THE FIRST MANNED FLIGHT, 1903 Term paper

In the latter half of the nineteenth century several people had experimented with airships or dirigible balloons, that is, balloons that had a means of propulsion and could be steered. At the turn of the century, some concentrated on heavier-than-air flight. One of the foremost experimenters of the time was Samuel P. Langley, who had succeeded in testing unmanned scale models of his airplane design as early as 1896. Attempts in 1903 to launch manned flights off a houseboat in the Potomac ended both times in failure.

Wilbur and Orville Wright had also been working on manned flight. Although neither had attended college, they were well educated and sophisticated about technology. By 1899 they had both the technical skills and the income, through their print shop and bicycle repair and sales shop, to allow them to experiment in a serious, sustained way with heavier-than-air flight.

In addition to being familiar with Samuel Langley’s work, the Wright brothers had studied the work of Otto Lilienthal, a German and the foremost expert on gliders of his day. Using a United States Weather Service list of windy sites, the brothers picked Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a little village in the Outer Banks. There they experimented with gliders in 1900 and 1901. Because of their experience with bicycles, they focused on the problem of controlling the airplane. After the 1901 tests, they designed and used a wind tunnel to test dozens of wing designs. The 1902 tests were much more successful than earlier tests had been. Ailerons (movable flaps on the wings) and a rudder helped considerably with the problem of control.

In 1903 at Kill Devils Hill, the Wright brothers made one attempt on 14 December, but the plane stalled and was damaged. After repairs, they tried again on 17 December. Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds on the first flight. There were four flights in all that day, the last, by Wilbur, the longest. It covered 852 feet in 59 seconds.

The Wright brothers continued to work on the design of their plane over the next two years. By 1905 they were flying for as long as 39 minutes at a time. In October they stopped flying and began working to secure patents and contracts.

In 1908 Wilbur Wright went to France, where he captured the imaginations of Europeans. France was the center of aviation at that point, with both Louis Bleriot, who flew over the English Channel the following year, and the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont working to catch up with the Wright brothers. The technology of the airplane developed rapidly over the next few decades. Wilbur died in 1912, but Orville, who lived until 1948, witnessed the extraordinary changes that had come about since he first flew on a windy day in December 1903.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Investigate the way the Wright brothers worked between 1899 and 1903 and determine what factors might account for their success on 17 December 1903.
2. Report on the various attempts to fly across the English Channel in 1908. Why did Wilbur Wright decline to attempt the flight?
3. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who had served in the Union army in the Civil War, took aviation in a different direction than the Wright Brothers. What did he accomplish in the first decade of the twentieth century and what did this lead to in the period after World War I? (see Suggested Sources)
4. How much interest in the military potential of airplanes did the various military establishments show in the period before World War I?
5. In 1908 H. G. Wells, already a well-known writer, published a book entitled The War in the Air. Read Wells’s book or another similar book published about the same time and report on how the author portrayed airplanes and pilots.
6. Samuel P. Langley seemed destined to be the first person to fly successfully a manned, heavier-than-air machine. Why was he not successful? Use The American Heritage History of Flight and The National Air and Space Museum as starting points (see Suggested Sources).

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, search under Octave Chanute, Lord Northcliffe (Alfred Harmsworth), H. G. Wells, and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright. 2 vol. Edited by Marvin W. McFarland. New York: Arno Press, 1990. Reprint of the 1953 edition. Provides an excellent picture of the careful way in which the Wright brothers worked.

Wright, Orville. How We Invented the Aeroplane. New York: F. C. Kelly, 1953. A firsthand account.

Secondary Sources

The American Heritage History of Flight. Narrative by Arthur Gordon. New York: American Heritage, 1962. A good introduction to the topic.

Angelucci, Enzo, ed. World Encyclopedia of Civil Aircraft: From Leonardo Da Vinci to the Present. New York: Crown, 1982. The first two chapters offer an extensive introduction to those who came before the Wright brothers and to the brothers and their contemporaries. Many illustrations, often with detailed commentary.

Crouch, Tom D. The Bishop’s Boys. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. The best biography. Good coverage of technical issues but also useful biographical insights into the lives of Wilbur and Orville.

Jakab, Peter L. Visions of a Flying Machine: The Wright Brothers and the Process of Invention. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1990. The book emphasizes how the Wright brothers solved the problems encountered in designing an airplane that would fly.

Myer, Henry Cord. Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics, 1890–1940. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1991. A comprehensive source on the Zeppelin airships, including both commercial and political aspects.

The National Air and Space Museum. Text by C.D.B. Bryan. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1979. A survey of the history of aviation illustrated by hundreds of photographs.

Taylor, John W. R., and Kenneth Munson. History of Aviation. New York: Crown, 1977. Divided into topics such as “Dirigibility” and “Alberto Santos-Dumont,” with many illustrations.

Wohl, Robert. A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908–1918. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. A fascinating, beautifully illustrated book that discusses how Europeans, particularly artists and intellectuals, responded to the airplane.

The Wright Stuff [videocassette]. New York: Shanachie Entertainment, 1996. Part of the American Experience series.
World Wide Web

“The Wright Stuff.” www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/wright/index.html. This Web site includes the transcript of the program and other features.

“Zeppelin.” http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/zf/htmls/introduction.htm. A well-designed Web site with information on all aspects of the Zeppelin airships and links to other Web sites.