Lot Essay
HISTORICAL NOTES
The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, are universally known as the first men succesfully to fly in a powered aeroplane. Success came on 17th December 1903 on the lower slopes of Kill Devil Hill at Kitty Hawk, South Carolina. Their machine was the Wright Flyer, designed and built by them having an engine of their design and construction and driving two propellers of their creation via a pair of chains; one of the chains was crossed to produce counter rotation of the propellers. Orville, the younger brother, was the pilot and the flight was judged to have lasted twelve seconds and covered 120 feet. Later the same day, three more successful flights were completed, the fourth and final flight lasting about 59 seconds and covering about 850 feet, this time flown by Wilbur Wright. The brother's success was richly deserved for they had approached their first flight progressively and scientifically over a period of several years, always keeping a sensible balance between theory and practical experiments.
It has been said that had the Wright brothers not existed, or not succeeded, someone else would have made the first flight very soon after 1903. The evidence however falls far short of of supporting this view. Certainly the German Otto Lilienthal deserves the credit for much of the data available to the Wright brothers when they started their experiments. Lilienthal wrote one of the early classics of aviation Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegenkunst (Bird Flight as the Basis of Aviation) which was published in 1889. He constructed several monoplane and biplane gliders which were controlled by the pilot, suspended below the aircraft, moving his body in the desired direction and thus shifting the centre of gravity. He was building and testing a powered glider at the time of his death in 1896 when he crashed in the Støllner Hills and died the next day in a Berlin clinic. Invaluable though his research was it was arguably limited by his fixation with reproducing bird wings and not progressing towards a less complex, more readily engineered aerofoil.
In Britain, the now almost forgotten Percy Pilcher built a Lilienthal inspired glider in Scotland and then his own more advanced glider, the Hawk - but even the latter adhered to wings designed in imitation of those of birds. Pilcher was working on a powered machine when he was killed gliding in 1899 - becoming the first heavier-then-air pilot to be killed in Britain.
In the United States, the Wright's fellow countryman and picturesquely named Octave Chanute was another imitator of Lilienthal but in 1900 when he met the Wright brothers, he subjugated his own own experimental work to support the Wrights in theirs. In 1894 he had published his treatise Progress in Flying Machines which doubtless would have been invaluable to the Wrights early in their experiments.
Finally, among the possible contenders for the first manned, powered flight was another American, Langley, who probably came closest to beating the Wrights. He had carried out successful experiments with steam-powered flying models in the 1890s and was financed by the US Government to build a man-carrying "Aerodrome" (aeroplane). The first attempts at flying the Aerodrome took place on 7th October and 8th December 1903 - only days before the Wrights successful flight. Both attempts failed because either the aeroplane fouled its launching ramp (atop a boat on the Potomac River) or through structural failure immediately after launch. History is uncertain about which occurred but the US Goverment lost faith in Langley and withdrew it's financial support.
The most compelling evidence that the Wright brothers were comfortably ahead of their rivals was, however, that no other aeroplane managed a flight of more than 20 seconds until 1906.
Wilbur and Orville enjoyed no financial support. They had made their money building bicycles and publishing a newspaper in Dayton, Ohio and they used their fortune to finance their flying. Wilbur had been born in 1867 and died at the early age of forty five, in 1912, from typhoid fever. Orville was born in 1871 and survived until 1948. It is probable that Wilbur was the stronger and more inspirational of the two. Their Flyer I had a wing span of 40ft. 4in. and employed wing warping for lateral control. Because of its configuration with a forward elevetor it lacked natural stability and would undoubtedly have been demanding to fly. It was, however, successful.
By 1908 the Wright Brothers were demonstrating their Flyer in public and becoming increasingly concerned about infringements of the patents they had taken out to protect their ideas. They wished to manufacture their Flyer in Europe and reserved rights in Britain by licencing Short Brothers to build about six Flyers in England. In France and Germany, Wright companies had been established to manufacture the Flyer but with only limited commercial success.
James Jacobs, who built this model of the Wright Flyer I in 1916, became an employee of the Dayton - Wright Airplane Company - a firm to which Orville Wright had put his name when it was founded shortly after America declared war on Germany in April 1917. Jacobs and Orville had worked together on an idea of Orville's for a wing leading edge lift enhancement device similar to the slotted wing concept subsequently invented and perfected by Frederick Handley Page in Britain. A patent was applied for to protect the Wright/Jacobs device in 1921.
