When the Wright Brothers' first plane took off. First flight of the Wu brothers' plane
Whether you dream of starting your own business, mastering a difficult challenge, or literally learning to fly, the story of the Wright Brothers is the perfect source of inspiration. After all, they were aviation pioneers who created the world's first airplane.
But behind the success story there are often hidden tragedies, struggles and failures. You will learn about all the little-known facts from the life of the Wright brothers, and also understand why they became idols for subsequent generations of inventors around the world.
In the following insights you will learn:
- why the first official report on motorized flight was published in a beekeeping journal;
- why sometimes it’s not harmful to miss school;
- why giving up luxury is useful.
Insight 1. Since childhood, the Wright brothers grew up as a team. This was facilitated by family upbringing and the personal qualities of the brothers.
Many people know that the Wright brothers designed and built the world's first airplane. But the history of this invention has always remained little known.
Wilbur Wright, the elder of two brothers, was born April 16, 1867. Four years later, on August 19, 1871, Orville was born.
The two were inseparable, like twins. They lived together, ate together, worked together, kept money in the same bank account. Even their handwriting was similar.
But despite all the similarities in their lifestyle, the brothers had different characters. Wilbur was more serious and academically inclined. His strong character made him the leader in this pair. Orville, on the contrary, was softer, more sensitive, and took criticism and failures hard. However, he was cheerful and had a practical mind.
In addition to Wilbur and Orville, the family had three children: the youngest Katherine and the two eldest - Rachel and Laurin. The elders created their own families early and left their home.
The brothers grew up in Dayton, Ohio. At the time, Dayton was the fifth largest city in the state.
Their mother, Susan Kerner Wright, died of tuberculosis when the boys were about twenty years old.
Their father, Bishop Milton Wright, raised his children in modesty and instilled a love of reading and work. There were always a lot of books in the house. Bishop Wright encouraged his children's education, but allowed them to skip school if the boys wanted to stay home and read.
While still in high school, Orville became interested in business and opened a printing house. For several years he published a newspaper. Later, she and Wilbur would open a company selling and repairing bicycles. They will invest all the profits from this business in their inventions.
Wilbur was fascinated by flying, which he read a lot about in his father's books. Wilbur was fascinated by the work of the German inventor Otto Lilienthal, who created the world's first glider. Then his attention was drawn to the flight mechanism of birds. Wilbur later read about the French poet and landowner Louis-Pierre Mouillard, who was also obsessed with flying.
Thus began the Wright brothers' dream.
“If I were giving advice to a young man about how to succeed in life, I would tell him: find a good father and mother and start a life in Ohio.” Wilbur Wright
Insight 2: Undaunted by failure, Wilbur and Orville began building their first glider.
It wasn’t just the Wright brothers who dreamed of flying at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many have tried unsuccessfully to create flying machines. The most famous failure was Charles Dyer, who built a duck-shaped airplane in the 1870s. The press has always taken great pleasure in covering such failures.
But neither the fear of defeat nor the criticism of journalists could stop Wilbur and Orville. They set about creating an aircraft.
Before the Wright brothers, inventors believed that the most important thing in flight was to get into the air.
The efforts of all designers were focused on creating a powerful engine. The Wright brothers were the first to realize this was a mistake. For flight, it is important not so much to take off as to learn to stay in the air while maintaining balance. It only took one small movement in the air for the pilot to lose balance.
Wilbur spent hours watching the birds soar in the sky. One wing was always lowered and the other raised, depending on the direction of the wind. An airplane is the same bird. To keep it in the air, the pilot needs to control it, adapting to changes in air currents.
Wilbur figured out how to put this idea into practice. He guessed that the wings of a glider should be able to bend or curl to lower or rise in the air, like the wings of birds. This will enable the plane to balance and stay in the air.
In 1899, the Wright brothers began constructing their first glider.
They decided to conduct the tests in North Carolina, on the famous fields of Kitty Hawk, away from human eyes.
This area was ideal for testing. Strong winds helped the glider take off, and sand dunes guaranteed a soft landing.
The first test flights took place in September 1900. The biplane weighed just over 22 kilograms and had two wings positioned one above the other. The aircraft was equipped with a lever for twisting the wings and a movable front rudder.
The pilot had to lie on his stomach in the center of the lower wing, head first. The brothers agreed from the very beginning that they would never fly together. In case one of the two dies, the other will remain and can continue working.
Already the first attempts showed that the brothers were on the right path. The glider covered a distance of one hundred meters with a landing speed of 48 km/h.
“An airplane is like a horse. If it's new, you'll have to get used to it before it does what you want it to do. You must study its features." Wilbur Wright
Insight 3. From gliding in the air, the Wright brothers move on to motorized flight.
The first successes inspired the Wright brothers to continue their work.
Orville and Wilbur built a laboratory above their bicycle shop. They installed a two-meter wind tunnel made from a wooden box, with a hole at one end and a fan at the other. Here they experimented with wings of various shapes and curvatures.
Aerodynamic tube A few years later, the brothers created a new, improved glider model and conducted test runs at Kitty Hawk in August 1902.
The results were brilliant. Within two months they completed almost 2 thousand flights. Once they even managed to overcome a distance of 180 meters.
It became obvious that the Wright brothers' glider could float in the air. All that remained was to add the engine.
But the brothers could not find someone who would design it. Until they turned to their friend for help. Mechanic Charlie Taylor completed the order. He created a motor with a power of 12 horsepower and a weight of almost 70 kilograms. The brothers made the propellers for the glider themselves.
