First in Flight: The Wright Brothers
The famous Wright Brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright were American inventors and pioneers of aviation. In 1903 the Wright brothers achieved the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight; they surpassed their own milestone two years later when they built and flew the first fully practical airplane. There success is known, but many people do not know about how this bicycle technicians became the World renown Wright Brothers.
Wilbur Wright was born April 16, 1867 while Orville Wright was born in 1871. They resided in Millville, Indiana with their parents Susan Catherine Koerner and Milton Wright along with three other siblings. Wilbur and Orville grew to love aeronautics at a young age and it began when their father brought home a toy helicopter and let the two boys play with it.
Before the Wright Brothers really got into flying and trying to design a plane. They had to start somewhere. This somewhere included a newspaper business and then a bicycle business. They started off just helping fix their friends bikes and little thing s like that and in 1893 they opened a small practice where they repaired bikes and allowed rentals of bikes. This was their new challenge after they got bored with the paper industry. They named their bicycle business, The Wright Cycle Company.
The Wright Cycle Company did business in five different locations on the west side of Dayton between 1892 and 1897. The brothers expanded their enterprise from rental and repair to a sales shop carrying multiple brands. By the mid-1890s, Dayton had over twenty bicycle shops. With the competition growing, Wilbur and Orville decided to manufacture their own line in 1895 and introduced their first model the following year. They did well enough for bike manufactures, raking in about two thousand to three thousand dollars a year from bike sales.
After the success they had with the bike business, they felt it was time to move on. The Wright brothers closely followed the research of German aviator Otto Lilienthal. When Lilienthal died in a glider crash, the brothers decided to start their own experiments with flight. They were determined to develop their own successful design so Wilbur and Orville headed to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina because it was known for its strong winds.
Between 1899 and 1905, the Wright brothers conducted a program of aeronautical research and experimentation that led to the first successful powered airplane in 1903 and a refined, practical flying machine two years later. All successful airplanes since then have incorporated the basic design elements of the 1903 Wright Flyer. During this time span the brothers failed multiple times, but they persevered and succeeded in the long run.
Some might say the Wright Brothers were lucky and some might say they were just hard workers. In all honesty, the harder you work the luckier you get.
