The earliest recorded use of power to make objects fly was during the classic Greek civilization. About 500 B.C. Heron of Alexandria harnessed steam power when he constructed a rotating boiler with four vertical vents. Some fifty years later Archytas of Tarentum used a steam jet to launch a wooden bird. But it was not until the onset of the Industrial Revolution in England at the beginning of the 18th century that the steam engine became mass-produced and less expensive.

William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow, English inventors and engineers, grew up in the age of steam. They had witnessed the use of steam in powering trains and ocean liners and were, as manufacturers of lace, familiar with machinery. Henson, moreover, was an avid follower of George Cayley, whose theories inspired him to patent in 1842 the design for the Aerial Steam Carriage. To power his fixed wing aircraft, which had a wingspan of 150 feet, Henson designed his own steam engine. A full-scale aircraft was never built, nor is it likely that it would have flown due to the engine, but it was prophetic in its advance wing construction, landing gear, and twin engines. His colorful drawings were published in hopes of drawing funds, but instead he was subjected to ridicule. Progress was not helped when a 20 foot model was unsuccessful. Henson, who had designed the first powered fixed-wing airplane, which included details that would not be worked out by other designers for years to come, quit the field and emigrated to the United States. Stringfellow continued on his own and in 1848 his plane, a modified version of the Aerial Steam Carriage actually flew 120 feet. For some strange reason this startling event generated little interest and "finding nothing but pecuniary loss and little honour," Stringfellow stopped experimenting.

Cayley himself had in 1837 designed a steam engine to power the propellers of a streamlined balloon - that is, he had foreshadowed the airship as well as the aeroplane. But he was dissatisfied with the design, which would pass water through a cooled pipe in such a way as to convert it to steam in a single pass. He was generally frustrated by the massive weight of the engines used to propel land and sea vehicles, and stressed the need for lightness of material and fuel. "It is proper to notice the probability that exists of using the expansion of air, by the sudden expansion of inflammable powders or liquids ... an engine of this sort might be produced by a gas-tight apparatus and by firing the inflammable air generated with a due portion of air under a piston." Cayley was anticipating the internal combustion engine, but it would not arrive until after his death.

Step by step, advances were made during the remainder of the 19th century. In 1857 a French naval officer, Felix du Temple, designed a powered aeroplane notable for a retractable landing gear and the recommendation of a lightweight metal, aluminum. A model of du Temple's aircraft was tested in 1874. Launched down a hill and driven by a tractor propeller powered by steam, it was more of a "hop" than a real flight, but some historians give du Temple credit for the first powered flight. A similar claim was made by Russia in 1949 for the design of Alexander Mozhaisky, whose three propeller steam-driven plane lifted slightly off the ground in 1884 before crashing. In 1890 a Frenchman, Clement Ader, became the first person in history to lift off the ground in a powered aircraft of his own design, but his invention could neither be controlled nor remain in the air. His falsified claims notwithstanding, further tests by Ader during the '90s were no more successful, as he made no improvements in power or control. Finally Hiram Maxim, already famous for his machine gun, developed an ingenious steam engine of 350 horsepower which he hoped would lift his gargantuan (8,000 pound) aircraft. Proceeding with caution, Maxim strapped the machine down while he tested the engines, fearing they might explode and destroy the plane. They performed exceptionally well, building up so much power that they tore loose the strapping and the plane rose a few inches in the air, startling the test crew onboard. Although Maxim's engine was advanced, it did not contribute to aviation and he abandoned the design. Most of these experiments, with their focus on power alone, illustrated the remark made in the next century by Wilbur Wright: Given the proper power and inclined at the right angle, a barn door could be made to fly.

Orville and Wilbur Wright became interested in flight as boys in Ohio when their father gave them a rubber band powered toy glider, a recent invention of Alphonse Penaud. Although the brothers did not go onto higher education they were curious, creative and mechanically inclined. As adolescents they had designed and built their own printing press and published a weekly newspaper. When bicycling became popular in the 1890's they took advantage of the "mania" and ran a successful bicycle repair shop. They made so much money repairing bikes they went on to design and manufacture their own bicycles and, of course, added mechanical innovations they had designed.

One is tempted to imagine lazily that early one morning this pair of bicycle repairmen rode out to some sand dunes, doffed their hats, picked up hammer and nails, built and then flew the first real airplane in history. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their day of fame at Kitty Hawk in 1903 was the fourth year they had traveled there to test dozens of trail blazing innovations. In the preceding year they had made over 1000 successful gliding flights on those same dunes. In fact, the Wrights had taken a serious interest in aviation some years earlier when they began reading of Otto Lilienthal's gliding flights in Germany. Upon his death they vowed to continue his progress. Wilbur wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and requested a reading list. Among the books suggested was the recently published Progress in Flying Machines by Octave Chanute. Wilbur wrote to Chanute and a long and fruitful friendship was begun.

The Wrights agreed with Chanute that intelligent control was mandatory for successful flight. To this end they committed themselves to read, test and revise as necessary all available data. In 1900 they made their first trip to Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The location was selected after an inquiry to the U.S. Weather Bureau indicated that the speed and steadiness of the winds there best suited their purpose. After a number of flights with a glider of their own design, they decided to change the curvature of the wings and increase the wing area. A good deal of experience was also gained in how to launch the glider and deal with the winds.

