Pod Insights American History Tellers The Wright Brothers | The Art of the Bird | 1 About this episode In the late-1890s, two brothers from Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, became obsessed with what Wilbur described as “the problem of flight.” With no formal training or funding, they threw themselves into studying the mechanics of birds, determined to design a new method of flying for humans. They soon began building a glider in the small workshop above their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio.
It wasn’t long before the Wright brothers would travel to North Carolina’s Outer Banks to test their glider. Facing swarming mosquitoes and biting winds, they would risk their lives in their quest to be the first pilots to the sky.
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0:24 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's a breezy August afternoon in 1899, and you're standing in a field on the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio. You're a bicycle maker, but today you've left the bicycles behind in the shop to test a theory you've become obsessed with. You and your brother are going to fly a kite, but not any kite. It's a prototype of a glider you dream of one day flying in yourself. As you assemble your materials on the grass, you notice a few boys have gathered to watch. You nod in their direction. Hey, boys. Stand over there, please. Out of the way. My brother and I are working. Your younger brother, Orville, gives them a friendly wave. I mean, you can watch, but stay off the field. We don't want anyone getting hurt.
1:06 Lindsay Graham? You finish assembling the large kite, which consists of two rectangular wings, each five feet long and 18 inches wide, stacked on top of each other. They're separated by vertical struts, and all of it is held together by wire. Orville looks over to you for instruction, and you hand him a length of cord. All right, let's get these lines tied to the end of each wing. All right? Just make sure the other ends are tight, tight. We want to control the kite's movements. All these lines need to be taut. Once the lines have been secured, you grasp a wooden control stick in your hand while your brother takes another. All right, you ready? I'm ready. You each lift one end of the kite and hoist it in the air until the breeze catches
1:46 Lindsay Graham? it. In an instant, it's 20 feet overhead and then 30. You weren't sure it was going to fly so easily, but now you're amazed to see it magically dancing on the wind. Looks like it's working. Let the line out slowly. Let's go a bit higher. Oh, she is beautiful. You feel a surge of excitement. You're one step closer to solving a problem that has entranced and inspired mankind forever: how to soar like the birds. You only wish your father and your sister Catherine were here to see this. All right, I'm gonna try turning her now. But suddenly, there's too much slack in one of the lines, and the glider begins diving. Pull, pull, pull. I can't control her. Watch out, boys! The glider is headed straight for the boys who scatter and dive to avoid getting hit.
2:31 Lindsay Graham? You watch as your prototype smashes to the ground and into pieces. Ah, darn it. You throw the control stick to the ground in frustration. Then you turn to your brother, who's chuckling. Oh, and what's so funny? Well, we learned what not to do. You feel your anger subside and your mood lighten a bit. It's impossible not to appreciate your brother's optimism. Well, I suppose we did. Back to the drawing board, eh? As the boys nearby jeer at you, Orville gathers up the pieces of the broken kite. You know, next time, let's build the glider three times larger. I mean, the idea is that someday we're going to be riding this thing, right? Yeah, that's right.
3:14 Lindsay Graham? You know you and your brother share the same lofty dream: to build a flying machine that can carry a man into the sky. And despite the crash landing, today's test feels like a promising step in that direction.
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4:49 Lindsay Graham? From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American History Tellers: Our History, Your Story.
5:10 Lindsay Graham? On our show, we'll take you to the events, the times, and the people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. We'll put you in the shoes of everyday people as history was being made, and we'll show you how the events of the times affected them, their families, and affects you now. In the mid-1890s, two brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, began building a small glider in the workshop above their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. The two devout sons of a clergyman had a natural inclination towards science and mechanics. And after developing an interest in the burgeoning field of aeronautics, the self-trained brothers decided to devote themselves to what Wilbur called "the problem of flight."
5:53 Lindsay Graham? So in the fall of 1900, the Wrights traveled to the remote windswept dunes of North Carolina's Outer Banks to begin testing their first full-sized glider, large enough for a human to pilot. For the next three years, they would return to the small town of Kitty Hawk, testing and adjusting their flying machines, determined to successfully complete the first powered, controlled airplane flight. But more than becoming the first to fly, the Wright brothers nursed an ambitious vision for their inventions and for themselves. Despite initial disinterest and skepticism from the media and scientific community, Wilbur and Orville hoped to build a business empire that would capture the world's attention and prove that aviation was America's future.
6:36 Lindsay Graham? This is Episode 1 in our three-part series on the Wright Brothers: The Art of the Bird.
