The Wright Brothers Read online

  Except for an occasional meal with the Tates, they got by on their own rations and their own cooking. The water around teemed with fish—“you see dozens of them whenever you look down into the water”—and Kitty Hawk fishermen shipped tons of fish to Baltimore and other cities. But the only way the brothers could get fish was to catch it themselves. “It’s just like in the north,” Orville explained, “where our carpenters never have their houses completed, nor the painters their houses painted, the fisherman never has any fish.”

  Their self-reliance was put to the test. They lived mainly on local eggs, tomatoes, and hot biscuits, though these had to be made without milk, so “pitiable” were the local cows. The only things that thrived on the Outer Banks, Orville decided, were bedbugs, mosquitoes, and wood ticks. Wilbur longed especially for butter and coffee, corn bread and bacon.

  On the other hand the scene from the tent door—the scene from almost any point—was spectacular, with great stretches of water and sand dunes and beach and a tremendous sky overhead, with cumulus clouds rising like castles, thrilling to behold against the blue. Long flat horizons reached far in the distance in every direction.

  And then there was the wind, always the wind. It was not just that it blew nearly all the time, it was the same force that had sculpted the sand hills and great dunes of Kitty Hawk that shaped and kept shaping the whole surrounding landscape.

  Far from home, on their own in a way they had never been, the brothers seemed to sense as they never had the adventure of life. Orville would later say that even with all the adversities they had to face, it was the happiest time they had ever known.

  Birds on the wing, birds of every kind by the hundreds, filled the air—eagles, snow-white gannets, hawks, pigeons, turkey vultures, or buzzards as they were known on the Outer Banks, with wing spans of as much as six feet. Wilbur devoted hours to studying their movements in the wind, filling pages of his notebook, sometimes adding small drawings. The reality of what birds could do—the miracle of birds—remained a subject of continuing importance and fascination, and birdlife on the Outer Banks was beyond anything they had ever imagined, recalling lines from Mouillard’s Empire of the Air.

  The vulture’s needs are few, and his strength is moderate. And so what does he know? He knows how to rise, how to float aloft, to sweep the field with keen vision, to sail upon the wind without effort . . . he sails and spends no force, he never hurries, he uses the wind.

  But how did the soaring bird use the wind, and wind only, to sail aloft and bank and turn as it wished? Buzzards were masters of the art.

  The dihedral angle, a shallow V-shape, of the wings was an advantage only in still air, Wilbur wrote in his notebook.

  The buzzard which uses the dihedral angle finds greater difficulty to maintain equilibrium in strong winds than eagles and hawks which hold their wings level

  The hen hawk can rise faster than the buzzard and its motion is steadier. It displays less effort in maintaining its balance.

  Hawks are better soarers than buzzards but more often resort to flapping because they wish greater speed.

  A damp day is favorable for soaring unless there is a high wind.

  No bird soars in a calm.

  “All soarers, but especially the buzzard, seem to keep their fore-and-aft balance more by shifting the center of resistance than by shifting the center of lift,” Wilbur wrote.

  If a buzzard be soaring to leeward of the observer, at a distance of a thousand feet . . . the cross section of its wings will be a mere line when the bird is moving from the observer but when it moves toward him the wings appear broad. This would indicate that its wings are always inclined upward, which seems contrary to reason.

  A bird when soaring does not seem to alternately rise and fall as some observers thought. Any rising or falling is irregular and seems to be disturbances of fore-and-aft equilibrium produced by gusts. In light winds the birds seem to rise constantly without any downward turns.

  For the local citizens the two brothers from Ohio were extremely hard to figure. One named John T. Daniels, known as “John T.” to distinguish him from his father, who was also John Daniels, said later, “We couldn’t help thinking they were just a pair of poor nuts. They’d stand on the beach for hours at a time just looking at the gulls flying, soaring, dipping.” Gannets, the giant seabirds with a wingspread of five to six feet, seemed their particular interest.