The new plane was called the Flyer, and it had two propellers that rotated in opposite directions to counterbalance each other's action.
To decide who would be the first to fly, the brothers tossed a coin. Wilbur won. But during takeoff, he pulled the steering wheel so hard that the plane, barely taking off, crashed, and it had to be repaired.
A few days later, on December 17, 1903, at 10:35 am, in front of local residents, the Flyer took off again. This time Orville was in control. In 12 seconds he covered a distance of 36.5 meters. Thus began a new era of motorized flight.
But the Wright brothers were not going to rest on their laurels. There was a lot of work ahead.
“The man who works for the immediate present and immediate rewards is simply a fool.” Wilbur Wright
Insight 4. Skepticism from the press and military did not stop the Wright brothers.
To save time and costs on transporting their aircraft, the Wright brothers began looking for a new location for test flights. Now they conducted all the experiments on a cow pasture called Huffman Prairie in their home state of Ohio.
Flying conditions at this field were not ideal: the terrain was hilly and the wind was too light compared to Kitty Hawk. The brothers had to build a catapult to help with takeoff. At the top point of the tower, a cable with weights was attached, passed through a block. Then it stretched to the starting area, where it was attached to the nose of the Flyer, mounted on rails. The pilot released the cable, the weights fell, the plane began to move towards the edge and then soared into the air at high speed. The engine power was not yet sufficient to take off from the ground.
The brothers tested their invention day after day. It took several months of hard training to achieve success: for the first time in history, the Wright brothers managed to turn a plane in the air.
The most surprising thing is that now that motorized flight was a success, the press seemed to have lost all interest in this topic.
James Cox, publisher of the Dayton News, later admitted that he and his staff believed the reports of the Wright brothers' flights were fiction, so they never followed them up.
The reason for this skepticism was the failure of Professor Langley from the Smithsonian Institution. In December 1903, his attempt to fly his motorized plane failed.
To design the aircraft, Langley received 50 thousand dollars from the state. The failure caused a hail of ridicule from the press.
The first person to officially record the achievements of the Wright brothers was Amos Root, a beekeeper and lover of all kinds of technology. It was he who first published the results of the Wright brothers' experiments in his own beekeeping journal in 1905.
Despite the lack of press attention, the brothers began to think about commercial activity.
In 1903 they received a patent. Out of a sense of patriotism, the brothers tried to sell their invention to the military. They made an offer to the army twice, but there was no reaction. Langley's failure also likely made the military skeptical of the idea of motorized flight.
Then Wilbur and Orville turned to representatives of the armed forces of France and Britain. In 1905 they signed a contract with a team of French businessmen.
The Wright brothers received 200 thousand dollars, which they immediately invested in the creation of a new aircraft, the Flyer III. One of the terms of the agreement was a public demonstration of the invention. The Wright brothers had to fly the Flyer in front of hundreds of spectators so that the whole world would finally believe in the reality of flight.
“Our desires should not be limited only to mastering the art of flight, like birds. It is our duty not to rest until we have solved the problem of flight completely from a scientific point of view." Otto Lilienthal, German inventor.
Insight 5: Commercial interests led the brothers to New York and then to Europe.
In 1907, the brothers received a patent for a new aircraft. Business offers poured in from all sides.
German businessmen offered 500 thousand dollars for 50 Flyers, while negotiations were ongoing with the French side.
For business advice, the brothers turned to the New York firm Flint and Company, which became their sales representative in Europe. The company received 20 percent of the profit from each transaction. But in the American market, the Wright brothers acted independently.
Business in Europe was not going well. No one was in a hurry to place orders for the Wright planes. So Hart Berg, a representative of Flint & Company, asked that at least one of the brothers come and talk to the buyers in person. On May 18, 1907, Wilbur Wright boarded a ship bound for Europe.
The Campaign was a first-class ship. Throughout the journey, Wilbur was surrounded by luxury. In London he was met by Hart Berg. First of all, he sent Wilbur to a fashion store and insisted on buying an expensive suit. In Paris, Berg settled Wilbur in the most fashionable hotel in Europe, Le Meurice, with a roof garden and panoramic views of the city.
However, Wilbur was more interested in European art and architecture. In letters home, he expressed his admiration for European culture. Wilbur wrote that he was disappointed with da Vinci's Mona Lisa and preferred the artist's lesser-known painting, John the Baptist.
Meanwhile, negotiations on the sale of aircraft in Europe have reached a dead end. In late July 1907, Wilbur was joined by Orville and mechanic Charlie Taylor.
The newest model of the Flyer III aircraft was packed and sent to Europe after them.
But, unfortunately, the brothers were unable to organize a demonstration flight. They returned to the United States in November 1907, with the Flyer still at French customs in Le Havre.
Insight 6. The Wright brothers' first public flights brought tremendous success.
At the beginning of 1908, good news came: the US War Department was ready to buy the Flyer for 25 thousand dollars. The only condition was that the aircraft had to pass various tests.
In addition, in the summer of 1908, the brothers planned to conduct a public flight in France. They tested an updated Flyer at Kitty Hawk, in which the pilot sat at the controls rather than lying down. In addition, the car now has space for a passenger.
On June 8, 1908, Wilbur traveled to France again. At customs in Le Havre, he found out that the Flyer was seriously damaged.
Wilbur had to completely refurbish, and essentially rebuild, the Flyer single-handedly.
On August 8, two months later, the repairs were completed and Wilbur took to the skies in front of a respectable audience at the Le Mans racecourse. It flew 3.2 kilometers at an altitude of 10 meters from the ground, made two turns and landed successfully.
