Wright Close

In honour of : The Wright Brothers

Full Real Names : Orville and Wilbur Wright

Born : Orville - Dayton, Ohio, USA on 19th August 1871; Wilbur - Millville, Indiana, USA on 16th April 1867

Died in Dayton, Ohio, USA : Wilbur - 30th May 1912; Orville - 30th January 1948

Both Buried at Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio, USA


These American brothers are credited with the First Airborne Flight in a motor-operated airplane on 17th December 1903 having first invented and then building the Wright Flyer.  They then went on to invent aircraft controls thus making possible fixed-wing powered flight.

Orville made the first flight at 10:35am - flying 120 feet in 12 seconds - a speed of 6.8 miles per hour and was famously recorded in the following photograph by John T Daniels using Orville's camera.

Wilbur made the second flight of about 175 feet and then Orville a further flight of around 200 feet.  This is what Orville had to say about the final flight of that day:

Wilbur started the fourth and last flight at just about 12 o'clock. The first few hundred feet were up and down, as before, but by the time three hundred ft had been covered, the machine was under much better control. The course for the next four or five hundred feet had but little undulation. However, when out about eight hundred feet the machine began pitching again, and, in one of its darts downward, struck the ground. The distance over the ground was measured to be 852 feet; the time of the flight was 59 seconds. The frame supporting the front rudder was badly broken, but the main part of the machine was not injured at all. We estimated that the machine could be put in condition for flight again in about a day or two.

The Wright Flyer is currently on display in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.



References:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wright-brothers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers