Rebuilding the Genius Machines

ON THE WRIGHT TRACK
The Wright brothers' first powered flight, on a secluded beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, was greeted by most of the world with monumental indifference, even disbelief. Not so, however, by Popular Science.


Just three months after the 12-second, 120-foot flight on December 17, 1903, we had the story. In "Aerial Navigation," author Octave Chanute was appreciative, if low-key: "A successful dynamic flying machine seems to have been produced by the Messrs. Wright," he wrote. "These gentlemen have placed the rudder up front, where it proves more effective than in the rear, and have placed the operator horizontally on the machine, thus diminishing by four-fifths the resistance of the man's body from that which obtained with their predecessors."


Popular Science kept its eye on the publicity-shy brothers. In 1908 we reported on demonstration flights by Wilbur in Le Mans, France, and by Orville in Fort Myer, Virginia. When Wilbur flew 56 miles in 91 minutes, the French ordered 30 planes and awarded a 20,000-franc prize. A Wright flyer soon became the first plane purchased by the U.S. military. It exceeded the War Department's specifications-a speed of 40 miles per hour over 125 miles. The government contract was for $25,000.


In January 1929, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Wrights' achievement, we kicked off a four-part tribute that followed the brothers from their boyhood inquiries into the mechanics of flight to the days when kings and princes begged them for a single plane ride. Writer John R. McMahon rhapsodized: "Tomorrow we can see the sky roads crowded with planes-all born of the Wright bros.' immortal discovery."


-Bob Sillery