Last week my colleague, Ryan, and I were sitting on a Southwest plane at the gate waiting to return from Baltimore. Nothing was happening. Then the pilot came over the speaker and said there would be a delay at the gate because the plane was overweight and we would have to wait for fuel to be off-loaded.
I thought, “Better to know this now then during take-off.” So as I was about to go back to my book I turned to the fellow next to me, smiled, and said, “I guess I should not have eaten before we boarded!” He did not smile back; I could see he was a very nervous flyer and my lame attempt at humor did not lift his spirits. Hopefully the plane would lift-off better.
What was really ironic, though, was the book I was just finishing was The Wright Brothers by David McCullough and that day was the anniversary of their first, successful motorized flight on December 18, 1903. Though I thought I knew about the Wright Brothers and had visited several times the museum in Kitty Hawk and the exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum, McCullough introduced me more intimately to the Brothers and their family.
When I finished I understood much better why the Brothers emerged at that very competitive time in aviation. To steal a Malcolm Gladwell phrase, they were outliers – people who were lucky enough to be the right age when an important global opportunity emerged, were inspired by the opportunity, had the mental gifts to solve problems others could not, and had the work habits to invest at least 10,000 hours in the opportunity.
What you Might Know. I asked a few people what they know about the Wright Brothers and here is what they commonly told me – They were two brothers who owned a bicycle shop in the Midwest somewhere and were interested in building a plane. They built a basic plane and for some reason went to the North Carolina to fly it. They were successful. The rest is history!
If this story interests you, here are a few more details from McCullough’s book that helps us appreciate the entrepreneurial depth of the Brothers.
Early Life and Interests. Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up in Dayton, Ohio and had a very caring father, who was a minister, and a mother who could fix anything – she was the handy-person of the house. She died from tuberculosis when Wilbur was 22 and Orville was 18. Wilbur, a bright student, finished high school. Orville, who started a commercial print shop at 15, only went to school through 11th grade. He employed Wilbur and the print shop was modestly successful, but did not inspire Wilbur. The boys liked to bicycle, which was the new recreation at the time. This passion led to closing the print business and opening a bicycle business in 1893, which provided them a real livelihood and a workshop to tinker in.
Interest in Flight. In the summer of 1896 Orville contracted typhoid fever and would be bedridden for a few months. While he recovered Wilbur read books to him and one of the books was a book on gliders written by Otto Lilienthal, who had recently died in a flight accident. In this book the Brothers learned how Lilienthal studied birds for his design ideas – a method they would later use. Wilbur read more about birds and flight. By 1899 Wilbur had become totally hooked on flying and wrote to the Smithsonian for a list of reading material on building gliders. He then studied the material and he and Orville began building their first glider.
North Carolina and Flight. To fly an object, it needs thrust and lift. And to stay air born it must be able to turn and go up and down. Using lessons from Newton in the 1600s and Bernoulli in the 1700s other inventors around the world had figured-out by 1900 how to use wind to get objects up in the air. However, no one had yet figured-out how to take-off and fly a person-operated craft.
The Brothers thought they could solve the motorized piece eventually, but first wanted to figure-out how to design a craft that could be flown and “controlled”. In May 1900 Wilbur wrote to the National Weather Service and discovered that the Outer Banks of North Carolina had the most steady and consistent winds in the east. Wilbur would head there and find a location. Orville would disassemble the glider, crate it, and follow Wilbur later.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina then had no bridges and could only be reached by boat; it was effectively a long desert island. Using information from family diaries and letters McCullough described Wilbur’s difficult trip there during a storm, how they built humble buildings, and then discovered big sand hills from which to practice and adjust flying their bi-wing glider. After all, if you were going to crash a lot, sand is a safer foundation.
In 1900, 1901, and 1902 the Brothers made annual trips to Kitty Hawk in late summer / early fall to test their newest glider innovations. Then for the rest of the year they returned to Dayton to operate their bike shop and refine their aircraft innovations.
December 1903. By 1903 the Brothers had developed an aircraft they could control when it was air born and they had a motor that could propel the craft, so off to Kitty Hawk they went. On December 18, 1903 with Orville at the controls, the first motorized flight occurred at 10:30 in the morning. The craft weighed about 600 pounds and flew 120 feet for 12 seconds. For several hours they took turns flying and took pictures that are now famous. On the last flight Wilbur flew 852 feet for nearly a minute. Then the wind picked-up and blew the craft and one assistant down the beach. The craft was wrecked and they headed home to Ohio for more experiments and work.
Profiting from their Invention. The Wright Brothers had made five trips to North Carolina, spent approximately $1,000 altogether, and made history, but next came the hard part – converting this invention into a profitable business. A large portion of McCullough’s book is dedicated to what happened after December 1903, which I would recommend reading for anyone interested in launching a business and dealing with numerous market forces.
Initially here in the United States their invention, which was patented in May 1906 as the Wright Flying Machine, was not commercially popular and went unappreciated by the government. On several occasions they tried to sell at modest prices their planes to the government and were rejected. There was, however, significant interest in France, which was really at the forefront of aviation invention then. So the Brothers decided Wilbur would go to Europe to promote their aircraft and Orville would make demonstration flights at home and eventually join Wilbur in Europe. The Wrights became celebrities in France and their appearances there made all the newspapers back in the United States. When they returned home, they were greeted as celebrities.
They eventually sold planes in France and then in the United States. But soon after they began to have commercial success Wilbur died of typhoid fever at home in 1912 at the age of 45. Orville continued to fly and set records for a few more years, sold the Wright Company in 1918, and continued working on aeronautical projects until his death in 1948.
McCullough wrote this about their financial rewards,
“In his will Wilbur had left $50,000 each to brothers Reuchlin and Lorin, and to Katharine. The rest of his estate, an estimated $126,000, went to Orville. With the success of the Wright Company and its sale, Orville prospered far more. His total wealth at the time of his death was $1,067,105, or in present-day dollars $10,300,000. Though a fortune then, it hardly compared to that of any number of multimillionaires of the time.”
The next time you fly, perhaps during this holiday season, and feel the plane lift-off the runway, take a few moments to think of the Wright Brothers – the innovators of lift and flight.
