanes from their first glider in
1900 through the first practical airplane in 1905. It is the first major
invention whose development was fully documented on film.
For each photo they kept a record of the date, subject, f-stop and type of
film. Exposures were rarely shorter than 1/25 of a second.
There are at least 1,500 original prints that exist and some 300 glass-plate
negatives that have survived. Some of the negatives, including the picture of
the first flight, were damaged from being under water in the Dayton flood of
1913. The brothers printed all their photographs themselves in their darkroom
located in a shed behind their house.
Wilbur once remarked: "In the photographic darkroom at home we pass
moments as thrilling as any in the field, when the image begins to appear on
the plate and it is yet an open question whether we have a picture of a
flying machine, or merely a patch of open sky."
They only took one picture of their glider at Kitty Hawk in 1900. The other pictures
were of their surroundings like typical tourists.
In 1901, their friend Octave Chanute advised them to keep a detailed record.
"Please take plenty of snapshots. You will want them to illustrate what
you write." But I don’t think they needed any advice because they
recognized the important function photography would be in documenting their
work.
And of course the most famous picture of all is the one that John T.
Daniels, a local man from the life saving station, took of the first flight on
the morning of December 17, 1903. Orville had set up the camera and carefully
aimed it at the end of the launching rail. A class plate held in an light-tight
holder had to be inserted into the back of the camera and the "dark
side" removed before each exposure.
He instructed Daniels about how to
snap the shutter and told him to do so the instant the Flyer left the rail. The
shutter was air driven with a hand-held bulb used to blow air through a tube
and push the shutter into action. Daniels had never taken a picture before but miraculously the picture turned
out to be perfect.
A life-size sculpture depicting the famous scene
has been constructed at the
Wright Brothers National Monument. The bronze-and-steel piece will depicts the
famous scene of the first flight and will shows Daniels behind the camera.
Most of the surviving photographs taken during 1900 with their 4 x 5 camera
were of the landscape at Kitty Hawk and views of their camp. It was like they
were tourists on vacation, which in a way they were. The photographs they took
were of their glider flown as a kite on a tether.
The following years the photographs were mostly of their flying experiments.
These were more difficult to do because they had to catch the moving glider
within the frame of a camera mounted on a tripod. This required skill as well
as a certain degree of luck.
They added to the camera a convertible anastigmatic lens that helped. The
lens allowed the Wrights to vary the focal length from a wide angle to a long
lens. The combination provided a slightly wide-angle view that was used to
increase the probability of the glider being captured on the photographic
plate.
The Wrights often discouraged photographs taken of them. In May 1903, Octave
Chanute wrote them and requested they send him pictures of themselves to be
included in an article on the Wrights that Chanute wrote for publication in the
French magazine L’Aerophile.
Wilbur answered, "Your promise of our portraits for L’Aerophile is
causing us a great deal of distress. I do not know how to refuse you when you
have put the matter so nicely, and on the other hand, we haven’t the courage
to face the machine (camera)."
The Wrights didn’t like others taking pictures of their machines either.
In 1905 at Huffman Prairie, reporters began to appear to investigate the
increasing reports on the Wright Brothers’ flying activities. Wilbur
positioned a person on the entrance road to tell any reporters that cameras
were not welcome.
In 1908 in France, Wilbur jumped over a low fence to confront a man who was
taking unauthorized pictures of his airplane that was in the process of being
prepared for takeoff.
In 1909 at Fort Myer during the Army trial flights, Wilbur discovered a
photographer snapping pictures after a minor crash. He picked up a piece of
wood and threw it at him, then demanded the exposed plates.
When you look today at the pictures of flight that the Wrights Brothers
took, one can almost experience the exhilarating thrill that they must have
felt.
Conquest of the Air, A Wright Brothers
Commemoration
By Darrel Collins
Darrel Collins is the knowledgeable and articulate Wright
brothers historian at the Wright Brothers National Memorial
Park, Kill Devil Hills, NC. This article is an edited version of
one his interpretive talks that he recently gave at the park.
Bob Holland and David Brinkley of radio station WCRS Akron, Ohio
who provide programming for the blind recorded it.
