Dear Editor,
In this modern world, flying somewhere is still a thrill and the aeroplanes we use are amazing machines, carrying us and our belongings wherever we desire to go on our planet. But at the turn of the last century, starting around 1895, flying was just a dream and no human being had ever flown in a heavier than air machine; there was lighter than air flight in balloons with gondolas which the French had developed, but speed and movement were limited. But in 1894 , a German, Otto Lilienthal, built a glider with wings he had fashioned to resemble a bird’s wings, and he actually stayed in the air for hundreds of feet, making world news, especially among those who were in the forefront of trying to find a way to fly. Lilienthal crashed and died of a broken neck in 1896. But in the USA, research and actual flight on small model machines was being accomplished by Samuel Langley who was the head of the Smithsonian Institute (a top scientific research centre) and he was designing a big aeroplane with a powerful engine to boost flight. His emphasis was to first build the correct engine and leave balance and aerodynamics as secondary features. Langley’s work was known to all of those who were interested in flight and work was being done in France, England and Germany. In 1897, two brothers who lived in Dayton, Ohio, USA and were small entrepreneurs in printing and bicycles, decided to inquire about the concept of flight by accumulating and reading all printed matter existing; one of the brothers, Wilbur Wright, one day started to observe a pigeon flying over his small store and he noticed that the bird tended to bend the tips of its wings to adjust the balance and equilibrium in its flight; he called this ‘wing warping’ and this was the beginning of his search to create a flying vehicle. The Wright brothers decided that in 1900, it was time to build a glider, inspired by Lilienthal’s efforts, in order to approach the challenge of manned flight but, differently from Langley, they decided that the most important hurdle was not the engine but that of stability (balance) and control (steering) in winds of varying speeds, and only by gliding was the concept of flight achievable. From 1900 to 1902, the brothers found great success near the beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and their gliders got better and better with each try until control with turning, landing and steady flight was achieved over more and more distances. Their success was not reported widely as the centre of attention riveted on Langley’s bid to put his huge “aerodrome” into the air over the Potomac, near Washington, DC. Langley had the financial backing of the US government and was to spend over $100,000 (big money in those days) to eventually fail in two tries in 1903. The Wrights, who eventually were the great successes, spent just under $1,000 to eventually achieve manned flight – American ingenuity in one of that nation’s finest hours.
In late 1901, the Wright brothers (Wilbur and Orville) developed the first wind tunnel ever built and began to experiment with different wings to improve on their first experimental glider, and they found great success at Kitty Hawk in the summer of 1902 with longer and better controlled glides. They were now ready to construct the engine and propellers for a powered flight which they planned for 1903; the invention of the proper propellers was itself a brilliant achievement , won by painstaking calculations and trial and error to perfect this important aspect of manned flight. In the meantime, Langley’s team was at the threshold of completing their competing quest for flight and in December 8, 1903 their huge aerodrome was launched only to crash after a few feet in the air. On December 17,1903 at 12 noon at Kitty Hawk beach, Wilbur Wright flew their machine 852 feet, a sixth of a mile, in 59 seconds – the first sustained , powered flight in the history of mankind; a small step but the only success story to that date. But the epic story of the origins of flight was really about to begin in earnest as the Wrights received patents for all their discoveries and others tried to cash in on their inventions when in fact, no one except them was actually flying. This they continued to do on an improvised airfield they developed outside Dayton. More successes followed as the two brothers flew longer distances in winds of varying speeds and fine-tuned everything on their airplane during the next two years while their aerial feats started to get out to the world where others, using the Wrights’ innovations, started to try to compete with the brothers.
By 1905, the Wrights now faced competition to prove manned flight by Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and a team he had assembled but the brothers continued their more and more complicated flights in Dayton and slowly and surely their achievement spread throughout the world and was confirmed in a Paris air contest which Wilbur won hands down. Bell’s team was defeated also as all of their attempts led to failure. Finally in 1909, after several years of frustration in not getting the recognition they deserved, a contest was arranged between the airplanes of Glenn Curtiss (a Bell associate) and Wilbur Wright in New York, the result of which established the Wrights as the real leaders in the field and the real inventors of the first flying machine. Curtiss made two tries and then quit while Wilbur flew around the Statue of Liberty and down the Hudson River and back with a million spectators crowding the West side of Manhattan and thousands of ships and pleasure boats in the harbour and along the river blowing their whistles at full blast. Every time he flew by thousands left their offices and homes to see this new spectacle of an aeroplane flying around that great metropolis.
The Wrights had now established beyond doubt that they were the true inventors of powered flight, and over the next few years they became involved in manufacturing planes and doing further experimentation. Wilbur died in 1912 and Orville lived until 1948.
Editor, President Obama has recently stated that the USA will be committing resources for the exploration of Mars and Neptune in the near future, and when one stops to consider what humankind has achieved in flight over the last century since the Wright brothers invented and flew the first aeroplanes, it is mind-boggling.
The Wrights were classic examples of the innovative and dedicated spirit of what America can produce for the world, and their story shows us all that the small man can accomplish greatness against all odds, once the environment they live in gives that opportunity.
Yours faithfully,
Cheddi (Joey) Jagan (Jr)