  They would watch the gannets and imitate the movements of their wings with their arms and hands. They could imitate every movement of the wings of those gannets; we thought they were crazy, but we just had to admire the way they could move their arms this way and that and bend their elbows and wrist bones up and down and which way, just like the gannets.

  “Learning the secret of flight from a bird,” Orville would say, “was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician.”

  For Katharine’s benefit, he wrote also of a “very tame” mockingbird that lived in the one tree overhanging the tent and sang the whole day long. The sunsets, he told her, were the most beautiful he had ever seen, the clouds lighting up in all colors, the stars at night so bright he could read his watch by them.

  They were now taking photographs of nearly everything—tent, views, sand, and water, even the mockingbird in the treetop, but primarily the glider in action.

  Many nights the wind was such that they had to leap from bed to hold the tent down. “When we crawl out of the tent to fix things, the sand fairly blinds us,” Orville wrote. “It blows across the ground in clouds.” But they could not complain. “We came down here for wind and sand and we have got them.” The night when one of Kitty Hawk’s 45-mile-an-hour storms struck with a sound like thunder, there was no sleep. And the winds were cold. “We each have two blankets, but almost freeze every night,” Orville wrote. “The wind blows in on my head, and I pull the blankets up over my head, when my feet freeze and I reverse the process. I keep this up all night and in the morning am hardly able to tell ‘where I’m at.’ ”

  Their daily sustenance had reached a new low:

  Well, part of the time we eat hot biscuits and eggs and tomatoes; part of the time eggs and part tomatoes. Just now we are out of gasoline and coffee. Therefore no hot drink or bread or crackers. The order sent off Tuesday has been delayed by the winds. Will is “most starved.”

  Nonetheless, as Katharine knew, they were having a splendid time, especially because of their work, but also in good measure because of the “Kitty Hawkers,” whose consistent friendliness and desire to be of help, whose stories and ways of looking at life and expressing their opinions, made an enormous difference. The brothers were now hearing, as they had not before, words like “disremember” for “forget” and such expressions as “I’ll not be seeing you tomorrow,” or smooth water described being “slick calm.” “Hoi toide” was “high tide.”

  A young Tommy Tate, the sixteen-year-old nephew of Bill Tate, informed Orville at one point that the richest man on Kitty Hawk was “Doc” Cogswell, a “druggist” by profession. Orville inquired how much money Doc had. “Why, his brother owes him fifteen thousand dollars!” Tommy said, as though that settled the question.

  Bill Tate’s interest in what the Ohio men were trying to achieve and his eagerness to be of help seemed only to grow. Needing to provide for his family no less than ever, he put in two or three hours a day at his own work in order to give the rest of his time to the brothers.

  Others as well had come to see them as more than mere eccentrics. Life on the Outer Banks was harsh. Making ends meet was a constant struggle. Hard workers were greatly admired and in the words of John T. Daniels, the Wrights were “two of the workingest boys” ever seen, “and when they worked, they worked. . . . They had their whole heart and soul in what they were doing.”

  By mid-October time was running short. Wilbur had been away from Dayton for nearly six weeks and word had come from Katharine that she had had to fire the young man Orville had left in charge of th
e bicycle shop in their absence. But the brothers still needed one sustained practice at manned flight.

  With the help of Bill Tate, they dragged the glider four miles to Kill Devil Hills, a cluster of three prominent sand dunes that Tate, in his letter of August 18, had rightly described as having “not a tree or bush anywhere.” The three hills, known as Big Hill, Little Hill, and West Hill, had heights of approximately 100 feet, 30 feet, and 60 feet respectively, but were also being constantly changed in height and shape by the winds.

  The view from the top of Big Hill was spectacular in all directions. Three quarters of a mile to the east, beyond the beach, was the great sweep of the blue-green Atlantic; to the north stood a series of immense sand hills; to the south, a long fresh pond and dark woods; and to the west, “the view of views,” with Roanoke Island and Roanoke Sound.