Control, Key to Human Flight
How many children like homework? The key to the success of
the Wright Brothers was that they did do their homework
They didn’t just jump head first to try to solve this
problem.
They wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
in 1899 asking for all available information on man’s early
attempt to solve the problem. In essence the Wright Brothers
learned from other people’s mistakes. They studied those that
had attempted flight as far back as the 500-year-old drawings of
Leonardo Da Vinci.
From all the information they identified problems that would
have to be solved by the scientific method in order to achieve
powered flight. They were true engineers.
The problem the Wright Brothers identified in 1899 as the key
to human flight was the problem of control. And that is the
problem the Wright Brothers solved at Kitty Hawk. It would take
them four years to solve that one problem.
One of the very first books that the Wright Brothers studied
on the subject was a book by Octave Chanute. He was an expert at
that particular time. He published a book in 1894 named,
"Progress in Flying Machines."
This is a letter that Wilbur Wright wrote to Octave Chanute
on May 13, 1900. It is probably the very first letter written by
the Wright Brothers dealing with the subject of aerodynamics.
I want you to listen to Wilbur Wright’s passion, his
desire, and his commitment in trying to solve this problem.
Dear Sir:
"For some years I have been afflicted with the belief
that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in
severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased
amount of money if not my life."
On the cold windy morning of Dec. 17, 1903 the dream came
true. Wilbur and Orville Wright made the world’s first
successful powered flights in a heavy than air machine.
Five years after this historic event in Paris, France after
Wilbur Wright had taught the Europeans to fly, at a banquet held
in his honor on the evening of Nov. 5, 1908 Wilbur Wright spoke
to members of the Aero Club of France.
"It is not really necessary to look to far into the
future. We have seen enough already to see that it will be
magnificent."
The prediction is much truer for us today than it was in his
lifetime. Four years after that speech in Paris at the age of 45
years old, Wilbur would pass to the great beyond. His brother,
Orville Wright, would live to see it all.
Wright Memorial, Kitty Hawk
At the Wright Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, NC there is a
large granite boulder that marks the spot where the Wrights made
their famous flights in 1903. It was first placed at the site on
Dec. 17, 1928 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of
the first flight. This boulder was the first marker placed on
this site.
We are getting ready for the big celebration now on Dec 17,
2003. It will mark an important milestone in the history of the
world – 100 years of powered flight. But it also marks the end
of a great era. Technology born at this site shortly after the
turn of the 20th century has allowed man to travel to
the moon in the lifetime of a human being.
Orville Wright was here for the 25th celebration.
Along with Orville was a young lady. She was very much
interested in aviation, Amelia Earhart. She had become the first
woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean in June 1928.
They started work on this park in 1927. That monument on the
hill was dedicated to Wilbur and Orville in 1932. Orville was
there that day. Remember his brother, Wilbur, had been dead for
20 years. Wilbur died of Typhoid Fever at the age of 45 in 1912.
He didn’t live long enough to see the dream of his and his
brother fulfilled.
Orville lived to 76 years of age and died in 1948.
On the other hand, do you realize what Orville Wright saw in
his lifetime?
He saw Dogfights of WW I, he saw the rocketry in WW II and
the beginning of the jet age with German jets. The year before
Orville died, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell
X-1. It was an inventor’s lifetime.
At that time the Wright Memorial was the largest monument and
probably still is dedicated to a living human being in America.
Other monuments were constructed all over the world for the
Wright Brothers in Germany, in France and in Dayton.
The most impressive monument, however, is in Kitty Hawk where
it all began.
Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk
They were looking for a place to fly gliders and kites. He
wrote to the National Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C.
inquiring of a place on the East Coast where the wind was
constant.
Kitty Hawk, NC was on the list. They tried to write a letter
to all of these places and tried to get people to reply.
Wilbur wrote to the Kitty Hawk weather station, established
in 1875. It was located four miles up the beach on the ocean
side. That’s where the Federal telegraph office was located.