6:46 Lindsay Graham? In 1884, Bishop Milton Wright and his wife Susan settled into a modest home in Dayton, Ohio, with their three younger children, Wilbur, Orville, and Catherine. Their two oldest sons, Lauren and Reuchlin, had already moved out of the house. And while for years the family had moved from town to town due to Milton's job as an itinerant clergyman with the Church of the United Brethren, now, with the Wright's two older sons on their own, the rest of the family looked forward to a period of stability in Dayton. Thirteen-year-old Orville and seventeen-year-old Wilbur became known around the neighborhood as Will and Orv, or the Bishop's Boys. Along with their ten-year-old sister Catherine, the Wright brothers were raised in a disciplined, deeply religious home.
7:28 Lindsay Graham? Although there was no electricity or indoor plumbing, and meals were cooked over a wood stove, the Wright household was full of books and toys for the children to play with. Orville would later say that he and Wilbur were lucky enough to grow up in a home environment where there was always much encouragement to pursue intellectual interests, to investigate whatever aroused our curiosity. By the age of ten, Orville had begun building toy kites, sometimes selling them to classmates. And when their father brought home a rubber-band-powered toy helicopter, the boys played with it until they broke it, then figured out how to build their own replacement. Orville was gentle and shy, but also known for causing mischief at school.
8:09 Lindsay Graham? Wilbur was more social, athletic, and academically inclined, and by high school there was talk of sending him to Yale. But in 1886, while playing hockey, another boy hit Wilbur in the face with a hockey stick, knocking out his front teeth. Homebound after this incident, Wilbur became depressed, and his studies fell by the wayside. By then their mother Susan had become ill with tuberculosis and required constant care. Susan Wright was the brains of the family. Her father had been a carriage maker, and as a child she spent many hours in his workshop, learning to work with his tools. And before her illness, she built sleds and toys for her children, and it was from her that Wilbur and Orville inherited their gift for mechanics.
8:51 Lindsay Graham? They both loved to work with their hands and make things which their mother encouraged. In 1889, after working summers at a local print shop, eighteen-year-old Orville left high school to start his own printing business in a carriage house behind their home. But that summer, Susan Wright died of her illness. She was just fifty-eight years old, and the family was devastated. After the death of their mother, Wilbur joined Orville's printing business, and together they started publishing a weekly newspaper, The West Side News. It made a small profit, and in 1890 became a daily, the evening item. But four months later, they closed the item to focus on their more profitable printing business. By their early twenties, it was clear the Wright brothers had become, as their father
9:35 Lindsay Graham? once said, "inseparable as twins." They both played music and liked to cook, neither drank or smoked. Both were painfully shy around women, and neither seemed interested in marrying. Wilbur once said he had no time for a wife. But they remained close to their sister Catherine, who had a deep influence on the two brothers, especially after their mother died. Catherine was more outgoing than her antisocial brothers, and soon became the only family member to attend college, with plans to become a schoolteacher. Orville and Wilbur were content with their small, commercial printing business, but in 1892, a traveling bicycle exposition called "American Wheelman" stopped in Dayton, and inspired Wilbur to try something new.
10:17 Lindsay Graham? He decided to open the Wright Cycle Company, where he sold and repaired bikes. Orville was intrigued by his brother's new venture, and asked a family friend to run the printing company while he joined Wilbur's new shop. The brothers soon expanded their business and started making their own bicycles, selling them for sixty-five dollars each, about twenty-four hundred dollars today. And in their free time, they began to explore a long simmering interest in gliders and kites. And by the summer of 1896, with a cycle shop profitable, the industrious brothers began to devote more time to their growing interest in aviation. Wilbur especially had developed a near obsessive curiosity with birds and the science of flying, a subject he read about constantly.
11:00 Lindsay Graham? But that summer, Orville contracted typhoid, and doctors said there wasn't much they could do, and that Orville might die. This frightened Wilbur, who spent countless hours by his sick brother's side.
11:15 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's a cool afternoon in late September 1896. And you're riding beside your brother in one of your hand-built bicycles. He eyes you warily as you slowly pedal along the path that runs along the Miami River. Now, you sure you're up for this? I don't want you overdoing it. Absolutely. I mean, if I have to spend another day in that stuffy room, I'll explode. For six weeks, you've been in your bedroom on Hawthorne Street in Dayton, Ohio, suffering from a severe bout of typhoid, drifting in and out of consciousness. Your brother and sister nursed you through, reading to you as your temperature sometimes spiked to 105. But now you're finally recovering and thrilled to be out of the house. Well, the doctor did say the fresh air would do you good.