The following year the Wrights met with significant failure at Kitty Hawk. The wing design proved to be faulty, not producing enough lift. They returned to Dayton, Ohio frustrated and confused. Reevaluating data compiled by Lilienthal, they suspected that he made errors and determined to calculate their own tables. They studied wind tunnels constructed by Hiram Maxim and decided to construct a new one of their own (replacing the starch box which they had formerly used). The new wind tunnel was very helpful in the redesign of the wing. In it they tested over 200 airfoil shapes before perfecting one

In September and October of 1902 they made nearly 1,000 successful flights at Kill Devil. Glider No. 3 was the prototype of all succeeding Wright aircraft configurations. Although avid admirers of Lilienthal, they had replaced his hang glider design and body control technique with their own original ideas. They had once observed a soaring buzzard right itself from a gust of wind by raising the wing tip of its lowered wing and regaining stability. They tested their idea on tethered kites and unmanned gliders before incorporating what they called "wing warping" into their biplane, which had a forward elevator and a double fixed rudder. The rudder was wired into the wing warping control system. The pilot lay across the center of the lower wing and around his hips a cradle was fastened. By twisting right or left to warp the wings he could control up and down movement. Warping a wing tip down, for example, caused an upward movement of the wing as air pressure struck the tip. The pilot operated the forward elevator with his hands by pulling or pushing rods which would raise or lower the flight path. Through this technique the Wrights became the first aviators to execute stable turns. They had a mastery of control that exceeded anyone else. They were ready to add the final ingredient: power.

In 1903 there were two other aviation pioneers who nearly beat the Wrights to fame. In Germany Karl Jatho made a number of hops and short flights of up to 200 feet between August and November, but his flights were not controlled or sustained and he grew discouraged and gave up. "In spite of many efforts, cannot make longer or higher flights. Motor weak."

In America Samuel P. Langley had achieved considerable success with powered models which he called Aerodromes, and in 1896 produced one that flew nearly a mile at a speed of 25-30 mph. The government paid him $30,000 to develop a full-size piloted craft. In 1901 he constructed and flew a quarter-sized exact model of the specified version, but making the full-size Aerodrome proved more difficult: a suitable engine did not exist. Langley's assistant, Charles M. Manly, attempted to solve this by building the first "radial" engine - its five cylinders were arranged, star-like, around the crankshaft - and produced a thrust of 50 horsepower with a weight of less than 4 horsepower per pound. It used gasoline as fuel, and ended the era of the heavy, steam driven aircraft engine. But it did not power the Aerodrome into flight. On October 7, 1903 something went wrong with the launching catapult atop the houseboat floating on the Potomac. Pilot and plane "simply slid into the water like a handful of mortar." On December 8, with Manly again as pilot and the houseboat in the middle of the Potomac, the tail crumpled and the same wet fate ensued. Ever ready to kick someone when they're down, a cynical newsman wrote, "If Professor Langley had only thought to launch his airship bottom up, it would have gone into the air instead of down into the water." It was the end of Langley's experiments with flight. Nine days later the Wright brothers grabbed the golden ring.

The Wrights had spent the summer of 1903 building the Flyer, to be driven by a 12 horsepower engine of their design. It was crated and shipped from Dayton to Kitty Hawk in September, when the Wrights set up camp and began to assemble the Flyer. On December 14th the wind was right and a signal flag was raised to invite any interested members of the Coast Guard stationed at Kill Devil. The Wrights wanted witnesses in the event of success. A coin was tossed to see who would make the first attempt. Wilbur won and lay down on the wing to start the engine. The plane sputtered, dipped on one wing and crashed into the sand. Repairs were made and on December 17 the signal flag was raised again. Five men and a boy arrived to watch the new attempt. It was Orville's turn to fly. He later recalled the moment.

"After running the motor a few minutes to heat it up, I released the wire that held the machine to the track and the machine started forward into the wind. Wilbur ran at the side of the machine, holding the wing to balance it on the track . . . One of the life-saving men snapped the camera for us, taking a picture just as the machine had reached the end of the track and had risen to a height of about two feet. The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to the lack of experience in handling this machine . . . A sudden dart when a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose into the air . . . ended the flight . . . This flight lasted only 12 seconds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started."

The Flyer was in excellent shape so Wilbur made the second flight of the day. He flew 175 feet in 12 seconds. Orville improved upon that with 200 feet in 15 seconds. By noon Wilbur had flown again, this time traveling 852 feet in 59 seconds. The pitch control on the Flyer was overly sensitive, and the glider ended up in the sand. Flight was over for the day - but a new era of flight had just begun. Not that anyone took much notice. Perhaps it was Langley's public failure of the week before. Perhaps it was the new dirigible hoopla coming out of Europe. In any event no ticker tape parades heralded the Wrights' achievement. The hometown paper, the Dayton Journal, made no mention in the early editions and the later editions got the facts wrong. Incredibly it would be five years before the Wrights got their just due. During that time they were snubbed - twice - by the U.S. War Department and once by the British War Office. Finally in 1908 the War Department signed a contract for a Wright Flyer, provided it could meet certain tests. A month later a plan was instituted for the formation of a Wright company in France. Wilbur went to France to demonstrate the aircraft while Orville stayed at home to carry out the U.S. army testos.

The demonstrations by the Wrights in 1908 were really the first time the world came to know what had been accomplished five years earlier. And did they love it! Wilbur, in the words of the secretary of the Aeronautical Society in Britain, was "in possession of a power which controls the fate of nations ..." One of the French newspapers exclaimed that Wilbur's flights presented "one of the most exciting spectacles ever presented in the history of applied science." French aviator pioneers agreed with Rene Gasnier, who simply said, "We are like children compared with the Wrights." Orville was causing sensations of his own in the States, as he broke every known flying record including duration (an hour and fifteen minutes) and altitude (310 feet). By the end of the year Wilbur and Orville had accumulated over 36 hours of flight - more than six times that of all other pilots combined.

Fame has its price, and the Wright brothers would later be victimized by the attacks of jealous petty people. But for the moment they could savor their well-deserved recognition. And their accomplishment will forever be recorded in the history of aviation for they made flight a reality.

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