Somehow this letter ended up in the hands of the postman of
Kitty Hawk. His name was William Tate. He was the most educated
man living on the Outer Banks at the time. So he was put in
charge of writing back to Wilbur Wright.
Tate wrote Wilbur, there are no trees or grass, and this was
open beach and deep sand.
To the west was the sound. You might see a few sailboats. To
the east you would see waves breaking on the ocean shore.
In a bad hurricane the ocean would wash completely across the
narrow beach all the way to the sound. It will still do that
today in a bad hurricane.
At the time there was Kill Devil Hill, West Hill and two
little hills. West Hill was 90-feet high, as high as Kill Devil
Hill is now and there were two little hills that were each
40-feet high. The little hills blew away in a hurricane of 1912,
the same year that Wilbur died.
On top of the hills, the Wright Brothers would carry on their
glider experiments.
In 1902, the year before they built the first powered
airplane; they flew their glider off the tops of these hills
1,000 times over a period of six weeks. Almost 500 times each.
Three-axis Control
In 1899, the Wright Brothers identified control as the key to
human flight. It took them four years to solve that one problem.
The three axis of control consist of roll, pitch and yaw.
Roll: Roll is the motion controlled by ailerons. On
the Wright machines it was known as wing warping. This is the
motion that everyone in the world at that particular time
thought was suicidal. No one would ever do this to an airplane
or glider except the Wright Brothers. This is the trademark of
the Wright Brothers invention. It allowed an airplane to turn
under control. No one else in the world could make an airplane
turn.
Pitch: Then we have pitch, the up and down motion
controlled by the elevator.
Yaw: Then we have that old southern word, yaw,
controlled by the rudder in the back.
The control that the Wright Brothers developed at Kitty Hawk
in 1902 has withstood the test of time. It has proven to be the
fundamental principles around which everything that flies has
evolved in the last 100 years.
Airplanes and gliders are not the only man-made flying
machines that utilize roll, pitch and yaw. Everything that flies
- rockets, missiles, satellites, helicopters and the space
shuttle on takeoff and final approach.
This is the immortal legacy of the Wright Brother’s
achievements at Kitty Hawk. They did much more than just build
and fly an airplane. They changed the world forever.
Flying at Kitty Hawk
Their gliders were hand launched. Two local fellows would
take the glider to the top of the giant sand dune. The pilot
would lie prone on the long wing of the glider. The two local
fellows would run with the glider down the hill into the wind
and let her go.
At this point in 1902 the Wright Brothers were having a ball.
I don’t know about the local fellows.
Because on days when the wind was blowing right, they would
log in that 1902 glider over 100 glides in one day.
Kill Devil Hill is a big pile of sand. In 1902 it was 120
feet high covering 31 acres of sand blowing in the wind. In the
25 years between 1903 and 1928 it had moved 450 feet toward the
southwest.
I want you to imagine running up and down in ankle deep sand
with an almost 250 pound glider 1,000 times. I don’t know
where you are from, but that’s what we on the Outer Banks call
southern hospitality.
They had wide-open spaces and deep soft sand to land on.
It was very hard to get here by sailboat. When you got here
there weren’t too many people around to make fun of you. The
Wrights walked around in suits and ties all day long.
Privacy, secrecy and isolation they found here that they
couldn’t find anywhere else.
Tate said, "You boys come on down here and I will help
you anyway I can. So they came and they would always come back
until they died.
The Wright Brothers truly loved the Outer Banks of NC. They
claimed that Kitty Hawk "cured all ills."
The First Flight
On that morning of Thursday Dec 17 1903 the wind blew out of
the northeast at 27 mph with gusts of nearly 30 mph. The open
beach was cold. It had rained the night before and some of the
fresh water puddles that had accumulated around the campsite had
frozen over.
They waited until about 8 o’clock to see if the wind would
die down some, but after a while they figured it wouldn’t get
any better.
So Orville tacked a red sheet on the far side of their
living quarters That bed sheet was a prearranged signal for the
men at the Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station, a quarter of a
mile south on the beach, to come over and help them. They were
about to fly the machine and it weighed over 600 pounds. The
Wright Brothers couldn’t manhandle it by themselves.
