Wright, Wilbur

Wright, Wilbur (1867–1912) and Orville (1871–1948) born, respectively in Indiana (near Millville) and Dayton, Ohio, the two brothers who invented the airplane in December 1903. Although they dated their interest in flight to 1878, when their father, Milton Wright, gave them a toy helicopter, they opened a printing business 1889 together and were moderately successful. In 1896, their interest in flight was renewed by the death of the German gliding pioneer Otto Lilienthal in a glider crash. After learning all they could about aeronautics and determining that Kitty Hawk, North Carolina had the best weather conditions for testing aircraft, in 1900 they began testing a kite/glider large enough to carry a human being aloft. Although their early experiments proved disappointing, the Wright brothers realized that the results of their experiments had to be traced to erroneous information they were using from their predecessors and set out to collect accurate information. They were finally successful in December 1903, and demonstrated that a heavier-than-air craft could take off from level ground and fly far enough to show that it was operating under a pilot's control. By October 1905, they were able to remain airborne for as long as thirty-nine minutes, but decided to suspend their experiments until they had secured patents for their invention. In 1908, the Wrights secured a U.S. Army contract for $25,000 to deliver the first airplane, and did so in 1909. Wilbur began to concentrate his energies on business and legal disputes. Returning exhausted to Dayton from a series of legal meetings and court appearances, he died in 1912, and Orville assumed the position of president of the Wright Company (founded in 1909). In 1915, Orville sold his shares in the company, and worked as an aeronautical engineer and consultant during World War I, and played a major role in the development of a pilotless aircraft bomb. After the war, he retired from the aircraft industry. In 1925, he loaned the 1903 Wright airplane to the London Science Museum, refusing to bring it back to the United States until the Smithsonian Institution accepted the Wright Brothers' claim that they had invented the first aircraft. The Smithsonian finally acceded to Orville's conditions in 1944.