It was a huge success!
Everyone who didn't believe in the Wright brothers' invention was stunned. Within 24 hours the news spread all over the world. Newspapers in Paris, London and Chicago wrote about the amazing flights of the Wright brothers.
Wilbur continued his demonstration flights. The crowds of people wanting to see the aircraft with their own eyes grew day by day. The whole world watched with bated breath what was happening in Paris.
Orville returned to the United States determined to stage an equally amazing show in Fort Myer, Virginia.
On September 3, 1908, he made several flights specifically for military officials. Each time he demonstrated more and more of the aircraft's capabilities. Orville turned into a real aviation star. A couple of weeks later, he set seven world records, including altitude, speed and flight duration.
But serious challenges lay ahead for the Wright brothers.
“The greatest return comes from the search for new knowledge, not the desire for power.” Wright brothers
Insight 7. A terrible accident almost cost Orville his life. But that didn't stop the brothers.
With his daring flights and world records, Orville eclipsed his brother Wilbur. And then disaster struck.
On September 17, 1908, Orville conducted his next flight at Fort Myer. In recent days, he has increasingly taken passengers with him. This time he was with a young but very talented officer - Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. Suddenly, during the flight, one of the propeller blades cracked and fell off. The plane lost control and crashed to the ground from a height of 38 meters.
Lieutenant Selfridge died. Orville himself was seriously injured: he had a broken leg and four ribs.
Day and night, Sister Catherine sat at Orville's bedside. Thanks to her selfless help, he soon recovered. True, for some time he had to walk with the help of a cane. But this failure did not stop the brothers from continuing their work.
While Orville was recovering from his illness, Wilbur did not drive the Flyer. And only after his brother’s recovery did their demonstration flights resume. The Wright brothers and their invention are being talked about again. In just six months, Wilbur's flights at Le Mans were seen by 200 thousand people!
French businessmen approached Orville with a proposal to train three aviators. This brought the brothers 35 thousand dollars.
In France, the brothers received many awards, including the Legion of Honor. Wilbur, in turn, won the Michelin Cup among aviators, setting a new flight range record of 124 kilometers.
It soon became clear that the Wright brothers had their admirers among royalty. In France, their meeting was organized with the King of Spain Alfonso XIII and the King of England Edward VII.
The Wright brothers' success story began in Europe, but the main recognition awaited them in their homeland, in the USA.
“We learn from our adversity, and adversity makes our hearts kinder.” Milton Wright, father of Wilbur and Orville
Insight 8. Even after becoming American heroes, the Wright brothers did not stop working.
On May 13, 1909, Orville and Wilbur returned to the United States with a number of prestigious awards and two hundred thousand dollars in their pockets. But they had no idea what glory awaited them ahead.
In New York they were greeted as heroes. Crowds of fans and journalists followed them all the way to Dayton, where the main celebrations were being prepared.
Ten thousand people welcomed them home. In honor of the Wright brothers, the city organized a two-day celebration and a grand parade.
The organizers of the celebration dreamed of reflecting the entire history of the United States and Dayton in the festive events. For this purpose, 15 platforms and 560 actors were prepared, dressed in costumes of famous historical characters. They marched through Dayton. Along with them, solemn columns of two and a half thousand schoolchildren dressed in red, white and blue suits moved along with the national anthem.
The celebration concluded with a trip to the White House, where President Taft presented the brothers with gold medals.
But, despite universal recognition and fame, the Wright brothers remained the same modest and hardworking people and never stopped working for a minute.
Two days after the end of the parade, they were already on their way to Fort Myer, where Orville finally tested the Flyer for sale to the US Army.
A legal battle with Glenn Curtiss became a nuisance for the Wright brothers. Curtiss was a famous pilot, a multiple winner of aviation competitions. The Wright brothers accused him of misappropriating their invention.
The full-scale patent war continued for almost ten years without identifying a winner.
Meanwhile, more and more new records were appearing in aviation around the world. But the Wright brothers remained recognized leaders.
Wilbur's flight in New York made a huge impression on his contemporaries. He flew along the Hudson River and circled for a long time in the sky above the Statue of Liberty.
Two weeks later, a Russian-born aristocrat named Charles Lambert, a student of Wilbur's, flew at an altitude of about 400 meters around the Eiffel Tower.
On May 25, 1910, the brothers traveled with their father to Huffman Prairie for their first family flight. First, two brothers took to the air. Then Orville invited his father, Bishop Wright, who was 83, onto the plane.
As they flew above the ground, the bishop leaned towards his son and whispered: “Higher, Orville, higher!”
“Learning the secrets of flight from birds was as pleasant as learning the secrets of magic from a wizard.” Orville Wright
Bottom line. The main idea of the book.
The life story of the Wright brothers is as amazing as their ingenious invention. Despite numerous difficulties and failures, they managed to become aviation pioneers and master the art of flight, thanks to talent, hard work and perseverance.
The funny thing is that everyone is right. Each aviation pioneer who worked in the 19th and early 20th centuries introduced something new into the aircraft industry, came up with components and parts that no one had used before. The reason for this was simple: no one really knew what concept would work, what system would actually be capable of flight. Phillips's outlandish multiplane had exactly the same chance of flying as a machine of a more traditional design.