11:57 Lindsay Graham? Although I wonder if you're just trying to get out of having me read to you more about Lilienthal's crash. You laugh, because lately your brother has been obsessed with the news about the German inventor, Alte Lilienthal, who died after crashing an experimental glider he was flying. No, I really, I appreciate all the things you read to me. Even in my delirium, I feel like I got an education in the art of the bird. Ah, well, you were listening after all, okay. Well, you know, they say his last words were sacrifices must be made. I guess they were. No, no, it sounds like someone made that up. But he was the pioneer, wasn't he? Yeah, designed a dozen gliders. I mean, his understanding of the mechanics of flight, his development of the wing, went far beyond anyone else. That man was fearless.
12:40 Lindsay Graham? Suddenly, your brother comes to a stop, and he looks into the sky off to your left. What is it? But he doesn't answer. You stop and look in the same direction where a turkey buzzard is circling. He just smouts his bike and walks over to you, looking very serious. Well, now, listen, I've been thinking. I can tell. No, seriously, I have an idea. I think we should pick up where Lilienthal left off. What, flying gliders into the ground? No, Lilienthal crashed plenty of times and survived. He just got unlucky this time. See, look at that buzzard. He knows how to rise, how to float, how to use the wind. That's what we should do. What do you want us to do? Close the bicycle shop and study birds? No, we can't close the shop, of course. We'd need the income to pay for our experiments.
13:25 Lindsay Graham? Experiments? Yeah. Build a glider of our own, better than Lohlingtholz. You're serious, aren't you? I'm dead serious. Just like Lohlingtholz said, it's not enough to simply want to fly like the bird. We need to gain an understanding of the problem of flight. We'll study how man can fly the way birds can fly, in control, working with the wind, not against it. That's the art of flight. You look at your brother, and you haven't seen him this energized in quite a while. You also share his fascination with the possibility of flight. You know he's smart enough to do just about anything he sets his mind to. And clearly, he's set his mind on this. Well, I mean, if you're in, I'm in. We're a team, right? Let's just hope this doesn't kill one of us.
14:09 Lindsay Graham? You grin with excitement, but you know that flying can be a deadly business, and that more than a few men have lost their lives trying to keep their experimental machines in the air. But you're determined that with your mechanical know-how and your brother's knack for numbers and theory, you can succeed where others have failed.
14:29 Lindsay Graham? In the summer of 1896, as Orville battled typhoid, Wilbur had sat by his side and read to him about birds, experimental gliders, and the German innovator Otto Lohlingtholz. The Wright brothers had both shown interest in flying machines as kids, but in the late 1890s, Wilbur's revived curiosity and passion infected them both. At the time, gas-powered automobiles had begun to appear on the dirt streets of Dayton, and Orville initially wanted to try building his own car, but Wilbur convinced him they should build a glider instead. By 1898, their bicycle shop had become successful, bringing in $3,000 a year, and that gave them the funds they needed to start experimenting with homemade flying machines.
15:11 Lindsay Graham? Orville and Wilbur had no training, no funding, and no real expertise, but they threw themselves into studying birds and the work of other flying enthusiasts. Hungry for even more information, in May 1899, Wilbur sat down to write a letter to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The Wright brothers were familiar with flying experiments conducted by the Smithsonian's head secretary, Samuel Langley, and in his letter, Wilbur explained that he had been interested in the problem of mechanical and human flight ever since I was a boy. He went on to say he was about to begin a systematic study of the subject, and asked for any papers the Smithsonian had published. He declared that he believed human flight is possible and practical,
15:53 Lindsay Graham? and also insisted he was an enthusiast but not a crank. At the time, engineers and adventurers around the globe had been pursuing various schemes to reach the skies. The earliest successful flyers had been aboard hot air balloons, which became known as lighter-than-air machines. They required wind to carry them from point A to B, but the Wright brothers were more interested in gliders known as heavier-than-air machines. The best-known glider tests had been conducted by German Otto Lilienthal, who was killed in 1896. In the United States, the field had been advanced by the writings and wing designs of a Chicago-based engineer, Octave Chanute, and by Samuel Langley, who had successfully flown unmanned steam-powered gliders through the 1890s
16:38 Lindsay Graham? and begun working toward an engine-powered glider that could carry a pilot. That was the Wright brothers' goal too: a controlled, powered, heavier-than-air glider. The Smithsonian responded to Wilbur's request with a list of books, and sent along a number of pamphlets on aviation which the brothers devoured. Wilbur had developed a theory he called "wing warping", which he believed was the key to controlled flight. He once used an empty cardboard box to explain it to his brother and sister. If he twisted one end of the box, the other end twisted in the opposite direction. This was similar to the way birds tipped up the end of one wing to turn in the opposite direction. For a glider to warp in this manner, Wilbur believed its wings should be flexible and not rigid.
