On 19 Aug 1871, a child named Wilbur Wright. Wilbur loved to dream, he was kind of a dreamer. He was really into reading books and imagining, what would it look like to fly in the sky like a bird.
He was attracted to stories of Leonardo da Vinci, who had sketched flying machine designs in the 15th century. Probably those sketches were fascinating and made him think about inventing amazing things that made our life easier to travel across the world.
Well, on December 17, 1903, they made the first controlled the world’s first successful motor-operated airline. I said “they” because it was two people and both were brothers.
It’s well-known as the “Wright brothers” Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright. “Wilbur was older and Orville was younger.”
Orville was a tinkerer, he was into machines and inventions of new things. He had a printing press and a bicycle shop. Wilbur shared his younger brother’s interest in machines and his inventive mind in flights. And they together made up their mind to pursue their dream of inventing the world’s first flying machine.
According to some sources, The Wright brothers weren’t the only ones who dreamed of building a flying machine. Many other people or inventors wanted to build such a machine. But unfortunately, none of them were successful. Some of them just focused on inventing powerful engines but neglected the problems of control and stability. Others relied on trial and error, without understanding the principles of aerodynamics.
The fascinating thing is Wright brothers’s approach was different, they researched wings of flight. They have taken a lot at birds and how they are flying and figured out balance and control to make it in their first airplane. As well as they made wind tunnels with different sizes and shapes of wings and propellers.
Firstly, the Wright brothers tried to fly with things it was looked like kites or we simply say tiny planes without engines. They chose a place where there was good wind to fly and they gained an understanding of flying by sliding down from high places. Their understanding was quite better to making their planes with their practices with kites.
Each step made them enough knowledgeable to start their machine. Later finally they made their machine that helped planes to move.
Ultimately, they on Dec 17, 1903. The Wright brothers succeeded in their dream of making a historic breakthrough with their first launched flying machine. Their first flying machine was called “The Wright Flyer”
from a wooden rail on a flat stretch of sand. The engine started, the propellers spun, and the airplane lifted off the ground. Orville was at the controls, while Wilbur ran alongside to steady the wings. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet (37 meters). It was the first powered, sustained, and controlled flight of a heavier-than-air machine in history.
The Wright brothers made three more flights that day, each one longer and higher than the previous one. The last one lasted 59 seconds and covered 852 feet (260 meters).
They had a chance to be the pilots, and people who were watching such an amazing machine first time in their life they recorded in their cameras those biggest achievements.
The Wright brothers had realized their dream of flight. They had invented the airplane, a machine that would change the world forever.
- A little bit about their life
Wilbur and Orville Wright were two of seven children born to Milton Wright.
Milton Wright was the father of the Wright brothers. And Susan Catherine Koerner Wright was a mother. Orville Wright was born on 19 Aug 1871 and passed away on 30 July 1948 and Wilbur Wright was born on 16 April 1867 and left us on 30 May 1912. They were both American Aviation pioneers.
Wright brothers attended high school but they unfortunately didn’t receive diplomas.
In 1884, the family suddenly relocated from Richmond, Indiana, to Dayton, Ohio. Wilbur had already finished four years of high school. But because of a change of residence, he couldn’t receive their diploma.
But Orville dropped out of high school after his junior year, to begin a printing business in 1989. Of course with Wilbur’s help he built good designed his printing press. Wilbur worked with him in the shop. And in March the brothers launched a weekly newspaper “the West Side News.