The first glider and flight theory
Long before Mozhaisky, the Wrights and Santos Dumont, there lived in Great Britain a man named George Cayley (1773−1857). It makes sense to consider him “guilty” in the emergence of such a science as aerodynamics and, in general, the theoretical foundations of aviation. From 1805 to 1810, Cayley built model gliders and tested them on a rotary aerodynamic rig of his own design, measuring lift and trying different wing configurations - a first in history! And in 1809−10, he published a series of articles under the general title On Aerial Navigation (“On Aerial Navigation”) - the first work in history on aerodynamics and the theory of flight. He, Kayley, also built the first full-size gliders, which made short approaches, but were not capable of full flight. Cayley's last glider was tested in 1853. At the helm was either John Appleby, an employee of the Keighley company, or the inventor's grandson George. Replicas of Cayley's glider can now be found in various aviation museums.
A replica of the Cayley glider, built by Derek Piggott, flew in 1973.
Magazine cover with Kayley's original article on gliders, which he calls controlled parachutes.
So Keighley was the first to try to build a full-size flying glider using the basics of aerodynamics. But he did not think about installing an engine on his glider, since steam plants of that time were extremely bulky and heavy; it was difficult to imagine that they could lift something light into the air (naturally, by that time they were actively used on ships and steam locomotives, and a little later on the first steam tractors).
First patent for aircraft and steam model
The first person who thought of equipping a glider with a motor and thus obtaining a full-fledged aircraft was another Briton, William Henson (1812−1888). Henson was a famous engineer and inventor, and made money by mechanizing the manufacture of razor blades. And in April 1841, with his friend and colleague John Stringfellow (1799−1883), he patented an airplane for the first time in history. His Aerial Steam Carriage (Ariel) was a wooden monoplane with a canvas wing with an area of 420 m? and a span of 46 m and a closed, streamlined fuselage. It was driven by two pushing propellers, rotating from one 50-horsepower steam engine. Henson and Stringfellow registered the first ever airline, The Aerial Transit Company, which would offer high-speed tours in the near future... to Egypt. It was assumed that the plane would carry 10-12 passengers over a distance of up to 1,500 km.
Ariel by William Henson.
Newspaper engraving of William Henson's steam airplane.
But the inventors did not have enough money for a full-size aircraft. Henson soon lost interest in the project, and in 1848 he and his family emigrated to the United States, where patent laws were much friendlier to inventors, and Stringfellow continued experiments with Ariel models.
In 1848, John Stringfellow made the first motorized flight in history—unmanned, of course. His Ariel model, with a 3-meter wingspan and powered by a compact steam engine, made several successful flights, subsequently repeated at the 1868 World's Fair, where the inventor received a gold medal for his work. The model is still kept in the London Science and Technology Museum.
John Stringfellow's model of a steam airplane (1848), the first unmanned airplane to fly.
Stringfellow's monoplane, one of the rare photographs.
A replica of Stringfellow's monoplane is kept at the London Technical Museum.
First full-size aircraft
So, the steam model has already flown. The next step was a full-size aircraft - and here the “right of first night” passed from Britain to France. By that time, many people were building full-size gliders - the most famous was the Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris (1817−1872) and his Albatross glider, which successfully took off in 1856. But somehow my hands never got around to a plane with a motor.
The first to decide on the construction of a full-size aircraft—and to find funding—was the French naval officer Felix du Temple de la Croix (1823−1890). In 1857, he patented a flying car - a single-seater, with a 6-horsepower steam engine. Its micromodels, equipped with a clock mechanism instead of a steam engine, successfully flew. But the steam engines that existed at that time were too heavy for flight, and by 1776 du Temple created and patented an ultra-light engine - especially for his aircraft.
However, he built the power plant even earlier, in 1874, simultaneously with the aircraft, which received the simple name Monoplane. The Du Temple Monoplane is the first non-flying full-size steam aircraft in history. The aircraft was shown at the 1878 World's Fair but never took off, and du Temple made his fortune manufacturing and selling ultra-light steam engines for use on torpedo boats.
And only here Alexander Fedorovich Mozhaisky appears. He was one of the great aviation pioneers of the late 19th century and the second in history to dare to build a full-size aircraft, mostly at his own expense. The plane was completed by 1883, and was much more advanced - and incredibly heavier - than du Temple's machine. Its only test took place in 1885 - the plane drove along rails, but could not take off, but capsized, breaking the wing. Mozhaisky became the first aviator to equip his system with lateral controls (ailerons) and generally think about wing mechanization.
An image of Mozhaisky's plane from a pre-revolutionary book. The year is wrong, in fact the car was completed in 1883.
Model of the airplane of Alexander Mozhaisky.
In general, from 1880 to 1910, about 200 different aircraft were built in the world, which were never able to take off. Each inventor contributed something of his own, something new, which his followers used - it was a great era of searching for the right solution. Ader, Voisin, Cornu, Mozhaisky, Hueneme, Phillips - these names are forever recorded in the history of aeronautics.
First powered flight
The first powered aircraft flew on December 17, 1903, and it was Orville and Wilbur Wright's motorized glider. The power unit for the Flyer was an internal combustion engine created by the Wrights in collaboration with mechanic Charles Taylor. The glider made four flights that day. The first - Orville was the pilot - lasted 12 seconds, and the car covered 36.5 meters. The most successful was the fourth, when the Flyer was in the air for 59 seconds, covering a full 260 meters.
But not everyone considers the Wrights' flight to be complete. The Flyer glider did not have a landing gear and took off from special skids (like many other pioneer aircraft) or using a catapult, and, in addition, it was stable only in a headwind, and due to the lack of wing mechanization, it could only move in a straight line, no turns. By 1905, the brothers had significantly improved the machine (in this configuration it was called Wright Flyer III), but then they were “overtaken” by another pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont.