17:23 Lindsay Graham? To begin testing this theory, in 1899, the brothers crafted their first glider in the workshop above their cycle shop. It consisted of two five-foot wings stacked eighteen inches apart. They attached four cords, two on each end, to control the wings, similar to the way a puppeteer controls a marionette. After successfully testing the glider in a field that summer, the brothers then decided to build a larger flying machine, one that could carry a pilot. Then in May of 1900, Wilbur wrote to an aeronautical pioneer, the French-American engineer and flying enthusiast Octave Chanute. Chanute had emigrated to the United States in 1838, and was a respected civil engineer who helped design and build bridges and railroads, as well as America's two largest stockyards
18:08 Lindsay Graham? in Chicago and Kansas City. In his retirement, he became interested in aviation. And in 1894, Chanute published an influential book called Progress in Flying Machines, which Wilbur had read to Orville during his recovery from typhoid. Now, Wilbur wrote to Chanute, seeking advice on where he and Orville should fly their new glider, knowing that they needed a place with steady winds to test the machine and their theories. Based on Chanute's suggestions and information from the US Weather Bureau, they chose a desolate location 700 miles away from their home in Dayton. Until now, their interest in experiments had been mostly theoretical, but they knew that to get their glider into the air, they'd have to take an incredible risk.
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20:32 Lindsay Graham? By the summer of 1900, Wilbur and Oral Wright were ready to start testing the full-sized glider they built in their Dayton, Ohio workshop. They needed a wide-open testing ground with steady winds and no rain, and ideally someplace sandy to cushion any crashes. Based on these criteria, the civil engineer Octave Chanute had suggested they consider Florida, California, South Carolina, or Georgia. Then Wilbur received a letter from the U.S. Weather Bureau that included monthly wind velocities from more than 100 weather stations around the country. One location stood out: Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Wilbur wrote to the weather station at Kitty Hawk and in August 1900 received a reply from the town's former postmaster, a fisherman named William Tate.
21:17 Lindsay Graham? In his letter, Tate described the sand dunes and steady winds on the north end of North Carolina's narrow barrier islands known as the Outer Banks. Tate then suggested the brothers visit and offered his services, writing, "I will take pleasure in doing all I can for your convenience." Encouraged by Tate's offer, the Wrights finished work on their glider and carefully took it apart and packed it into crates. They decided Wilbur would travel to Kitty Hawk in early September to set up a camp and test area, and Orville would follow a few weeks later. Wilbur was now thirty-three, and Orville twenty-nine, and the farthest either brother had ever traveled from home was to Chicago for the World's Fair seven years earlier. Kitty Hawk was much farther away, and would be no easy trip.
22:01 Lindsay Graham? Wilbur's train ride to Norfolk, Virginia, took twenty-four hours. From there, it took another day to reach Elizabeth City, North Carolina. When he missed the weekly mailboat out to the Outer Banks, he was forced to spend another four days trying to find someone who could ferry him and his crated-up glider the final forty miles across to Kitty Hawk. Desperate, Wilbur finally hired a man with a filthy and rat-infested schooner. They left shore the afternoon of September eleventh, but just hours into the crossing they ran into a violent storm that shredded the sails and threatened to sink the leaky boat. When the storm finally eased around midnight, they dropped anchor and slept on board. Wilbur reached Kitty Hawk the following night, relieved that at least his glider hadn't gone overboard.
22:46 Lindsay Graham? By the time his brother Orville reached Kitty Hawk two weeks later, Wilbur had made a new friend, William "Bill" Tate, the fisherman and former postmaster who had encouraged them to come. He had helped Wilbur set up his makeshift camp, and together they began assembling the Wrights' glider. With just fifty small homes in Kitty Hawk, most occupied by fishermen and their families, the sight of the Wrights' flying machine became an instant curiosity. Also curious were the brothers themselves. Locals observed that they usually dressed as if for church, and often argued with each other, but said little to strangers. They also worked relentlessly to assemble their strange and complicated machine. They slept in a tent, sometimes shivering beneath blankets as cold winds blew outside.
23:30 Lindsay Graham? When the wind was too strong for flying, they watched the many shorebirds and took notes. And by early October, the Wright Brothers' full-size glider was finally assembled and ready to test. It consisted of two identical wings, seventeen feet by five feet, each wrapped in white sateen fabric and mounted on wood framing held together by wire. A flat rudder section they called an elevator jutted out the front, designed to control up and down motion. The glider had no tail and weighed roughly fifty pounds. The brothers first tested their machine as a kite, holding onto it and steering with ropes from the ground, similar to how Wilbur had flown the first smaller glider back in Dayton the year before.
