Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 21, December 15, 2003

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This Wednesday, the 17th marks the 100th anniversary of the Wright brother's first flight and the beginning of aviation.

This was a remarkable achievement. They did this more or less on their own. To succeed at flight meant solving a series of technical problems that had befuddled other better-financed research programs, including the critical problem of controlling an aircraft in all three dimensions. They may have invented the first practical wind tunnel. They developed an engine significantly more efficient than had previously been done. They conducted a systematic multi-year research program, correcting data reported by their more professional predecessors. All this culminated in the miracle of December 17th, 1903.

It's an American Dream, an icon of all that we believe is possible in a land of freedom, opportunity and endless potential to those who apply themselves.

How much more interesting it is, then, to discover how strange the two brothers were. They grew up in a rigidly conservative religious household. Wilbur spends a year or more in a depression after a sporting accident. Orville drops out of high school to start a printing business. Neither was ever romantically linked to any one of either gender, but both were devoted to their sister to the point of obsession.

After they succeeded at flying, their obsession with secrecy and fear of having their ideas stolen cost them both financially and in terms of fame and respect. Others quickly passed them by technically and they did not play a leading role in the development of aviation as it grew to be a major industry. After Wilbur's death Orville sold the business and was not even involved in the great events of aviation. He died in 1948 and many were surprised to learn he had still been alive.

To me, these oddities of their biography does not diminish them, but makes them more interesting. We are unwilling to accept the connection between strangeness and invention, creativity and oddity.

Then, too, I cannot help but wonder what would have happened had it been this society and not the one of a hundred years ago they had been born into. Psychologists would have smoothed the rough edges of their personalities and demanded separation from their sister. Regulations would have prevented them from risking their lives on government property and lawyers from competing corporations would have prevented them from using and improving ideas.

Our society does allow business innovators to flourish, but I doubt that such technical innovators can make it outside the confines of a large corporation to fund and protect them.

It's characteristic of our society that much energy is being expended attempting to prove that others flew first. But those claims do not sustain serious investigation. So this Wednesday, give a moment of thought to two brothers who went boldly where no one had gone before.

"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 cost me an increased amount of money if not my life."
-- Wilbur Wright, 1900.

"The first time in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started."
-- Orville Wright, describing their achievement.

"This morning at 3:15, Wilbur passed away, aged 45 years, 1 month, and 14 days. A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadily, he lived and died."
- Bishop Milton Wright, on his son, May, 1912.

"Wilbur and I could hardly wait for morning to come to get at something that interested us. That's happiness."
-- Orville Wright

"In 1903, it had taken 52 days to drive a new Packard automobile from San Francisco to New York. Less than 30 years later, American Wiley Post flew solo around the world in 7-1/4 days. Today, it's possible to fly to the far side of the world in 12 hours."
--DONALD W. PATTERSON, Staff Writer News & Record

"Prior to 1926 there were no pilot's licenses, no aircraft registrations, not even any rules governing the carrying of passengers — and the aviation industry took off. By 1927, the year Lindbergh made the first non-stop transatlantic solo flight, Wichita, Kansas, alone could boast of more than 20 airplane companies."
-- MEIKE BERTHOLD

"To me it's one of the best stories in history because it takes two very unassuming, seemingly ordinary individuals, these two average Joes, and chronicles their lives through their successes and failures and gives us a standard to strive for," says John Gillikin, a historian at the Fort Raleigh Historic Site at Manteo and an expert on the Wrights. "The story of the Wright brothers validates our own individual dreams .... Miracles can happen. If man can fly, we are capable of anything. You know what? Man can fly."