The first "real" airplane
Dumont was born and died in Brazil, but spent most of his life in France. He became famous as a designer of airships and was known for very eccentric antics - for example, Dumont could fly in a compact single-seat airship from his apartment to a restaurant, land the car on a wide avenue and go to breakfast. Thanks to this, he was very popular, posed for magazines and even became the founder of the clothing style.
And on October 23, 1906, Alberto Santos-Dumont did something that no one had done before, not even the Wright brothers. In his 14-bis aircraft, also known as the Bird of Prey, Santos-Dumont took off independently from a level area, flew 60 meters in an arc, made a turn, and successfully landed on his own landing gear. In fact, it was the 14-bis that was the first full-fledged aircraft - in the sense that is accepted in aviation today.
All of them made their contribution to aircraft construction, and the term “inventor of the first aircraft” is simply incorrect - neither in relation to the Wrights, nor in relation to Santos-Dumont, and especially not to Mozhaisky. All of them can be called “inventors of the airplane,” and there were actually at least fifty others like them. And each left their indelible mark on history.
Technological progress moves in different ways. Sometimes a breakthrough idea comes from a lone genius who is ahead of his time. Sometimes it’s the other way around—all the conditions are ready for a breakthrough, and dozens, maybe hundreds of people are on the verge of a great invention. However, in history there always remains the one who was able to take the decisive, final step. For world aviation, the Americans have become such Wilbur And Orville Wright.
Bicycles provided money for flights
The brothers were born into a large family Milton Wright And Susan Katherine Koerner. Orville and Wilbur had five other siblings. Wilbur was born in 1867, Orville was four years younger than him.
Much later, the brothers said that they became interested in flying when their father gave them a toy helicopter, which was based on the invention of one of the pioneers of aviation, the Frenchman Alphonse Penaud. The boys enthusiastically played with it until it broke. Then they made a new model themselves!
Whether this really happened, or whether the brothers came up with this story when they were already at the zenith of fame, is now difficult to say. But aviation was definitely not Wilbur and Orville's main passion in their youth.
Wilbur, cheerful, cheerful, active, changed a lot after he suffered a severe facial injury during a hockey game at the age of 18. And although the physical pain passed, psychologically Wilbur became a different person. Gloomy and withdrawn, he did not go to university, but stayed to help his parents at home.
Orville, who had problems in school, never completed his secondary education and went into business. Wilber also began working with his brother, gradually recovering from the consequences of his injury.
At first, the brothers were involved in the publishing business, but real success came to them in 1892, when they opened a repair shop and a bicycle store. America was experiencing a “bicycle boom”, and money flowed to the Wright brothers like a river.
Photofact AiF
Management is the key to success
Being involved in a business related to advanced technology at that time, Wilbur and Orville were aware of all experiments and technical innovations. By the last decade of the 19th century, attempts to conquer the sky using a heavier-than-air craft were in full swing. Daredevils experimented with gliders and came up with new systems for controlling aircraft. Many died during testing. The Wright brothers got involved in this process by starting their experiments. At the same time, they corresponded with other inventors, trying to keep abreast of their successes and failures.
From 1899 to 1902, the brothers improved their glider models. In 1902, after much experimentation, they managed to do something that no one had managed before - create a heavier-than-air aircraft that was completely controllable. The control systems created by the Wright brothers made it possible to control the device along three axes: wing skew - roll (longitudinal axis), nose elevator - pitch (transverse axis) and tail rudder - yaw (vertical axis). In fact, the brothers were the first to develop a scheme that to this day underlies the control of aircraft.
That is why many aviation historians believe that it appeared precisely when the Wright brothers filed a patent application for this invention, and not at the time of its first flight.
Airplane with the scent of spruce
Having had success with gliders, in 1903 the brothers built Flyer 1, powered by a gasoline engine that was built by a mechanic at their own bicycle shop. The body, like all previous Wright brothers' models, was made of spruce.
Flyer 1 had a wingspan of 12 m, weighed 283 kg and was equipped with a 9 kW engine weighing 77 kg. The total cost of the aircraft did not exceed $1,000, which is several times cheaper than similar projects of other inventors.
Photofact AiF
When all the preparations were completed and the car was at the brothers' "test site" in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a delicate question arose: who would be the first to risk testing Flyer 1?
They decided to simply toss a coin, and it “chose” Wilbur. On December 14, 1903, Wilbur Wright attempted his first flight, but the plane crashed immediately after takeoff. Neither the pilot nor the aircraft were injured, and the brothers themselves considered the incident an unfortunate accident caused by a lack of experience.
On December 17, 1903, Flyer 1 was ready to fly again. This time Orville Wright took the helm. The plane piloted by him took off, flew 36.5 meters in 12 seconds and landed successfully. That day, the brothers flew twice more: Orville flew 60 meters, and Wilbur - 52. The flights took place at an altitude of about three meters.
Five people witnessed the success: Adam Etheridge, John Daniels And Will Doug from the coastal rescue team, businessman Brinkley and also a country boy Johnny Moore.
The Wright brothers had big plans for Flyer 1, but strong winds that arose during towing turned the car over several times, after which his aviation “career” ended.
Photofact AiF
Columbus Aviation
Unlike the first manned flight into space, the public knew nothing about the Wright brothers' aviation breakthrough for a long time. Not least because the brothers themselves did not want to divulge their secrets. For Wilbert and Orville, the “flying machine” was not just a romantic project to conquer the skies. They intended to secure a patent for the invention and then sell their aircraft at a profit. They managed to obtain a patent only in 1906, after they hired a prominent American lawyer Harry Toulmina. The difficulty was that at the same time as the Wright brothers, other sky pioneers were trying to patent similar projects, and sometimes it was difficult to give priority to anyone, especially when it came to individual design details.