Three men came from the station that morning - Etheridge,
Dough and Daniels. A couple of locals also came. Brinkley, from
Manteo, and Johnny Moore, a 16-year-old boy who just happened to
be passing by.
We don’t know where Johnny Moore was headed. It was
8:30-8:45 Thursday morning. He might have been running a little
late. Johnny Moore didn’t make it to school that day. You see,
Johnny Moore stopped to see an airplane fly.
They took the plane from the hanger and set it up at the end
of the launching monorail. There were no wheels on the plane.
They knew about wheels because Orville raced bicycles and they
were in the bicycle business. But they couldn’t use wheels on
the machine because of the deep sand.
They had to devise a way to launch the airplane. So they had
to build a runway. Their runway consisted of just wooden 2 x 4s
sitting straight up with a wood crosspiece on the bottom and a
little metal strip on top. The four 15-foot long pieces were
placed end to end to provide a runway that was 60 feet long.
Talk about a short takeoff - 60 feet.
Along this rail a dolly would move down the rail on two
bicycle hubs mounted one behind the other. They would balance
the main weight of the airplane on the dolly.
This whole starting system cost the Wright Brothers a grand
total of $4.00. They only spent $1,200 for the whole five years.
During takeoff the machine and dolly moved down the 60-foot
rail driven by the thrusts of two 8-½ foot propellers in the
back. They were the world’s first true propellers. They were
designed from the Wright Bother’s wind tunnel tests. The
Wrights were the first to understand that a propeller is a
revolving wing.
Each propeller was hand carved out of laminated spruce from a
mathematical equation. The propellers developed 75 pounds of
thrust each. So you have 150 pounds of thrust pushing the
750-pound machine through the air.
Once the machine lifted off the rail it would leave the dolly
on the rail. The machine had an undercarriage shaped liked a
sled to land on the sand.
Then they would have to drag the machine all the way back,
set it up on rail and start over again. Later they would put
wheels on their airplanes.
One of the Wright’s hobbies was photography. They set the
camera up in the background focused on the end of the rail where
they thought that the machine would takeoff.
Orville instructed John T. Daniels, one of the witnesses, to
squeeze the bulb when the machine took off. Daniels had lived on
the Outer Banks his entire life. You had to put a cover over
your head and when you looked through the camera everything
looked upside down.
When John Daniels saw that 750-pound machine takeoff, he lost
it all. He was so excited that he couldn’t remember if he had
squeezed the bulb or not.
This was not Instamatic film. These were 5 x 7-inch glass
negatives. They had to be kept in solution until you developed
them.
Can you imagine the excitement when the Wrights returned to
their home in Dayton in their darkroom when the images of that
first flight appeared on that glass negative?
It is the most famous picture in aviation - man’s first
successful powered flight. And Daniels almost blew it.
When they set the camera up, focused it and told John Daniels
to squeeze the bulb, they were looking after every one of us. So
when your children or grandchildren have children, they can
bring their children here and they can witness for themselves
the miracle that occurred at Kitty Hawk.
For many people at that time flight was considered a true
miracle
This photograph is just another example of how far Wright
Brothers were looking into the future. They say a picture is
worth 1,000 words.
When Orville released his restraining bar that was physically
holding the machine back, that machine was moving down the rail
into an almost 30-mph wind. Moving at about 7-8 mph groundspeed,
it was moving so slow that brother Wilbur, dressed in his suit
and tie, could run along.
You can see his footprints in the sand as Wilbur ran along
keeping the right wing balanced before the machine even took
off.
Footprints in the sand; It always reminds me of footprints
that were left somewhere else. Only 66 years after the first
flight at Kitty Hawk, man walked on the moon. The footprints are
probably still there too.
After a 40-foot run, down the 60-foot rail, the machine
lifted into the air and Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12
seconds. "Twelve seconds to the stars."
The entire flight could have flown inside a C-5A airplane.
It was a dawning of a new era in the history of mankind. And,
life as many of our fathers knew it would never be the same
again. Remember that little things do go long ways.
