48 Fun Facts About Wright Brothers

How did the Wright brothers decide who would pilot their first powered takeoff attempt in December 1903?

A coin toss: Wilbur won it, but he stalled just after takeoff on December 14, so Orville made the first successful flight three days later.

Near which Outer Banks community did the Wright brothers make their first powered flights?

Kitty Hawk: the name stuck to the story, but the Wrights actually flew from dunes four miles south, at Kill Devil Hills.

What business did the Wright brothers run in Dayton to fund their flight experiments?

A bicycle shop: years of building bikes, presses and motors there gave the brothers the mechanical skills their flying machines demanded.

What breakthrough invention did the Wright brothers patent, rather than the airplane itself?

A three-axis control system: their patent claimed a way of controlling any flying machine, which let them demand royalties even from exhibition pilots.

What was the profession of the Wrights' father, Milton?

Clergyman and bishop: Milton Wright first moved the family to Dayton to edit his church's newspaper, and neighbours knew his sons as 'the bishop's kids'.

What 1878 toy from their father did the brothers credit with sparking their interest in flight?

The rubber-band helicopter, made of paper, bamboo and cork, was based on a design by Frenchman Alphonse Penaud; when it broke, the boys built their own copies.

Orville Wright died in January 1948, just months after which aviation milestone?

The first supersonic flight: Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in October 1947, so the man who once flew 120 feet lived to see planes outrun sound.

What injury derailed Wilbur Wright's plans to attend Yale?

A hockey stick to the face: Wilbur lost his front teeth, slid into depression, dropped his college plans and stayed home nursing his ailing mother.

Which famous poet, Orville's classmate, was a client of the brothers' printing business?

Paul Laurence Dunbar: the brothers printed a weekly paper he edited for Dayton's Black community, but it folded within weeks.

Whose 1896 glider death did the Wrights cite as the start of their serious interest in flight?

Otto Lilienthal: he balanced his gliders only by shifting his body weight, a method the Wrights judged inadequate and set out to beat.

In his 1899 letter asking for papers on flight, Wilbur Wright called himself an enthusiast rather than what?

A crank: Wilbur wrote that he had no pet theories and wanted all that was already known, and the reply brought a reading list and pamphlets.

Which aviation pioneer answered Wilbur Wright's 1900 letter with advice on windy, sandy places to test a glider?

Octave Chanute: he joined their camp each season from 1901 to 1903, yet was not among the five witnesses to the first powered flights.

After the disappointing 1901 glider season, Wilbur Wright predicted man would not fly for how long?

A thousand years: the 1901 glider gave only about a third of the lift they had calculated, so the brothers began to doubt the published data.

What device did the Wright brothers build in 1901 to test dozens of miniature wings?

A wind tunnel: its data let them redesign their wings, and in 1902 their new glider finally produced the lift they had calculated.

What happened to the 'Flying Machine' patent application the Wright brothers wrote themselves in March 1903?

Rejected: the brothers then hired Ohio patent attorney Henry Toulmin, and their patent was finally granted in May 1906.

Who built the engine for the 1903 Wright Flyer in just six weeks?

Charlie Taylor, their mechanic, built it after no engine maker would meet the brothers' specs, casting the block from aluminum to keep it light.

What wood did the Wrights use to build the 1903 Flyer?

Spruce: strong and light, it made the wing spars, and the brothers hand-carved their own propellers from glued layers of it.

In December 1903, nine days before the Wrights flew, Samuel Langley's Aerodrome plunged for the second time into which river?

The Potomac: the Army had put $50,000 into Langley's machine, while the Wrights built their Flyer for under $1,000.

How long did Orville Wright's historic first powered flight last?

12 seconds: Orville covered just 120 feet, then the brothers took turns on three more flights, each one going farther than the last.

What did the Wright brothers' telegram of December 17, 1903, ask their father to do?

Inform the press: yet inaccurate reports spread anyway, so in January 1904 the brothers issued their own factual statement.

Who snapped the famous photograph of the Wright brothers' first powered flight?

John T. Daniels, a coastal lifesaving crewman, snapped the shutter on Orville's preset camera, catching Wilbur running beside the plane.

What happened to the 1903 Wright Flyer minutes after its fourth flight?

A gust of wind wrecked it: it flipped over several times despite the crew's grip, and the 1903 Flyer never flew again.

After a telegraph operator leaked their telegram, which newspaper broke a wildly wrong account of the Wrights' first flights?

The Virginian-Pilot: its story claimed the machine soared three miles, though the longest flight that day covered well under a mile.

Where near Dayton did the Wrights fly in 1904 and 1905?

Huffman Prairie, a cow pasture: banker Torrence Huffman lent it rent-free, and there the brothers turned their fragile Flyer into a practical airplane.

What did Wilbur achieve on September 20, 1904, that no powered aircraft had done before?

A complete circle: its eyewitness report came not from a newspaper but from Amos Root, who wrote it up in his beekeeping magazine.

