Wright Brothers: The First Flight

19th Century The development of aviation took various paths during the 19th century. The father of aviation, Sir George Cayley was a British aeronautical engineer and inventor. He proved his ideas of flight with experiments involving kites and controlled human-carrying gliders. Charles Augustus Lindbergh was the first person to make a nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic. He made the flight to win the prize of $25,000 offered by Raymond B. Orteig of New York City for the first nonstop transatlantic solo flight between New York City and Paris.

While working on his helicopter in 1910, he also built 3 planes and flew 2 of them. Even though both planes crashed, designing the planes gave him the belief that he could create flying machines. Russian composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, gifted $5,000 to Sikorsky to keep his tiny company going during the early years. Two years after World War II started in Europe, on September 14, 1939, Sikorsky first flew the VS-300 helicopter while it was attached by lines to the ground. Even though Igor hoped the helicopter would be more popular, the skill needed to fly the helicopter made it not so popular.“On May 6, 1941, Sikorsky flew his VS-300 for 1 hour, 32 minutes, and 26 seconds, breaking the previous world record of 1 hour and 20 minutes that the Fa-61 had held since 1937.”-Don Berliner.

The Wright Brothers focused on a plan of an engine that was powerful yet light, and then worked on a design for controlling the plane once in the air. According to Tejvan Pettinger, on December 17, 1903, the Wright Brother began their first historic airplane, The Flyer. The first flight only lasted for 12 seconds and a distance of 120 feet at a rate of 6.8 miles per hour. Only five people had seen the first flight, which one was John Daniels who captures the first flight in a winning photograph. Over the next few years, they kept on redesigning and building their airplane.

Although he was an excellent student, his real interest was in flying. As a result, in 1922 he switched to aviation school. Planes became a center of his life after his first flight. His early flying career involved flying stunt planes at fair and air shows. Later, in 1925 he piloted the U. S. Mail route from St. Louis to Chicago.

They built many different models, which they began testing in 1900, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They did not like any of the results that they concluded from using other people’s models so, they decided to design and test their own wings. They developed the perfect wing; they called the wing the aeroplane. The term aeroplane was then used for all heavier than air winged craft. The brothers filed their patent application even before the first flight.

When the toy broke Orville who was in first grade at the time was trying to make a new one, a better one (McPherson). As they got older they began to try and make for flying machines and they became very interested in the thought that human thought was possible. At one point Orville stated “We could not under-stand that there was anything about a bird that could not be built on a larger scale and used by man.” (McPherson). They made kites that they would test and would end up selling. The brothers opened up a bicycle shop in which they would eventually start to build their first glider (Freedman).

WRIGHT BROTHERS Wilbur and Orville Wright were well-known brothers who were inventors of airplane concept. Wilbur Wright was born in 1867 and his brother Orville was born in 1871 in Ohio, Dayton. Wilbur was the successful student and he had a chance to go Yale University but he had an unfortunate accident when he was playing ice-hockey. After this accident, he felt into depression and he didn’t want to go university, and he even didn’t graduate from high school. The brothers firstly worked in newspaper.

Once graduated, he spent the next few years performing daredevil stunts at county fairs and carnivals as a barnstormer (Charles Lindbergh biography, ONL). In 1924, on advice from his father, Lindbergh enlisted in the United States Army to be trained as an Army Service Reserve pilot. A year later, he graduated first in his class and was hired by the Robertson Aircraft Corporation of St. Louis as an airmail pilot. Gaining a reputation for being a cautious and capable pilot, he flew the mail between St. Louis and Chicago (Lindbergh Biography, ONL). During the course of his job, Lindbergh heard of the famed Orteig Prize.

As children, the two brothers began to take an interest in flight after their father brought home a toy helicopter in 1878. After many years of experimenting, the Wright Brothers invented the airplane in 1903. They first started doing research about flight after seein... ... middle of paper ... ...litary, Wilbur and Orville’s invention led to the growth of one of the most widely used forms of public transportation today. “More and more Americans are relying on air travel,” said Ray LaHood, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Works Cited "Parts of an Aircraft - Wright 1903 Flyer."

The all famous Otto Lilienthal had died in a glider crash from injuries. From that moment on the idea of human flight had interested both brothers into acting on the behalf of aerodynamics. They began work 2 years later in 1899. On May 30th, 1899 Wilbur wrote a message to the Smithsonian: “Dear sirs: I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine. I wish to avail myself of all that is already known and then if possible add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain final success.