Photofact AiF
The brothers continued to improve the design of their aircraft until 1908, when they gained international recognition. To win contracts with the US Department of Defense and a private company in France, Wilbur conducted demonstration flights in France, and Orville in the USA. The success was complete - the audience was stunned by how the plane designed by the brothers obeyed the will of the pilot. If until this moment information about the achievements of the Wright brothers caused skepticism and doubts, now everyone admired them.
The years 1908-1909 were the peak of fame for Wilbur and Orville Wright. They started their own aircraft manufacturing company, but it was not a great financial success, and Orville Wright sold it in 1915. By that time, Wilbur had been dead for three years - in 1912, he, who spent a lot of time on court hearings in defense of his own copyrights, which took place in different cities, fell ill with typhus and died.
Orville Wright died in 1948 at the age of 76. Until his death, attempts continued to challenge the priority of the brothers as pioneers of the conquest of the sky. Because of these disputes, Flyer 1 appeared in the American Smithsonian Museum only a year after the death of its creator.
Probably, the debate about the priority of the Wright brothers will continue for a very long time. But it’s also a discovery Christopher Columbus America can also be considered a controversial achievement, given the visits there by the Vikings, possibly the Chinese, and the inhabitants of Africa and Oceania.
Hundreds of enthusiasts, dreamers, and inventors were preparing for man's breakthrough into the sky. Someone had to take the final step. Fate chose the Wright brothers.
Why don't people fly like birds? This question reflects man’s long-standing dream of the sky, of flight. To accomplish this, people made wings for themselves and tried to fly by flapping them. Most often, such experiments ended in the death of the daredevils. Let us only remember the ancient legend of Icarus...
The question of flight was of great interest to the brilliant artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, who studied the structure of birds and their wings. He tried to establish the features of their flight. He even drew up drawings of an aircraft - the prototype of a modern helicopter.
From the history of conquering the sky
First, a man managed to rise to the clouds in a hot air balloon. This happened on November 21, 1783. The hot air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brothers lifted two people to a height of about 1 km, and almost half an hour later they landed safely at a distance of 9 km.
In 1853, D. Cayley built the first simple glider, which managed to lift a man into the air. Since then, airframe designs have been constantly improved. At the same time, the range and duration of flights increased. This was a great achievement, because the glider is heavier than air. But the dream of a free flight, independent of the will of the winds, controlled by man himself, has not yet come true.
Only the Wright brothers (1903) were able to achieve this by creating their first airplane. Their victory was determined by many factors, including personal qualities.
Wright Brothers: biography
Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright were born in the USA into the family of a clergyman. The values of the Protestant Church, which placed hard work at the forefront of any success, were instilled in them from childhood. It was their ability to work that helped them achieve their goal and build the first one in the world with an engine. This was soon followed by a high point - the Wright brothers' first flight. But not only did they not have a higher education, they did not even manage to finish high school due to life circumstances. Wilbur was injured and was unable to attend Yale University. He had to work in Orville's publishing business. Then the first invention of the Wright brothers appeared - a printing press of their own design.
In 1892, the brothers opened a store selling bicycles, a short time later they created a repair shop, and subsequently launched their production. But they devoted all their free time to flying. In the end, it was the income from the sale of bicycles that gave them the funds for numerous experiments to create the first aircraft.
Preparing for the first flight: ingenious techniques
The brothers became very seriously interested in the idea of aeronautics. They studied all the literature on flight available at that time and experimented a lot. We built several gliders and flew them, achieving excellent results. In order to enlarge the wings, endless experiments were carried out in a self-created wind tunnel. Different configurations of the wing and propeller blades were tested.
As a result, they made clarifications to the formula for determining lift.
And finally, the lighter 12-horsepower gasoline engine for the airplane was also made by the Wright brothers themselves. How can we not again remember the great Leonardo, who was ahead of his time!
The Wright brothers' first plane
In the four years that have passed since the start of experiments with kites and gliders, the brothers have matured to build a controlled aircraft. The Wright brothers' first airplane was called the Flyer. The plane's frame was made of spruce, and the propeller was also carved from wood. Weighing 283 kg, the wingspan of the device was 12 m.
Taking into account the engine, which weighed 77 kg and was superior in efficiency to the analogues available at that time, the first aircraft cost its creators less than $1,000!
The Wright brothers' first flight
Testing of a fundamentally new aircraft was scheduled for December 1903. Both brothers naturally wanted to be the first. They solved this problem very simply - they tossed a coin. It fell to Wilbur to be the world's first pilot. But he was unlucky. The airplane was unable to fly because it crashed and was damaged immediately after takeoff.
Orville made the next attempt. On December 17, with a headwind of 43 km/h, he managed to lift the device into the air to a height of approximately 3 m and hold on for 12 seconds. The distance covered in flight was 36.5 m.
On this day, the brothers took turns making 4 flights. The last one, when Wilbur piloted the airplane, lasted almost a minute. And the distance was more than 250 m.
Oddly enough, the Wright brothers' first flight did not attract public attention, although five people witnessed it.
Was there a flight?
The day after the flight, small reports about it appeared in just a few newspapers, which were fraught with inaccuracies and went unnoticed. And in Dayton, the hometown of the first aviators, this essentially sensational event went completely unnoticed.
But it’s harder to explain that no one paid attention to the fact that over the next year, 105 flights were already made on the Flyer II airplane! The third Flyer, which the brothers also flew in the vicinity of Dayton, again did not receive the attention of the general public.