Earlier Orville had become embroiled in a dispute with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. over refurbishing the Flyer I to be exhibited; the Smithsonian preferred a model of the Wrights' 1908 Army Flyer. In 1916 Orville was induced to reconstruct the 1903 Flyer I for exhibition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for which purpose it was brought out of storage. It was during this process that Jacobs built his two models using wood and fabric from the remains of Flyer I. Meanwhile the dispute with the Smithsonian rumbled on until in 1928 Orville released the Flyer I to Britain for long term display in the Science Museum in London, as a result of his frustration with the Smithsonian Institution. Since the refurbishment of the Flyer in 1916 it had deteriorated whilst awaiting a decision on its final resting place and was restored in 1926/27 again with the help of James Jacobs.
The W B Thompson whose name is stamped on the reverse of the frame containing the typed note about this model of the Wright Flyer was a mining tycoon heading a group of Industrialists who bought the Wright Company from Orville on 15 October 1915. After Wilbur's death in 1912 it seems Orville became increasingly disinterested in the business activites of his company and wanted to concentrate on experimentation to continue the development of flying machines. Towards this end, he began to buy the stock held by fellow directors until he was in the commanding position necessary to sell the company to William Boyce Thompson - for a rumoured sum of $1.5million which would have been comfortably more than the brothers had earned from their invention during Wilbur's lifetime.
This new Wright firm merged with Glenn Martin in 1916 to become Wright-Martin which included the Simplex Company who held the the American licence to build the Hispano-Suiza aero-engine. From here the engine building experience led to the Wright Aeronautical Corporation which concentrated on aero-engines after Martin dropped out in 1918 to form a new aircraft company. The Wright Corporation pioneered the development and production of radial aero-engines in the USA and eventually merged with Curtis to become Curtis-Wright in 1929. After the Second World War, Curtis-Wright were hit by the cancellation of wartime contracts and failed to produce viable contenders in either the military or civil aircraft markets. The Curtis-Wright aeroplane division was acquired in 1946 by North American who used the facilities for the production of F.86 Sabres. The Wright aero-engine company failed to move quickly enough from piston engines to jet engines and became immersed in the R-3350 Turbo-Compound development of the 18 cylinder radial engine which used exhaust gasses to drive turbines thus increasing the output to a phenominal 3,250hp. The production version of this engine was used in Super Constellations and other military and civil applications. Ultimately however the decline of Wright engines became as rapid as that of Curtis in aircraft manufacture and, sadly, the once-dominant aero-engine company was sold in 1985 to the John Deere tractor giant.
The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, are universally known as the first men succesfully to fly in a powered aeroplane. Success came on 17th December 1903 on the lower slopes of Kill Devil Hill at Kitty Hawk, South Carolina. Their machine was the Wright Flyer, designed and built by them having an engine of their design and construction and driving two propellers of their creation via a pair of chains; one of the chains was crossed to produce counter rotation of the propellers. Orville, the younger brother, was the pilot and the flight was judged to have lasted twelve seconds and covered 120 feet. Later the same day, three more successful flights were completed, the fourth and final flight lasting about 59 seconds and covering about 850 feet, this time flown by Wilbur Wright. The brother's success was richly deserved for they had approached their first flight progressively and scientifically over a period of several years, always keeping a sensible balance between theory and practical experiments.
It has been said that had the Wright brothers not existed, or not succeeded, someone else would have made the first flight very soon after 1903. The evidence however falls far short of of supporting this view. Certainly the German Otto Lilienthal deserves the credit for much of the data available to the Wright brothers when they started their experiments. Lilienthal wrote one of the early classics of aviation Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegenkunst (Bird Flight as the Basis of Aviation) which was published in 1889. He constructed several monoplane and biplane gliders which were controlled by the pilot, suspended below the aircraft, moving his body in the desired direction and thus shifting the centre of gravity. He was building and testing a powered glider at the time of his death in 1896 when he crashed in the Støllner Hills and died the next day in a Berlin clinic. Invaluable though his research was it was arguably limited by his fixation with reproducing bird wings and not progressing towards a less complex, more readily engineered aerofoil.
In Britain, the now almost forgotten Percy Pilcher built a Lilienthal inspired glider in Scotland and then his own more advanced glider, the Hawk - but even the latter adhered to wings designed in imitation of those of birds. Pilcher was working on a powered machine when he was killed gliding in 1899 - becoming the first heavier-then-air pilot to be killed in Britain.
In the United States, the Wright's fellow countryman and picturesquely named Octave Chanute was another imitator of Lilienthal but in 1900 when he met the Wright brothers, he subjugated his own own experimental work to support the Wrights in theirs. In 1894 he had published his treatise Progress in Flying Machines which doubtless would have been invaluable to the Wrights early in their experiments.