They would take turns after that first flight. They dragged
the machine all the way back and set it up on the rail. Wilbur
flew the second flight. Orville flew the third Flight.
Do you see what they were doing? Do you remember the first
time you ever tried to ride a bicycle? Who was helping you out?
Your daddy was helping you out. He propped you up, got you going
and let you go. Then what happened? You fell down. He picked you
up and got you going again.
There was nothing wrong with your bicycle!
The Wright’s machine was capable of flying eight miles.
Wilbur flew the fourth flight. It went 852 feet and stayed in
the air for 59 seconds.
When he landed on the fourth flight, the front elevator
assembly was damaged.
They took the front elevator off. The plan was to have some
lunch and fill the machine up with gas. They intended to fly
four miles up the beach to the weather station at Kitty Hawk and
send their father a telegram telling him of their success.
After that fourth flight they realized from all that homework
that what they had done was to beat everyone else in the history
of the world. No one before the Wright Brothers had ever flown a
machine that far.
It was Nov. 1907, four years later, until someone else
matched it. That’s when a Frenchman was able to keep an
airplane off the ground for just over a minute. But, by that
time the Wright Brothers were on the verge of flying power
machines carrying two people this time for a distance of 125
miles. And, the world was just catching up with Wilbur’s
flight number four.
After they carried the machine back to camp and set it down a
few feet west of the building, the men were so excited by that last flight that
they were standing around talking about it. All of a sudden a
gust of wind caught the machine and started to turn it over. The first two men to get to it
were Orville and John Daniels, the fellow who took the
photograph.
Orville ran to the front and tried to hold the machine but couldn’t and let go.
John Daniels, a big man of 6 foot, 5 inches, 240 pounds ran to
the rear and grabbed the uprights. Somehow John Daniels was flipped
between the upper and lower wings and the spars. The wind
sent Daniels and the machine cartwheeling across the sand
towards the hill.
You can imagine six men running trying to catch up with it.
When they did, they found John Daniels not hurt too badly, only
a few cuts and bruises.
Orville said that "his escape was miraculous as he
was in with the engine and chains. The engine legs were all
broken off, the chain guides badly bent, a number of the
uprights and nearly all of the rib ends were broken."
Ever since then John Daniels has been known in history as the
first passenger injured in an airplane accident. He said he
would never fly again.
Unfortunately, the airplane would never fly again.
They sent that airplane back in crates to their home in
Dayton. Little did Wilbur know that this was the last time he
would ever touch it.
After 1903
In their career in aviation, they designed, built and flew
about ½ dozen different designs. Total production of airplanes
in America from 1909-1915 was 100. They also built and sold
airplanes all over the world.
The airplane stayed in those same crates untouched for 13
years. In 1916 some of Orville’s friends persuaded him to
rebuild that airplane. He used some parts he could use from the
original and replaced other parts that couldn’t be used. All
these other parts that couldn’t be used are scattered all over
America.
Kitty Hawk has the cracked engine block, one broken propeller
and some of the cloth. The other broken propeller is in the
Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. Some parts are in the Air
Force Museum in Dayton. Other parts are in the Franklin
Institute in Pennsylvania.
When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon he had in his
possession a piece of the original cloth of the Wright Brother’s
airplane.
So our journey has taken us from the lonely wind swept sands
of Kitty Hawk, NC to Tranquility Base on the lonely windless
surface of the moon and we did it all in the lifetime of a human
being.
The celebration of the Wright Brother Centennial has created
new interest in recreating the 1900-1902 Wright gliders and the
1903 Flyer. The brothers didn’t make the job easy because they
didn’t give much thought to preservation or documentation.
The 1899 kite that Wilbur flew in Dayton to confirm his wing
warping idea did not survive.
The 1900 glider was abandoned in the sand at Kitty
Hawk. They had given it one last toss from the top of a dune. Bill Tate’s Family put glider to good use. Bill
received permission to use the remnants of it. As a result, Tate’s
daughters had new dresses made out of the French sateen wing fabric.
The skeletal remains of a wing could still be seen when they
returned the next year. It disappeared in a storm with 93-mph
winds that hit the Outer Banks on July 25, 1901.