What finally ended Wilbur Wright's 24-mile flight of October 5, 1905?

The fuel ran out: wary of rivals copying their machine, the brothers soon stopped flying for more than two years.

What did the Paris edition of the New York Herald say of the Wright brothers in 1906?

'Flyers or liars?' summed up French doubt, and sceptics kept calling the brothers 'bluffeurs' until Wilbur flew in France in 1908.

Who became the first fixed-wing aircraft passenger, on May 14, 1908?

Charlie Furnas, a Dayton mechanic, rode as passenger at Kill Devil Hills on May 14, 1908; their contracts required flying with a passenger, so the 1905 Flyer was fitted with two upright seats.

Near which French town did Wilbur begin his public flight demonstrations in August 1908?

Le Mans: from a racecourse there, Wilbur's effortless banking turns on August 8, 1908 won over French sceptics, Louis Blériot among the crowd.

Who became the first airplane crash fatality, in September 1908?

Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, Orville's passenger, died when a propeller split during the Army demonstration at Fort Myer on September 17, 1908; Orville broke a leg and several ribs.

Which sibling nursed Orville for seven weeks after the Fort Myer crash and helped negotiate the Army contract?

Katharine: yet when she married her old Oberlin classmate Henry Haskell in 1926, Orville refused to attend the wedding and cut off contact.

Which president presented awards to the Wrights at the White House in June 1909?

William Howard Taft handed them the Aero Club of America's medal at the White House, and Dayton followed with a lavish two-day homecoming celebration.

What unusual accessory was fitted to Wilbur Wright's plane for his 1909 flight up the Hudson River?

A canoe: Wilbur had it attached beneath the plane in case he came down in the water, while about a million people watched him fly.

In 1909, a passenger riding with Wilbur Wright near Rome made history by doing what?

Filming from the air: he shot the first motion pictures from a plane at Centocelle, where Wilbur was training Italian military pilots.

Which rival aviator did the Wrights sue over the use of ailerons, starting a years-long 'patent war'?

Glenn Curtiss's use of ailerons prompted the Wrights' 1909 lawsuit and a patent war that ran until World War I; the two firms merged in 1929 to form Curtiss-Wright.

In 1911, who made the first US coast-to-coast flight, in a Wright plane named after a grape soda?

Cal Rodgers: his crash-strewn trip took 84 days, far beyond the 30 days allowed for Hearst's $50,000 prize, so he collected nothing.

What was the first known commercial air cargo, flown by the Wright Company in 1910?

Two bolts of dress silk: Phil Parmelee flew them from Dayton to Columbus for a department store, which cut the silk into swatches to sell as souvenirs.

Of what did Wilbur Wright die in May 1912, aged 45?

Typhoid fever: Wilbur caught it worn down by years of patent battles, and his father wrote of 'a short life, full of consequences'.

Wilbur once quipped that he did not have time for both an airplane and what?

A wife: true to the quip, neither Wilbur nor Orville ever married, and the brothers lived under the family roof for most of their lives.

Where abroad did Orville send the 1903 Flyer in 1928 in protest at the Smithsonian?

Orville lent the Flyer to the Science Museum in London in 1928 because the Smithsonian had credited Langley's Aerodrome as the first machine 'capable' of manned flight; it came home only after his death in 1948.

For how much did the Smithsonian buy the 1903 Wright Flyer from Orville's estate in 1948?

$1: the contract also bars the Smithsonian from crediting any earlier machine with the first powered flight, or the heirs can take the Flyer back.

Which anniversary did President Franklin D. Roosevelt designate as National Aviation Day in 1939?

Orville's birthday, August 19: Roosevelt chose it in 1939, so Orville spent his last nine birthdays watching the nation mark his day as a holiday for flight.

Which aircraft, flown by Howard Hughes, gave Orville Wright his last airplane ride in 1944?

A Lockheed Constellation: Hughes had just flown it across America in record time before landing in Dayton to take Orville up.

Which state's licence plates carry the slogan 'First in Flight'?

North Carolina's plates carry 'First in Flight' for the Kill Devil Hills flights; Ohio counters with 'Birthplace of Aviation', since the Wrights designed and built the Flyer in Dayton.

Where were the Wright brothers' last workshop and family home moved to?

Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan: Henry Ford had both buildings hauled out of Dayton to his museum.

What did NASA name the first Martian airfield, used by the Ingenuity helicopter in 2021?

NASA named Ingenuity's takeoff site Wright Brothers Field in April 2021; a scrap of the 1903 Flyer's wing fabric rode beneath the helicopter's solar panel, as Neil Armstrong had carried a piece to the Moon.

Where are both Wright brothers buried?

Woodland Cemetery, Dayton: Wilbur was buried there in 1912, and Orville, left to run the Wright Company alone, sold it in 1915.

What weekly paper did the Wright brothers launch in Dayton in March 1889?

The West Side News: Orville had quit high school to start a printing business, and Wilbur signed on as the paper's editor.