This was the last straw, which led to the decision to demonstrate to the world the possibility of controlled flights on a device that is heavier than air. And in 1908, the Wright brothers' airplane was transported across the Atlantic Ocean. They staged demonstration flights: Wilbur in Paris, and Orville in the USA.
The brothers even organized events to sell their invention, which turned out to be quite successful. In addition to the glory of aeronautics pioneers, they also received material satisfaction. The Wright brothers' first public flight was so convincing that the US government signed a contract with them, according to which an article was included in the country's budget for 1909 for the supply of aircraft for military needs. The production of several dozen airplanes was envisaged.
First plane crash
Unfortunately, the first public demonstrations of airplane flights were also marked by the first disaster.
This happened in September 1908. Orville Wright took off from Fort Myer in a Flyer III equipped with an extra seat. As a result of the failure of the right engine, the plane went into a dive and could not be leveled off. The passenger, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, died as a result of a skull injury received upon impact with the ground. Orville himself escaped with broken hips and ribs.
Despite this, the contract with the military was concluded. And to the credit of the Wright brothers, it should be noted that this is the only serious accident that happened to them in all the years.
However, in 1909, during a test flight in the suburbs of Paris, the French pilot Lefebvre, a student of the Wright brothers, died in a crash. This was the reason why Russia, already ready to sign a contract for the supply of aircraft, refused them.
Aviation development
Like many of mankind's major discoveries, airplanes were first used for military purposes. Aviation was first used in the form of aerial reconnaissance in the First World War. During the course of it, it became clear that airplanes turn into a formidable force if they carry weapons and bombs.
The first aerial ram was also carried out during World War I by Pyotr Nesterov.
After the war, airplanes began to be used to transport urgent goods, primarily mail. Subsequently, passenger planes appeared. The end of World War II and a calmer world situation led to the introduction of air travel for travelers.
Improvement eventually put many shipping and rail lines out of business. The main advantage of aviation was speed, especially with the advent of supersonic aircraft.
Orville Wright, who died at the age of 77 in 1948, was able to see aviation become widely used throughout the world. Wilbur Wright fell victim to typhus in 1912.
The Wright brothers' first airplane now occupies a place of honor in the US National. It is better known not as “Flyer I”, but as “Kitty Hawk” - after the name of the place where it first took to the air and thereby ushered in the era of the conquest of the air ocean.
Leonardo da Vinci thought about flying in the sky using a special device in the 16th century, but the first flight was officially registered at the beginning of the last century. There are still fierce debates about who we owe the opportunity for air travel, but the fact remains that the first flight was officially registered in 1903. The very first airplane in the world was invented by the Wright brothers.
Aviation history
The first attempts to build an aircraft capable of lifting a person into the air began at the end of the 18th century. The history of the invention of the aircraft begins in England, when Sir George Cayley took this issue seriously and published several scientific works in which he outlined in detail the principle of construction and operation of the prototype of a modern aircraft.
The inventor began his work by observing birds. The scientist devoted a long time to measuring the flight speed of birds and their wingspan. These data subsequently became the basis of several publications that laid the foundation for the development of aviation.
In his first sketches, Keighley imagined the plane as a boat with a tail at one end and a pair of oars at the bow. The structure was supposed to be propelled by oars that would transmit rotation to a cross-shaped shaft at the end of the vessel. Thus, Keighley unmistakably depicted the main elements of the aircraft. It was the work of this scientist that laid the foundation for the development of aviation and became the impetus for the development of the aircraft concept.
The pioneer of aviation in its modern sense was another English inventor, William Henson. It was he who received the order to develop a design for an aircraft in 1842.
Henson's "steam aircrew" design described all the basic elements of a propeller-driven aircraft. The inventor proposed using a propeller as a device for moving the entire structure. Many of the ideas proposed by Henson were subsequently developed and began to be used in early aircraft models.
Russian inventor N.A. Teleshov patented a project for the construction of an “aeronautics system.” The aircraft concept was also based on the steam engine and propeller. A few years later, the scientist improved his project and was one of the first to propose the idea of creating a jet aircraft.
A feature of Teleshov’s projects was the idea of transporting passengers in a closed fuselage.
Who invented the airplane
Despite the fact that the development of the design of the aircraft was carried out by many scientists in the mid-19th century, the invention of the aircraft is attributed to the Wright brothers, whose airplane made a short flight in 1903.
Not everyone agrees that the Wright brothers were the first. Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont designed, built and personally tested the world's first prototype of an airship in 1901. It was then that it was proven that controlled flights were indeed possible.
According to another version, primacy in the invention of the first working aircraft should be assigned to the Russian inventor A.F. Mozhaisky, whose name will forever remain in the history of aviation. Thus, debates about who invented and who created the aircraft are still ongoing.
Interesting! Despite the fact that the invention of the airplane is officially awarded to the Wright brothers, all Brazilians are confident that the world's first airplane was invented by Santos Dumont. In Russia, it is believed that the first prototype of a modern aircraft was built by Mozhaisky.
Work of the Wright Brothers
The Wright brothers were not the first inventors of the airplane. Moreover, the first uncontrolled flight of a person also did not belong to them. However, the Wright brothers were able to prove the most important thing - that a person is able to control an aircraft.
It was Wilbur and Orville Wright who were the first to carry out controlled flight on an aircraft, thanks to which the idea of the possibility of carrying out passenger transportation by air was further developed.