Finally, among the possible contenders for the first manned, powered flight was another American, Langley, who probably came closest to beating the Wrights. He had carried out successful experiments with steam-powered flying models in the 1890s and was financed by the US Government to build a man-carrying "Aerodrome" (aeroplane). The first attempts at flying the Aerodrome took place on 7th October and 8th December 1903 - only days before the Wrights successful flight. Both attempts failed because either the aeroplane fouled its launching ramp (atop a boat on the Potomac River) or through structural failure immediately after launch. History is uncertain about which occurred but the US Goverment lost faith in Langley and withdrew it's financial support.
The most compelling evidence that the Wright brothers were comfortably ahead of their rivals was, however, that no other aeroplane managed a flight of more than 20 seconds until 1906.
Wilbur and Orville enjoyed no financial support. They had made their money building bicycles and publishing a newspaper in Dayton, Ohio and they used their fortune to finance their flying. Wilbur had been born in 1867 and died at the early age of forty five, in 1912, from typhoid fever. Orville was born in 1871 and survived until 1948. It is probable that Wilbur was the stronger and more inspirational of the two. Their Flyer I had a wing span of 40ft. 4in. and employed wing warping for lateral control. Because of its configuration with a forward elevetor it lacked natural stability and would undoubtedly have been demanding to fly. It was, however, successful.
By 1908 the Wright Brothers were demonstrating their Flyer in public and becoming increasingly concerned about infringements of the patents they had taken out to protect their ideas. They wished to manufacture their Flyer in Europe and reserved rights in Britain by licencing Short Brothers to build about six Flyers in England. In France and Germany, Wright companies had been established to manufacture the Flyer but with only limited commercial success.
James Jacobs, who built this model of the Wright Flyer I in 1916, became an employee of the Dayton - Wright Airplane Company - a firm to which Orville Wright had put his name when it was founded shortly after America declared war on Germany in April 1917. Jacobs and Orville had worked together on an idea of Orville's for a wing leading edge lift enhancement device similar to the slotted wing concept subsequently invented and perfected by Frederick Handley Page in Britain. A patent was applied for to protect the Wright/Jacobs device in 1921.
Earlier Orville had become embroiled in a dispute with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. over refurbishing the Flyer I to be exhibited; the Smithsonian preferred a model of the Wrights' 1908 Army Flyer. In 1916 Orville was induced to reconstruct the 1903 Flyer I for exhibition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for which purpose it was brought out of storage. It was during this process that Jacobs built his two models using wood and fabric from the remains of Flyer I. Meanwhile the dispute with the Smithsonian rumbled on until in 1928 Orville released the Flyer I to Britain for long term display in the Science Museum in London, as a result of his frustration with the Smithsonian Institution. Since the refurbishment of the Flyer in 1916 it had deteriorated whilst awaiting a decision on its final resting place and was restored in 1926/27 again with the help of James Jacobs.
The W B Thompson whose name is stamped on the reverse of the frame containing the typed note about this model of the Wright Flyer was a mining tycoon heading a group of Industrialists who bought the Wright Company from Orville on 15 October 1915. After Wilbur's death in 1912 it seems Orville became increasingly disinterested in the business activites of his company and wanted to concentrate on experimentation to continue the development of flying machines. Towards this end, he began to buy the stock held by fellow directors until he was in the commanding position necessary to sell the company to William Boyce Thompson - for a rumoured sum of $1.5million which would have been comfortably more than the brothers had earned from their invention during Wilbur's lifetime.
This new Wright firm merged with Glenn Martin in 1916 to become Wright-Martin which included the Simplex Company who held the the American licence to build the Hispano-Suiza aero-engine. From here the engine building experience led to the Wright Aeronautical Corporation which concentrated on aero-engines after Martin dropped out in 1918 to form a new aircraft company. The Wright Corporation pioneered the development and production of radial aero-engines in the USA and eventually merged with Curtis to become Curtis-Wright in 1929. After the Second World War, Curtis-Wright were hit by the cancellation of wartime contracts and failed to produce viable contenders in either the military or civil aircraft markets. The Curtis-Wright aeroplane division was acquired in 1946 by North American who used the facilities for the production of F.86 Sabres. The Wright aero-engine company failed to move quickly enough from piston engines to jet engines and became immersed in the R-3350 Turbo-Compound development of the 18 cylinder radial engine which used exhaust gasses to drive turbines thus increasing the output to a phenominal 3,250hp. The production version of this engine was used in Super Constellations and other military and civil applications. Ultimately however the decline of Wright engines became as rapid as that of Curtis in aircraft manufacture and, sadly, the once-dominant aero-engine company was sold in 1985 to the John Deere tractor giant.