Willie and Orvie were brothers, as close as any brothers could be. But they did have one stigma, they were high school dropouts. Orvie quit just days before graduation. He just got tired of school and walked out. Willie was an exceptional student, enrolled to go to college in Yale Divinity School but he had an accident in his senior year.
Willie was playing hockey on the high school team one day when someone hit him in the face with a stick, and bashed most of his teeth out. By the time he had recuperated, school was out and he didn’t graduate. No one knows if it was an “accident,” or an “on purpose,” but the boy that hit him was the town bully, and murdered at least 10 people in his lifetime.
Orvie was younger and he was sickly. At one point he was so sick they thought he would die. Willie stayed by his side day and night until he recovered. When the boys became adults they went into business fixing bicycles. In those days bicycles were king, and people would ride 30 miles to work or for pleasure. They were so successful that eventually they owned five stores and manufactured their own bicycles.
They had their own machine shop and were experimenting making gasoline engines. They were intrigued by flying machines and began experimenting, using their own engine. The first airplane had a wood frame covered with canvas.
At that time people thought it was impossible to have powered flight. Men had built gliders to fly off a cliff, but powered flight was laughed at. They transported the first airplane from Dayton, Ohio, to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They disassembled it for the trip and reassembled it when they arrived. They chose Kitty Hawk because of the soft sand dunes, and moderate winds.
They tried three different airplanes over a period of 4 years. The first successful flight was on December 17, 1903 with Orville at the controls. It flew for 12 seconds and covered 120 ft. Later that day Wilbur flew for 59 seconds and covered 852 feet. From there you might say the airplane business took off.
The Wright brothers began manufacturing airplanes. The first commercial passenger flight was approximately 10 years later. The first death was in 1908. The brothers wished to sell planes to the US Army, so a demo was arranged for September 17th, 1908. With Orville at the controls and the passenger Army Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge.
They made two successful passes over the field, but on the third pass the propeller exploded. The Lieutenant was killed, and Orville was severely injured. Selfridge was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. On July 27th 1909, they flew at Fort Myer, Virginia, with an Army man as passenger. That day they flew a record 1 hour and 12 minutes.
The boys never did get their diploma, but they became millionaires, when a dollar was a dollar. They built a mansion on the edge of Dayton, but Wilbur died before it was finished. However Orville, his father and sister lived their remaining years there.
There were a dozen lawsuits over patents, and Wilbur spent most of his time in court. Some thought three Frenchmen had made a flight before the Wright brothers, but all three Frenchmen fell out of the sky. Also, a man named Langley, had flown an Aerodrome on October 7, 1898 but he had crashed. The Wright brothers were excellent mechanics, and inspected every inch of the plane, before they went up.
Those were the days when there were less restrictions, and you didn’t need a diploma to fly an airplane.
—James Neuhouser