At a time when all scientists were puzzling over the possibility of installing more powerful engines to lift the aircraft into the air, the brothers focused on the issues of the ability to control the aircraft. The result was a series of wind tunnel experiments that served as the basis for the development of airplane wings and propellers.
The first powered glider built by the brothers was called Flyer 1. It was made of spruce, as this material is lightweight and reliable. The device was driven by a gasoline engine.
Interesting! The engine for the Flyer 1 was made by mechanic Charlie Taylor; a design feature was its low weight. To do this, the mechanic used duralumin, also called duralumin.
The first successful flight was made on December 17, 1903. The plane rose several meters and flew about 40 meters in 12 seconds. Then there were repeated tests, as a result of which the flight duration and altitude increased.
Santos Dumont and 14 bis
Alberto Santos-Dumont is known as the inventor of hot air balloons and is also sometimes cited as the creator of the world's first controllable airplane. He also invented airships that were controlled by an engine.
In 1906, his plane called “14 bis” took off and flew more than 60 meters. The height to which the inventor raised his aircraft was about 2.5 meters. A month later, Alberto Santos-Dumont made a 220-meter flight on the same plane, setting the first record for flight distance.
A special feature of “14 bis” was that the structure was able to take off on its own. The Wright brothers failed to achieve this, and their plane took off with outside help. It was this nuance that became fundamental in the debate about who should be considered the inventor of the first aircraft.
After 14 bis, the inventor seriously began developing a monoplane, and as a result, the world saw the Demoiselle.
Alberto Santos-Dumont never rested on his laurels and did not keep his inventions secret. The inventor willingly shared the designs of his aircraft with thematic publications.
Mozhaisky's aircraft
The scientist presented his aircraft project for consideration back in 1876. Mozhaisky encountered a lack of understanding from the officials of the War Ministry; as a result, he was not allocated funds to continue his research.
Despite this, the scientist continued his development, investing his own funds, which is why the construction of the prototype of Mozhaisky’s aircraft was delayed for many years.
Mozhaisky's plane was built in 1882. The first tests of the aircraft ended in disaster, but witnesses claim that the aircraft did rise some distance from the ground before crashing.
Since there is no documentary evidence of the flight, Mozhaisky cannot be considered the first person to fly on an airplane. However, the scientist’s developments served as the basis for the development of aviation.
So who was first?
Despite numerous disputes about the year in which the aircraft was invented, the first officially registered flight belongs to the Wright brothers, so it is the Americans who are considered the “fathers” of the first aircraft.
It is inappropriate to compare the contributions to the development of aviation by the Wright brothers, Santos-Dumont and Mozhaisky. Despite the fact that Mozhaisky's first aircraft was built 20 years before the first controlled flight, the inventor used a different construction principle, so it is impossible to compare his aircraft with the Wright brothers' Flyer.
Santos-Dumont was not the first to fly, but the inventor used a fundamentally new approach to the construction of an aircraft, thanks to which his device took off independently.
In addition to the first controlled flight, the Wright brothers made a significant contribution to the development of aviation, being the first to propose a fundamentally new approach to the construction of an aircraft propeller and wings.
There is no point in arguing which of these scientists was the first, because they all made a huge contribution to the development of aviation. It was their work and research that became the basis for the invention of the prototype of a modern airliner.
The first military aircraft
Prototypes of the Wright brothers' Flyer and the Santos-Dumont aircraft were used for military purposes.
If the brothers initially pursued the goal of inventing technology that would give an advantage to the American army, then the Brazilian Santos-Dumont was against the use of aviation for military purposes. Despite this, his work served as a starting point for the creation of a number of aircraft that were later used during the war. Interestingly, Mozhaisky also initially pursued the construction of an aircraft that would be used for military purposes.
The first jet aircraft appeared at the height of World War II.
The first passenger planes
The first passenger aircraft appeared thanks to I.I. Sikorsky. The prototype of the modern airliner took off in 1914 with 12 passengers on board. In the same year, the Ilya Muromets airliner set a world record by making its first long-distance flight. It flew the distance from St. Petersburg to Kyiv, making one landing to refuel.
The airliner was also used to transport bombs during the First World War. The war forced Russian aviation to freeze in development for some time.
In 1925, the first K-1 aircraft appeared, then the world saw Tupolev passenger airliners and aircraft developed by KhAI. Since that time, passenger aircraft have received more and more attention; they have acquired greater passenger capacity and the ability to fly long distances.
History of jet aircraft development
The Russian inventor Teleshov was the first to propose the idea of a jet aircraft. An attempt to replace the propeller with a piston engine was made in 1910 by Romanian designer A. Coanda.
These attempts were unsuccessful, and the first successful test of a jet aircraft took place in 1939. The tests were carried out by the German company Heinkel, but several mistakes were made during the design of the model:
- incorrect choice of engine design;
- high fuel consumption;
- frequent need for refueling.
However, the first prototype of the jet was able to achieve a high rate of climb - more than 60 meters per second of flight.
Due to design errors, the jet aircraft could not travel more than 50 kilometers from the airfield due to the need for frequent refueling. Due to a number of shortcomings, the first successful model never entered mass production.
The first production aircraft was the Me-262 in 1944. This model was an improved version of the previous Heinkel model.
Then the development of jet aircraft was picked up by Japan and Great Britain.
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Thus, jet aircraft appeared in the midst of World War II. They have serious military victories, however, their losses are also very high. First of all, this is due to the fact that the pilots simply did not have time to undergo full training on how to control a fundamentally new aircraft. From the first successful flight to the advent of jet aircraft, only 30 years passed, during which a major breakthrough in aviation occurred.