Orville Wright

EARLY LIFE 

Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio, on August 19, 1871.

Orville Wright

He had five other siblings including his older brother Wilbur.

His father the Rev Milton Wright, was an editor, clergyman later a non-conformist Bishop. He once preached a sermon saying, "If God wanted to fly he would have given us wings". Three months later his sons Orville and Wilbur had made their first powered flight.

He was named for Orville Dewey, a clergymen that Milton Wright admired.

Orville's father once gave him a toy helicopter invented by Alphonse Penaud.

Orville and his brother Wilbur demonstrated their mechanical abilities at an early age. As young boys they were fascinated with flight playing with kites and their toy helicopter.

One of his friends and classmates in high school was future poet and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Orville Wright was expelled from elementary school during his sixth grade for mischievous behaviour.

Young Orville

EARLY CAREER 

After reconditioning an old printing press Orville and his brother Wilbur started a newspaper West Side News. In April 1890 they converted the paper to a daily, The Evening Item, but it lasted only four months. They then focused on commercial printing.

Orville Wright and his brother Wilbur opened a bicycle repair shop in 1892. Soon they were manufacturing their own cycles. (The Wright Cycle Exchange, later the Wright Cycle Company)
Supported by the income from their bicycle shop, they started developing their motor driven flying machine.

Wright Brothers bicycle By 350z33 at English Wikipedia,

In 1901, the Wright brothers built their own wind tunnel out of wood, old hacksaw blades and bicycle spokes; they used it to test more than 200 wing shapes hand made from pieces of sheet steel and wax. The data it generated was critical to their first powered flight two years later.

FLIGHTS 

Orville Wright along with his brother, Wilbur Wright flew the first successful, albeit brief, "flying machine" in 1903.

The brothers were inspired by the way buzzards spread their wings to design their flying machines. They realised that the bird retained balance in the air by twisting the tip of its wings so they created a wing warping method based on this observation.

The Wright brothers didn't like to fly together in fear of both of them dying in an accident. They wanted at least one of them to survive to carry on research. They drew lots to see who would make the first powered flight and Orville won.

Orville Wright's first flight in his Wright Flyer One at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina was on December 17, 1903. It flew for 12 seconds at a height of 500 feet and covered 37,120 feet. The flight was witnessed by four men and a boy.

First flight of the Wright Flyer, December 17, 1903, Orville piloting, Wilbur running at wingtip.

The Wright Flyer One was a biplane glider fitted with a 12 hp motor and linen covered wings. It did not have an undercarriage and carried only one person lying prone. The glider was based on the design of a bicycle with wings and engine. It launched off wooden rails.

After four flights by the Wright Brothers a gust of wind overturned and wrecked their wooden flier. However they stuffed all the pieces into barrels and shipped them back home to their bicycle shop. The original machine is now in The Science Museum, London.

Orville Wright did not actually sit in the Wright Flyer during its first flight. Instead, he lay flat on the lower wing in the middle of the airplane.

In 1905 the Wright Brothers built their Flyer 111. It was the first practical plane capable of flights over half an hour and could do a figure of eight.

On May 22, 1906, the Wright brothers were granted a patent for their "Flying-Machine".

The brothers first became famous in 1908 and 1909 when, weary of continuing doubt about their claims for a powered, heavier-than-air flying machine, they took their aeroplane on tour.

The world's first mortality in an airplane crash was on September 17, 1908 when Orville Wright's US War Department test plane crashed to the ground at Fort Myer on 17/9/1908. Orville's passenger, Lieut. Selfridge was killed and Orville had a broken leg, hip and ribs. The flying machine innovator laid for many days in a delirium and his recovery was delayed by his intense grief for "poor Selfridge".

Fort Myer crash. Photo by C.H. Claudy.

When offered a plane for military use, the American army was so sceptical of the brothers' claims that they refused to see a flight demonstration for five years. It took the world's first flying accident in 1908 for the Wrights to become front page news in the USA rather than flights of fancy and the army and manufacturers to catch the vision. Finally in 1909 they received an order from the American army for the first military aircraft.

Orville Wright and his English friend Alec Ogilvie remained in the air nine minutes and 45 seconds in a Wright Glider, at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina on October 24, 1911. This broke the Wright brothers' previous flight record for a glider of 1 minute 12 seconds set in 1903 with their 1902 glider. The new record stood for ten years until broken in Germany.

The 1911 glider over the Kill Devil Hills. Library of Congress Wright Collection.

The Wright Brothers had a college-educated sister, Katherine, who kept their affairs in order so they could focus on making the first plane.

LATER CAREER 

The Wright brothers formed a million-dollar corporation for the commercial manufacture of their airplanes on November 24, 1909.

Wilbur died from typhoid fever in 1912 after a bout of food poisoning, an event Orville never completely recovered from. Orville barely survived the dish of Boston seafood which had brought on the food poisoning.

After Wilbur died of typhoid in 1912 Orville devoted himself to research in his Dayton mansion and was rarely seen in public. He sold his interests in the airplane company in 1915.

The Wright brothers' status as inventors of the airplane was subject to counter-claims by various parties. After Wilbur's death, Orville spent a lot of time on the patent suits involved.

In May 1896, Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley had successfully flown an unmanned steam-powered fixed-wing model aircraft. For years, Orville argued with officials of the Smithsonian Institute over whether the Wrights or Langley had built the first plane. In 1942 the Smithsonian officials made a public apology to Orville.

Howard Hughes gave Orville Wright his last flight on a Lockheed Constellation. Orville said the wingspan on the Constellation was longer than their first flight.

PERSONAL LIFE 

Both Orville and Wilbur hated making speeches. One day at a luncheon attended by a number of inventors, Wilbur was called on by the toastmaster "There must be some mistake" said Wilbur " Orville is the one who does the talking" The toastmaster turned to him. Orville stood up and announced "Wilbur just made the speech."

Wright brothers at the Belmont Park Aviation Meet in 1910 near New York

Orville Wright was a snazzy socked dandy.

Sweet toothed Orville Wright eschewed alcohol.

Orville Wright had an artistic bent and also played the mandolin.

Neither Orville nor his brother Wilbur ever married.

LAST YEARS AND DEATH 

Orville Wright was still alive when the sound barrier was broken in 1947 by Chuck Yeager in his Bell X-1 airplane.

Orville Wright died from a heart attack while fixing the doorbell to his home in Oakwood, Ohio on January 30, 1948. Mahatma Gandhi died the same day.

Orville Wright, 1928

Orville Wright's home in Dayton has been preserved by the city. The airfield where they made experimental flights in Dayton is now part of the Wright-Patterson Airforce base.

Ohio has license plates reading "Birthplace of Aviation" and North Carolina reads "First in Flight" because the two states both claim the Wright Brothers as their own. The Wrights performed the first controlled, powered flight in Kitty Hawk, N.C. but built their plane in Ohio.

Neil Armstrong took the wood from the propeller of the Wright Brothers' first plane to the moon.

Source PBS