24:11 Lindsay Graham? But at Kitty Hawk, steady winds of fifteen to twenty miles an hour and occasionally gusting up to thirty made it difficult to prevent the glider from soaring off. In fact, one day, a sudden gust flipped the glider as it lay on the ground and sent Orville flying twenty feet. The glider was smashed and took several days to repair. But finally, after two weeks of testing, taking notes and making adjustments, Wilbur was ready to fly the glider himself. Lying flat in a small gap in the middle of the lower wing, he would control the glider using his feet to nudge a T-shaped wooden device connected by wires to the wings. A slight push left or right would twist the wings and turn the glider in either direction.
24:53 Lindsay Graham? He'd control up and down movement using a lever that tilted the elevator in front of him. After climbing in and preparing for his test, Wilbur managed to get airborne a few times, but only for short hops and low to the ground. He needed more speed and height if he had any chance of staying in the air, and that's when Bill Tate had an idea.
25:17 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's October nineteenth, nineteen hundred. You're a fisherman and former postmaster in the coastal North Carolina town of Kitty Hawk. For weeks, you've been helping two bicycle makers from Ohio who've come to your windswept town to fly their homemade glider. At first, you thought they were crazy, but you've been impressed by their hard work and fearlessness. After watching one of the brothers crash the glider a few days ago, though, you suggested they try launching from a higher location, a series of high dunes four miles away. So today, you're helping them drag their glider and equipment up to Kill Devil Hills. As you trudge through the sand beside Orville, ascending the one-hundred-foot dune known as Big Hill, the wind kicks up, and you start to realize this might have been a mistake.
26:01 Lindsay Graham? I don't know. You sure about this? Wind's much more intense up here. It can easily gust to thirty, even forty miles an hour. Well, it is risky, for sure, but we need more wind. If we can get a steady thirty miles an hour, I think that's ideal for taking off. And you can handle up to forty? I believe so. Well, at least with the steeper drop, you'll get more momentum sliding down the launch rails, and a downslope to land on. We don't want another repeat of last time. Last time was a first, good flight. But we need more lift, more wind, and more time in the air to work out the kinks of the controls. As you reach the top of Big Hill, you catch your breath and take in the view. With a blue-green Atlantic less than a mile to the east, Roanoke Sound to the west, and the rolling dunes to the north. Ah, that's beautiful, isn't it?
26:46 Lindsay Graham? Not a tree or bush in sight, just sand, and more sand. But Orville isn't paying attention to the view. Well, we've got work to do. Let's get the launch rail set up.
26:58 Lindsay Graham? You join the Wright brothers as they begin to assemble the wooden rails that you hope will launch their glider to the sky. But you also hope it wasn't a bad idea to bring them up to Big Hill. You'd hate for your suggestion to cause one of the Wright brothers to get seriously hurt.
27:16 Lindsay Graham? On October nineteenth, after weeks of testing near Kitty Hawk, the Wrights agreed with Bill Tate's suggestion to drag their glider up to the high dunes known as Kill Devil Hills. There, Wilbur made his first truly successful flights, soaring one hundred yards and reaching speeds of thirty miles an hour. Except for a few crashes that required repairs, Wilbur managed to stay airborne for fifteen seconds at a time, easily the longest flights the Wrights had made during their time there. But Bill Tate and other observers who witnessed Wilbur's crashes were convinced the brothers were crazy to take such risks. Five days later, the Wrights packed up to leave. The combined total time in the air of Wilbur's flights was only about two minutes. But they were satisfied with their accomplishments.
28:01 Lindsay Graham? Their battered machine had served its purpose, so they left it behind, and Bill Tate's wife salvaged the sateen fabric from the wings to make dresses for their daughters. Orville and Wilbur had thrived at Kitty Hawk despite many hardships, and they returned home to Dayton determined to learn and experiment more, so that when they came back to Kitty Hawk, it would be with a bigger, better machine.
28:26 Lindsay Graham? Back home in Dayton, Ohio in early 1901, Wilbur wrote again to Octave Chanute to explain how he and Orville were now building what they believed would be the largest glider ever constructed. Chanute wrote back saying he'd be passing through Dayton and wanted to visit. The Wrights were grateful for the interest of a respected aviation pioneer like Chanute, but they also preferred working without visitors or interruption. Wilbur warned Chanute that he and his brother were putting in 14-hour days on the new glider, though they would be willing to see him on their day off, a Sunday. Chanute arrived on a Wednesday, but the two Wright brothers and their father and sister welcomed him into their home anyway. Before he left, Chanute gave the brothers a gift: a French anemometer,
29:10 Lindsay Graham? an instrument that measured wind speed to help them with their upcoming flight tests. Then that July, the Wrights headed back to Kitty Hawk with their new glider, arriving just after a hurricane had swept over the Outer Banks. This time, the Wrights made camp at the foot of Kill Devil Hills, closer to their launching ground. And in setting up camp, they were eager to improve their living conditions. With the help from Bill Tate, they drove a 12-foot pipe into the sand to get drinking water and had lumber shipped over to build a shed that served as a workshop and sleeping quarters. But despite the improved accommodations, they still had to contend with the unpredictability of nature. On July 18th, just as they were ready to start flying, a massive cloud of mosquitoes swarmed the area.