The 1901 glider was stored in a shed and later some of the struts of the salvaged 1901 glider were used in
the 1902 glider.
Milton Wright, son of Lorin Wright, in a speech at the
Smithsonian in 1948 commented that, "Since no one in our
family could afford to waste good wood or metal or fabric, it
was usual to use parts of old machines to make up new
machines."
The 1902 glider was stored in the rafters of their shed when
the Wrights left camp on August 28 because they planned to fly
it again when they returned in 1903.
The 1902 glider was left behind again after the first flight
of the Flyer in 1903. When the Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk in
1908, they found the skeleton of its wing sticking out of the
sand outside the original hanger. The roof of the hanger had
collapsed spilling the 1902 glider and two Chanute gliders on
the ground. A resident of the area told the Wrights that a group
of boys had carried away everything that looked interesting.
The 1903 Flyer was virtually destroyed after its fourth and
most successful flight of the day on December 17, 1903. A gust
of wing caught the stationary Flyer and sent it tumbling over
the sand. The engine legs were broken off and the chain guides
bent. Many of the rear ends of the ribs and the struts were
broken.
The Wrights did decide to save the remains. The wreckage was
boxed up and shipped back to Dayton. There the crates were
stored without unpacking in a shed behind their bicycle shop on
Third Street where they remained until 1928 when the Flyer was
reassembled for display in England.
In 1913 the great flood that engulfed Dayton rose to the
height of 12 feet. The crate with the Flyer was submerged under
water. Records, letters, and diaries of invention were stored on the second floor of the bike shop.
On a shelf behind their house on Hawthorn St. were stored the
irreplaceable photograph negatives of their Kitty Hawk and
Huffman Prairie flights, including the famous picture of the
"first flight."
The Flyer was partially protected by a layer of mud. Orville
cleaned mud off the top of the crates and put them back into the
shed.
The records survived with little damage. The glass plate
negatives had some damage but were not a total loss. The famous
photograph of the "first flight" was slightly damaged
on the lower left corner.
Orville at one point talked about burning the Flyer, but was
talked out of that drastic measure. In 1928 he took the remains
of the Flyer out of the crates, restored it from memory and sent
it to his friends in England for display in the British Science
Museum.
At question is how good was Orville’s memory. The Wrights
made no detailed engineering drawings of the Flyer or the
gliders because they treasured secrecy. Wilbur drew one 3-view
sketch of the Flyer on brown wrapping paper (now housed at the Franklin
Institute). They really didn’t require engineering drawings
because they built what they conceived and made changes in the
field.
Also, Orville was restoring the Flyer for display, not for
flight. Absolute adherence to historical accuracy was
unnecessary.
After the Flyer returned to America, The National Air and
Space Museum constructed a set of engineering drawings based on
the restored Flyer. But, there still remain many construction
details that are unknown.
The 1904 Flyer was burned to make more room in their Dayton
hanger at Huffman Prairie.
The 1905 Flyer, the first practical airplane, was left to rot
in the sand at Kitty Hawk after its last flights in 1908. It was
latter salvaged by others and restored under Orville's guidance.
It now resides in splendor at Carillon Park in Dayton.
The Wrights became
interested in solving the problem of flying when the famous
German flight experimenter, Otto Lilienthal, lost control when a
gust of wind tipped his glider and he died after the glider
crashed on August of 1896. They pondered over why Lilienthal had
failed.
In
the spring of 1895, they opened the Wright Cycle Company at 22 South Williams Street in
Dayton. In 1896, they first began to make mostly handcrafted bicycles under
their own brand names of the St. Clair and the top-of-the-line, the Van Cleve.
Each was built up from raw tubing and brazed with a machine the Wrights had
developed themselves. Each frame was brush-painted with five coats of either
black or carmine enamel. They built wheels with either wooden or metal rims.
Before
the turn of the century, there were many ships (some estimate
thousands) wrecked on the sandbars off the shore of the Outer
Banks, N.C. The carnage justified the name, Graveyard of the
Atlantic.