XVI
THE WRIGHTS AND THE AIRSHIP
Wilbur Wright 1867-
Orville Wright 1871-
Men have always wanted to be able to fly. So long as there have been birds to watch, so long have men of speculative minds wondered at the secret of their flight. Early in recorded history men built ships to sail across the seas, but the problem of air navigation has always baffled them. The balloon came into being, but the balloon for years was only a toy, dependent on the wind’s whim, and of the least possible service to men. The problem of aerial navigation was to master the currents of the air as the sailing-vessel and the steamship had overcome the waves and tides at sea.
The history of invention often shows that some great thinker, or school of thinkers, has stated a scientific conclusion that generations of later men have never dared to question. The laws of Aristotle in regard to falling bodies were never doubted until Galileo began to wonder if they could be true. Sir Isaac Newton had stated, and mathematical computations had proved his words, that a mechanical flying-machine was an impossibility. Any such machine must be heavier than the air it flew in. The weight of Newton’s authority and the weight of figures were compelling facts, such as scientists had no mind to doubt. But in spite of these facts men could see that birds flew, although they were often a thousand times heavier than the air they went through. And that sight kept men speculating, in spite of all the figures and scientific dicta of the ages.
It was known for centuries that if a kite was held in position by a string reaching to the ground the wind blowing against it would keep it supported in the air. Now if the kite, instead of being stationary in moving air, were to be moved constantly through quiet air it would also stay up. The motive power might be supplied by a motor and propellers, but in order to do away with the string which holds the kite in position the aeroplane, which is only a big kite in principle, must have some way of balancing itself so that it will stay in the proper position in the air.
A German engineer, Otto Lilienthal, made a study of the mechanics of birds’ flights, and determined to learn their secret by actual trial. He built wings that were similar to those of the hawk and buzzard, the great soaring birds, and in 1891 he began to throw himself from the tops of hills, supported by these wings, and glided through the air into the valleys. In this way he learned new laws of flight, contradicting many theories of the scientists, and opening a new world of speculation. But in August, 1896, his wings broke in a sudden gust of wind, he fell fifty feet, and died of a broken back.
It was this problem of balancing that had cost Lilienthal his life. He had tried to balance himself by throwing his weight quickly from side to side as he held to his “gliding machine.” His pupil, Percy S. Pilcher, an Englishman, continued his experiments, trying the same method of balancing, but in September, 1899, his wings broke, and he met the same fate as his teacher. It seemed that men could not shift their weight quickly enough to meet the gusts of wind.
Meantime new theories of flight were being worked out in the United States. Professor S. P. Langley, of the Smithsonian Institution, had made experiments with plates of metal moved through the air at various rates of speed and at different angles, and had published his new conclusions in regard to the support the air would furnish flying-planes in 1891. In 1896 he built a small steam-aeroplane that flew a distance of three-quarters of a mile down the Potomac River. And in the same year Octave Chanute, of Chicago, with the aid of A. M. Herring, built a multiple-wing machine and tried it successfully on the banks of Lake Michigan. But the problem of balancing was not yet solved, and here Wilbur and Orville Wright entered upon the scene.
The Wrights’ home was in Dayton, Ohio, and there they had spent their boyhood, in no way distinguished from their neighbors. Their father had been a teacher, an editor, and a bishop of the United Brethren Church. He had traveled a great deal, and was an unusually well-educated man. Their mother had been to college. Their two older brothers and their sister were college graduates, and the younger boys would have had the same education had their mother not died and they decided to stay at home and look after affairs for their father, who was often away. In telling the story of their invention in The Century for September, 1908, they said, “Late in the autumn of 1878 our father came into the house one evening with some object concealed in his hands and, before we could see what it was, tossed it into the air. Instead of falling to the floor, as we expected, it flew across the room and struck the ceiling, where it fluttered a while and finally sank to the floor. It was a little toy known to scientists as a helicoptere, but which we, with sublime disregard for science, dubbed a ‘bat.’ ... It lasted only a short time, but its memory was abiding.” At that time Wilbur was eleven and Orville seven years old.