29:53 Lindsay Graham? Orville wrote to his sister to describe how the insects nearly blocked out the sun and complained that their bites covered his body, leaving lumps the size of hen's eggs. But finally, on July 27th, the mosquitoes cleared and the brothers were ready to begin testing their glider. Again, Wilbur was the pilot. Bill Tate and his brother Dan helped Orville carry the glider back up to its launch spot after every one of Wilbur's flights. Unfortunately, this new machine performed poorly, worse than the previous year's glider. Wilbur found it difficult to get enough lift, and when they made adjustments to the front elevator, it created too much lift. Wilbur declared that something was radically wrong. He and Orville tore apart the wings and rebuilt them with less curvature, hoping
30:38 Lindsay Graham? that flattening them would help. And by early August, they were ready to try again. Now, with the reconstructed wings, the glider performed better, reaching speeds of 20 miles an hour. But there were still some control issues, and in one crash, Wilbur badly bruised his face and ribs. Still, with every flight, they managed to achieve a little bit more success. Octave Shanoot, who had come to visit for a few days, thought the flights were quite impressive. After watching Wilbur sail 100 yards at a time and skimming the ground for smooth landings, Shanoot left Kitty Hawk convinced that the Wrights had made more progress than anyone else in the flying game so far. But the brothers, on the other hand, returned home to Dayton dejected.
31:20 Lindsay Graham? On the train ride west in late August 1901, Wilbur complained that many of their calculations seemed worthless, and they were still just groping in the dark. It had been a rough summer of rain and mosquitoes, and in a rare expression of gloom, Wilbur told Orville that not in a thousand years would man a fly. They soon realized that they would have to rethink everything, and cast aside all their previous assumptions in order to crack the code of flight.
31:51 Speaker 06 Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat and Fish are back for a whole lot of wonderfully whimsical fun. What happens when you switch bodies with your best friend? Discover a caveman frozen in ice? Or make an alien so angry he threatens to destroy the planet? Find out in season two of the Cat in the Hat podcast. The Cat and Fish are traveling the world in the great catastrophic cacophony cruiser, meeting genies, clown professors, cave trolls, and extraordinary characters along the way. With clever wordplay, imaginative rhymes, original songs, and stories celebrating curiosity, empathy, and creative problem-solving, every adventure brings something new to discover.
32:33 Speaker 06 It's a world of wonderful words, big imaginations, and plenty of heart for the whole family. Listen to the Cat in the Hat podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all 20 episodes early and ad-free right now.
32:50 Speaker 07 Hey, I'm Cassie DePecce, the host of Against the Odds from Audible Originals. In each episode, we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who lived to tell the tale. In our latest series, we track the story of Hugh Glass, the real-life revenant that inspired the 2015 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 1823, Glass was brutally mauled by a grizzly bear in present-day South Dakota and left for dead. His survival depended on trekking through 350 miles of wilderness alone with grave injuries. But he was driven by his thirst for revenge. Follow Against the Odds wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Against the Odds early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
33:41 Lindsay Graham? In the summer of 1901, the race to create a flying machine was picking up pace. Inventors in Britain, France, and elsewhere were launching experimental aircraft skyward, but by the turn of the century, one of the most promising and best-known was the large, multi-wing machine being developed by Samuel Langley of the Smithsonian Institution. Based on the success of the unmanned steam-powered gliders he had flown in the 1890s, Langley had received $50,000 in grant funding from the United States War Department to build his newest machine, a dinosaur-looking beast called the Great Aerodrome. By comparison, the Wright's glider, really an oversized kite, seemed like a modest competitor
34:24 Lindsay Graham? to Langley's well-funded, well-publicized invention. And while Langley received public funds and adulation from the press, the Wright brothers worked mostly in obscurity and on their own dime. So it was especially discouraging to return home from Kitty Hawk with less than stellar results. But the brothers did what they always did: got back to work in their shop. Optimism, determination, and recovery from setback came naturally to them. Orville would later say that during rough patches, "there was some spirit that carried us through." They also had an eager champion in Octave Chanute, who had been impressed by the flights he witnessed at Kitty Hawk. In late August of 1901, just days after returning home, the Wrights received a letter from Chanute.