  The day was clear, the wind just as wished. It was October 19, and after nearly four years of concentrated study and effort by the brothers, it proved a day of days.

  Wilbur made one manned flight after another. How many is unknown, no count was kept. He did record, however, flights of 300 to 400 feet in length and speeds on landing of nearly 30 miles an hour.

  Only Wilbur did the flying. But now, in contrast to his customary use of the first-person singular when describing how things were progressing, he switched to the first-person plural, as in the lengthy report he later wrote to Octave Chanute. “And although in appearance it was a dangerous practice, we found it perfectly safe and comfortable, except for the flying sand.”

  During his first days at Kitty Hawk, Wilbur had closed a letter to his father saying it would be no great disappointment to him were he to accomplish practically nothing there. He considered it “a pleasure trip.” And certainly it was for both brothers—to be off on their own in a setting so entirely different from any they had ever known and doing what mattered to them above all. They had hoped to learn much of value there and they had, more even than expected. They felt they had found the way forward.

  With characteristic understatement, Wilbur summarized by saying they were able to return home “without having our pet theories completely knocked in the head by the hard logic of experience, and our own brains dashed out in the bargain.” He said nothing of the fact that for the first time he had experienced the thrill of flying.

  They packed for home certain they would return. Their machine, having more than served its purpose, was left behind and Bill Tate was told the materials were his to use as he wished. From the undamaged portions of the sateen wing covering, Addie Tate was to sew dresses for their two daughters.

  III.

  Work at the bicycle shop and the routines of family life at home continued for Wilbur and Orville much as usual over the next eight months, but nothing so occupied their free time and thoughts as did preparations for a return to Kitty Hawk.

  Plans for a new glider were under way, their concentration on the problems still to be solved. Writing again to Octave Chanute, Wilbur said the new glider would be built on the same general plan as the previous model, only larger and with “improved construction in its details.” Exactly what those improvements might entail, he did not say, just as he did not say it would be the largest glider ever built until then. The further difference “in its details” was that the curve of the wings would be greater, based on measurements calculated by Otto Lilienthal.

  When Chanute wrote to tell Wilbur he expected to be passing through Dayton sometime soon and would like to stop over, Wilbur said he and Orville welcomed the possibility of his visit, but explained that the bicycle business, being what it was in springtime, occupied their attention twelve to fourteen hours a day. However, they were “entirely free” on Sundays.

  To have a man of Octave Chanute’s standing come to call would be a high tribute. He was not only one of the world’s leading authorities on aviation, and on gliders in particular, but enjoyed an international reputation as an engineer, builder of railroads and major bridges, including the Kansas City Bridge, the first span over the Missouri River. He arrived at 7 Hawthorn Street on June 26, a Wednesday not a Sunday, which seems not to have mattered. Bishop Wright, Wilbur, Orville, and Katharine were all on hand to welcome him as he came onto the front porch and into the house for lunch.

  At age seventy, Chanute was short, stout, and dapper, with a lingering fringe of white hair about the ears, a mustache, and thin white goatee. He was both kindly in manner and extremely talkative. Katharine and young Carrie Kayler had worked hard on the preparations for the meal, but little notice seems to have been taken of it, so involved were the hosts and their guest with conversation.

  The range and content of the discussion are not known, except that Chanute had brought a gift for the brothers, a portable French anemometer, by which they could accurately measure the speed of the wind, something of great value they had been unable to do before. Then, a few days after departing Dayton, Chanute wrote to suggest that two men with whom he worked join the brothers when they returned to Kitty Hawk the coming summer. Although the brothers did not necessarily agree with Chanute’s philosophy that progress in science was always best served by everyone working openly together, they accepted Chanute’s suggestion if only out of respect.

  By mid-June they were far enough along with their new machine to move up their departure to early July, and, importantly, knowing that in their absence this time the bicycle shop would be in reliable hands.

