Why the Wright Brothers Flew First

Orville and Wilbur Wright were not first to think of building an airplane, nor first to start. So why were they first to fly?

On Sunday, August 9, 1896, the sky over Germany’s Rhinow Hills stretched clean as a sheet, the moon chewed the sun in a partial solar eclipse, and a white shape soared between the peaks. It had the spoked wings of a bat and a crescent tail. A bearded man hung beneath: Otto Lilienthal, piloting a new glider, maneuvering by shifting his weight, aiming to create a powered flying machine. A gust of wind caught the glider and tilted it up. He swung his body but was unable to right it. His great white bat fell fifty feet, and Lilienthal thrashed in its jaws. His back was broken, and he died the next day. His last words were “Sacrifices must be made.”

Orville and Wilbur Wright read the news at their Wright Cycle Company store in Dayton, Ohio. Lilienthal’s sacrifice seemed senseless to them. No one should drive a vehicle he cannot steer, especially not in the sky.

Cycling was a new fashion in the 1890s. Bicycles are miracles of equilibrium. They are not easy to build or ride. When we cycle, we make constant adjustments to stay balanced. When we turn, we abandon this balance by steering and leaning, then recover it once our turn is…