35:07 Lindsay Graham? He wanted Wilbur to come to Chicago and speak about their experiments before a meeting of the Western Society of Engineers. Wilbur reluctantly agreed, and on September 18th, he nervously delivered an address he called "Some Aeronautical Experiments." This would be the first public account of the Wright Brothers' glider flights and their theories on flying. In the years ahead, it would be quoted frequently, becoming something of a bible for future aeronautics enthusiasts. In his address, which was later published in the Society of Engineers journal, Wilbur made the point that practical experiments were essential to progress, telling the audience, "If you really wish to learn, you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial."
35:49 Lindsay Graham? And a few months after giving this talk, on January 25th, 1902, the Wright Brothers received their first ever mention in the press, a brief article in the Dayton Daily News that said their successful experiments in North Carolina might revolutionize the work of experts in making tests of aerial navigation. The two brothers appreciated the recognition, but they were already looking ahead to next year's trip to Kitty Hawk, and there was much work to be done. So in the second-floor workshop above their bicycle shop, they built a wind tunnel to conduct tests on wing shapes. This six-foot-long wooden box had a high-powered fan at one end. At the other, they tested the effect of the air on miniature wings they made with old
36:30 Lindsay Graham? hacksaw blades, cut into different sizes, and hammered and bent into different shapes. They tested the aerodynamic performance of each tiny wing by attaching them to a contraption consisting of the rim of a bicycle wheel mounted on the handlebars of another bicycle. Octave Chanute knew the brothers were using their own funds for their scrappy homemade tests, so he offered to help find them a financial patron like Andrew Carnegie, who Chanute knew personally. Wilbur politely declined, telling Chanute they intended to keep paying for all their own equipment and experiments with profits from the bicycle shop. The brothers had decided early on that they'd rather control their experiments and own any future patents without entering into a relationship with an outside partner.
37:14 Lindsay Graham? This decision to keep their work a family enterprise would contribute to their reputation as secretive and insular. It also meant they'd have to constantly raise their own funding, and in fact, they couldn't afford to build their next glider until they sold enough bicycles to pay for it. The end result of all their hard work, the wind tunnel tests and further tinkering, was a redesigned glider with reshaped and much larger wings. At 32 feet long, they were nearly twice the size of the glider Wilbur had flown two years earlier. And in September of 1902, the brothers disassembled the glider, packed it up in crates, and returned to Kitty Hawk for the third time.
37:55 Lindsay Graham? For weeks, they assembled their camp at Kill Devil Hills, including a more elaborate shed that served as sleeping quarters and a workshop where they reassembled their third full-size glider. But then they received a surprise visit from their older brother Lauren, followed by another unexpected visitor, Octave Chanute. Wilbur and Orville preferred working alone, and rather than welcoming the support, they were irked by having guests. They also didn't like sharing their workspace and cramped living quarters. So by the time they were ready for Orville to take his turn at piloting his first-ever flights, the brothers were both in foul moods. Then, on one of his test flights, Orville crashed. The brothers spent the next few days arguing over what went wrong and how to fix it.
38:42 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's October 3rd, 1902. You and your younger brother are standing in your work shed, sawing wood for a wing frame. You've been at Kitty Hawk for nearly a month, and the initial glider tests were going well. You even commenced Orville to finally make his first flights, but a few days ago, you watched in horror as he rose straight up, more than 30 feet in the air, veered hard right, and then crashed into the sand. You were relieved that he wasn't badly hurt, but the glider was in pieces. So now you're trying to repair it. All the while, you and your brother haven't stopped arguing about what went wrong. I still say you forgot to use a front rudder. It'll take at least three days to make these repairs. I didn't forget. The front rudder isn't the problem. There's something wrong with the rear rudder. It's causing the machine to skid sideways.
39:27 Lindsay Graham? No, you just need more practice making turns. I've had plenty of practice, brother. I really think it's the rudder that's the problem, so I have an idea. What if we replaced the fixed rear rudder with a larger one that moved? Something we could control, can give us another way to offset the drag. What, and take the whole machine apart again? Well, not necessarily. I mean, if we remove the two vertical fins and build a single-finned rudder, maybe five feet high, we could make it hinged. A rear rudder that's hinged, not fixed? How would we control it? We can't keep adding components. It's gonna get too complicated to fly. No, we could control it, and it wouldn't be that complicated. We could connect the rudder to a cradle on the wing beneath our hips. Maybe when we twist our hips to tilt the wings and turn, that twisting motion turns the rear rudder at the same time.
40:12 Lindsay Graham? No, uh, well, actually... You normally scoff at Orville's ideas, and to be honest, at almost any idea that's not yours. But this time, you're surprised to realize that your brother might be on to something. You think this might give us more control? Well, it'd prevent the drag and the skidding I've been feeling in the air. Ah, well, let's build this new rudder of yours. Okay, when? Right now.
