goshdarnit

The hang glider, space shuttle, the end of World War II; it would never have happened if it weren’t for the Wright brothers.  Everything else that is associated with aviation is like the branches of a tree; all that the Wright Brothers have done is plant the seed.  They took off of a run rail, not a runway on December 17,1903, as the first men to design, create, and fly the first manned, heavier-than-air, and motorized aircraft.  Also if it wasn’t for over coming the uncontrollable aircraft with the developing of wing warping to make the craft bank and turn, nobody would be able to get to Disney World and back in less than four hours.  Lastly, they did not just slap together wings, engine, and propellers, to fly off into history.  They had to redesign the propellers to their own specifications, as well as engine, so that the propellers were not just for water.  These men flew off into history, but not after hard work stressful days, and starting from scratch who knows how many times to get to where they are in history today.

The Wright brothers didn’t just have a few problems along the way; they had tons of them.  These were the first people to pioneer this far into the aviation field.  They had to figure it all out on their own.  These two uneducated brothers, by our terms of education today, would put their skills and knowledge in math and science to create a great American expedition.  The brothers put their minds together, as they always did, and showed the world that man could fly.

To start out is the point that they could hardly control the craft.  Better yet they had to be able to turn the thing too.  That is when Orville came up with the solution.  He had thought of a movable rudder instead of a solid and stationary one that wouldn’t help in a wind gust.  The movable rudder would be able to correct a course if a gust came along or a mistake was made.  Another thing that they needed was a horizontal stabilizer to control the pitch of the craft.  They formed this after the making of their rudder. 

            Another thing is that it was hard to turn with just the rudder itself.  To help with this problem, they designed a solution and applied it to the wings.  This design became known as wing warping.  This literally warped, or bent, the wings so that the airflow’s direction is changed slightly to create more or less lift on either of the wings, which causes the aircraft to bank.

While Wilbur was still young he wanted somebody to play with; a best friend.  He was almost jealous of his two older brothers who had each other to rely on for playing around the yard.  So along came Orville Wright; born on August 19, 1871, Orville became Wilbur's brother and friend.   These two were so close that they claimed they even thought together.  Because everything toys, money and bank accounts were both of theirs to share.  An unusual fact about the brothers and their sister was that they gave each other nicknames such as "Bubs", "Ullam" and "Swes" for Orville, Wilbur and their sister respectively. 

The boys took a strong fascination in mechanic while still young.  When their father, a bishop, returned home from visiting another parish, he brought home a flying toy that had the boys entertained for weeks.  The boys also loved to read, which their mother had taught them.  She also taught them that referring back to books is better than referring back to people because people can forget or alter the story while books keep it correctly in ink.  This is what lead to them being so intelligent while not having High School diplomas.

When the older two brothers were married and out of the house, Wilbur and Orville stayed home and lived with their parents as bachelors.  They took care of their mother constantly and cared for her especially when she caught Tuberculosis and eventually died.  In 1896 Orville also caught a sickness, it was Typhoid from the polluted well next to their bicycle shop.  While Orville was sick, Wilbur switched the store area to a non-contaminated place so they wouldn't get sick from the water.  After their mother died, their main interest was bicycles.  Wilbur enjoyed riding in the country taking in the fresh air.  Differently, Orville liked to race his bike although rarely won.   

Even with the lack of high school certificates and diplomas, the brothers received college degrees and postgraduate degrees after many demonstrations and scientific lectures.  There were fifteen honorary degrees in all that one or both brothers received.  

            While Orville was still in high school, the brothers started a newspaper called The Midget. They made their own printing press. Once out of high school Orville joined his brother in the newspaper business.  They moved to Dayton and started another weekly paper called The West Side News.  They did some other printing jobs for local businesses and were able to hire Ed Sines to work as a reporter and advertising salesman for the paper.

            In 1892, the brothers got involved in their other hobby, bicycles.  Within a few months this too became a business for the brothers.  They designed their own bicycles and Orville even raced competitively for awhile.  Although they enjoyed the bicycle business, Wilbur and Orville continued thinking about flying.  This business brought in more money than the printing business and therefore they were able to fund some of their own flying designs. 

            They made the first wind tunnel to test their wing designs since the gliders they used didn't work for powered flight.  The glider pilot Lilienthal's calculations proved faulty for gliders need a downward fall to catch the wind whereas powered aircraft need higher air pressure above the wing and lower air pressure below the wing.  People thought that wings had to have a sharp edge to cut through the air but the Wright brothers found out differently when they tested a blunt wing edge in their wind tunnel.   The propellers at that time were huge bulky and flat.  They weren't able to push an aircraft through the air. They also had to be aerodynamic to run smoothly and catch the air correctly and to push it along.  Thus they needed to solve these problems to create a real aircraft.

            They also had to conquer another problem.  They had to have the plane bank to turn.  They had found out, while looking at pigeons, that birds tip one of their wings up and the other down to bank and then turn while they were still in control of their flight.  Orville absentmindedly twisted an inner tube box while selling the tube to a customer.  He thought of a kite and an aircraft and ran to Wilbur immediately to show him.  So the wing warping design was born and used in their planes.