  Charles—Charlie—Taylor had been born on a farm in Illinois and arrived in Dayton in 1896, still in his twenties, looking for work as a mechanic. Employed first making farm machinery, he had soon set up his own machine shop, and from time to time helped out with the Wrights, making coaster brakes and other parts for their bicycles. Unlike the bachelor brothers, Charlie was married with two children, and he smoked cigars, one after another nearly all day. He also worked quite as hard as they and with skill rarely to be found.

  Stopping by the bicycle shop one evening that June just to “gas,” as he said, he was asked if he would like to work there full-time. “They offered me $18 a week,” he later recalled. “That was pretty good money. . . . Besides, I liked the Wrights. . . . So far as I can figure out, Will and Orv hired me to worry about their bicycle business so they could concentrate on their flying studies and experiments. . . . And I must have satisfied them for they didn’t hire anyone else for eight years.”

  Of all those who were to enter the lives of the brothers, few were to prove of such value and none was to so aggravate sister Katharine.

  Wilbur and Orville left Dayton together on their second expedition to Kitty Hawk by train the evening of Sunday, July 7, 1901, and for the next several weeks were to experience conditions that made those they had known during their previous visit seem like mere inconveniences.

  They arrived at Elizabeth City just after one of the worst hurricanes in memory, with winds recorded at 93 miles an hour. Two days passed before they were able to sail for Kitty Hawk.

  After a night at the Tates’, sharing the most uncomfortable bed either had ever endured, they set off for the foot of Kill Devil Hills and in an all-day drenching rain began setting up camp, a big part of which at that location required driving a pipe 10 to 12 feet into the ground to serve as a well, there being no source of fresh water within a mile.

  It was Bill Tate who told them how to get “good water” and who arranged permission from the owners of the land at Kill Devil Hills to establish themselves there.

  Because the new glider was to be so large, the shed or hangar for it had also to be good-sized. Orville would proudly describe what they built as a “grand institution with awnings at both ends, that is, with big doors hinged at the top, which we swing open and prop up.” In little time, with pine boards shipped over from Elizabeth City, they built a long, solid shed, 16 by 25 feet and 6 feet in height, that would have been considered by many a substantial accomplishment in itself, and they did it in remarkably little time.

  Then, just as t
hey were about to start work on the glider, they were hit by misery of a kind and on a scale they had never experienced or even imagined.

  Among long-standing summer visitors to Nags Head, the old wisdom was that the infamous Outer Banks “skeeters” struck en masse only once every ten or twelve years. On July 18, it suddenly became clear 1901 was one of those years. As Orville wrote, the mosquitoes appeared “in the form of a mighty cloud, almost darkening the sun.” It was by far the worst experience of his life, he would tell Katharine. The agonies of typhoid fever were “as nothing” by comparison. There was no way of escaping the mosquitoes.

  The sand and grass and trees and hills and everything was fairly covered with them. They chewed us clear through our underwear and socks. Lumps began swelling up all over my body like hen’s eggs. We attempted to escape by going to bed, which we did at a little after five o’clock. . . . We put our cots out under the awnings and wrapped up in our blankets with only our noses protruding from the folds, thus exposing the least possible surface to attack.

  Until then the wind had been blowing at 20 miles an hour. Now it had dropped off entirely and the summer heat kept mounting.

  Our blankets then became unbearable. The perspiration would roll off of us in torrents. We would partly uncover and the mosquitoes would swoop down upon us in vast multitudes. We would make a few desperate and vain slaps, and again retire behind our blankets. Misery! Misery!

  Morning brought little relief from the suffering. At first they tried working, but had to give up, so unrelenting was the onslaught. In preparation for the night ahead they built frames and mosquito nets for their cots, then moved the cots 20 to 30 feet from the tent, and crawled in under the nets and again under their blankets. None of this worked. Such was the torture of the night that followed, Orville vowed that come morning they would head for home.

  By morning, however, their characteristic resolve returned. The demon mosquitoes had diminished appreciably and in the days to come grew fewer still. But the torment they had been through would never be forgotten.