40:38 Lindsay Graham? You realize that your resistance to other people's ideas and the constant bickering with your brother aren't your best qualities, something your sister has pointed out time after time. Then again, on days like today, sometimes these battles of will end up leading to new ideas. And your brother's suggestion may be a significant step forward.
41:01 Lindsay Graham? The Wright brothers had constructed their third glider based on wind tunnel tests they conducted in late 1901 and early 1902. And during initial flights at Kill Devil Hills in late September of 1902, it performed well enough. But after Orville crashed and repairs were needed, he argued they should rethink and refine the control system by building a new movable reeder rudder. This was a significant improvement in their ability to control the glider in the air. Octave Shanoot and the Wrights' older brother Loren witnessed a few of these successful flights. And after they left, Wilbur and Orville stayed, continuing taking turns flying. Through mid-October, they made hundreds of test flights, some of them very short, but all providing valuable data.
41:46 Lindsay Graham? Despite dealing with cold weather, heavy rain, and subsisting largely on canned beans, the two brothers were elated by their most successful set of test flights so far. Wilbur wrote to his father, "We now believe that the flying problem is really nearing its solution." After leaving the Outer Banks, Octave Shanoot briefly visited Samuel Langley at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and told him about the Wright brothers' successes. He encouraged Langley to go see for himself, but when Langley sent a wire to Kitty Hawk, asking the Wrights if he might visit, they told him it was too late, they were packing up to leave. Back home in Dayton, the Wrights read stories about Langley, who had continued to develop his aerodrome-flying machine. And in early 1903, Langley announced plans to begin testing it by launching it from
42:31 Lindsay Graham? a large houseboat on the Potomac River near the nation's capital. Wilbur and Orville may have enjoyed scrapping with one another, but they rarely got bothered by competitors. Yet in the aftermath of their successful flights at the Outer Banks, and now reading about Langley's attempts, they began to feel slighted. They had flown farther and longer than anyone in a heavier-than-air machine, but still received limited recognition from the press or the scientific community. Overshadowed by well-financed experiments like Langley's, they were still just a curiosity, two strange, strait-laced bicycle makers from Ohio. And if they wanted to pull ahead in the race toward flying, they needed more power than just the winds off Kitty Hawk.
43:13 Lindsay Graham? So the Wright brothers would have to make an innovative breakthrough to gain the acclaim and recognition they felt they deserved.
43:21 Lindsay Graham? From Wondery, this is episode one of our three-part series The Wright Brothers from American History Tellers. On the next episode, as Samuel Langley attempts to launch his highly anticipated aerodrome machine before large crowds outside Washington, on the sand dunes of North Carolina's Outer Banks, the Wright Brothers make a leap forward. American History Tellers is only possible because of listeners like you, so thank you. And don't miss an episode. Be sure to follow American History Tellers on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing
44:04 Lindsay Graham? on Apple Podcasts. And to find out more about me, including my other podcasts, my live show, the history tours I'm arranging, and all sorts of other things, go to historyishuman.com. That's historyishuman.com.
44:21 Lindsay Graham? If you'd like to learn more about the Wright Brothers, we recommend The Wright Brothers by David McCullough and Birdmen by Lawrence Goldstone. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Christian Paraga. Sound design by Molly Bach. Music by Lindsay Graham. This episode is written by Neil Thompson. Edited by Dorian Marina. Produced by Alita Rozansky. Managing producers are Desi Blaylock and Matt Gant. Senior managing producer Ryan Moore. Senior producer Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louie, and Aaron O'Flaherty for Wondery.
45:05 Speaker 02 Alice, have you ever wondered why the Mini is so small?
45:08 Speaker 03 The Skir or the Magnum?
45:11 Speaker 02 Well, I meant the iconic British car, because in 1956, Britain's oil supply was suddenly cut off. Petrol rationing was brought in, and the car industry was scrambling around for a vehicle that hardly used any fuel. Enter the Mini.
45:25 Speaker 03 Interesting, but actually not technically British scandal series material.
45:30 Speaker 02 Well... The reason they had to save petrol is because the Prime Minister started a war and lied about why.
45:35 Speaker 03 Okay, scandal siren going off.
45:38 Speaker 02 I'm Matt Ford.
45:39 Speaker 03 And I'm Alice Levine.
45:40 Speaker 02 And our latest British Scandal series involves a secret meeting in a French villa, a Prime Minister running on amphetamines.
45:46 Speaker 03 An Egyptian president that everyone fancied, the end of the British Empire, and at the heart of it, a canal.
45:53 Speaker 02 This is the story of the Suez Plot.
45:56 Speaker 03 Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Audible.
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