aloft. Without this tunnel, the wings 

 would have been tested on actual 

 flights that could have been deadly. 

 Today, elaborate wind tunnels in 

 aeronautical labs continue to advance 

 aviation's horizons. 



The brothers were ready to apply 

 their findings in 1902, and their im- 

 proved 32-foot glider began to shatter 

 records. They soared into 35-mph 

 winds, sustained the longest glides in 

 history and covered the 

 greatest distances. But 

 because they couldn't 

 control the aircraft, they 

 still weren't flying. They 

 might as well be riding a 

 cannonball, Wilbur said, 

 calling the landings 

 "well-digging." 



"They considered 

 the design to be a 

 failure," Gillikin says. 

 "They were breaking 

 records, but they 

 couldn't turn the 

 aircraft." 



The brothers knew 

 they had to devise 

 methods and mecha- 

 nisms for the pilot to 

 direct the course of the 

 flyer and to counteract 

 the disturbing gusts of wind and other 

 atmospheric conditions. The plane had 

 to be controlled on three axes: climb 

 and ascent, steering to right and left, 

 and sideways balance. 



They added control with a vertical 

 rudder in the back, something that had 

 never before appeared in nature. It's 

 not a feature on birds, but on an 

 aircraft it can point the nose and 

 control a turn. 



The brothers tested their ruddered 

 glider on Oct. 10, 1902. Wilbur 

 launched from West Hill, gained 

 speed and turned. With this success, 

 they returned to Dayton to build their 

 flying machine. 



Now all they needed was a light- 

 weight engine and propellers that 

 could lift and propel the combined 

 weight of plane, pilot and motor. 



They turned first to the automo- 



tive industry. Cars were appearing all 

 over Dayton, but their engines were 

 too heavy for an aircraft. The brothers 

 wrote the manufacturers and asked 

 them to build a lighter model: 8 horse- 

 power and no more than 200 pounds. 

 The manufacturers said no. They were 

 afraid of gambling their reputation on 

 a pair of maverick inventors who built 

 bicycles for a living. 



So the brothers turned to Charles 



Courtesy of Wright Brothers National Memorial 



Wilbur Wright standing in front of the 1902 camp 

 in Kill Devil Hills. 



As an adult seeking direction 



in his life, Wilbur quietly 

 pondered the puzzle of flight 

 for several years before it 

 ignited a passion in 1899, 

 and he wrote to the Smithsonian 

 Institution for literature. 

 Dismayed that so many great 

 minds had made so little progress, 

 the Wrights launched their work. 

 In 1900, Wilbur wrote 

 a longtime friend that, 

 "For some years, I have been 



afflicted with the belief 

 that flight is possible to man." 



Taylor, the top mechanic at Wright 

 Cycle Co. It was a long shot, since 

 Taylor's only prior experience with 

 car engines was limited to an unsuc- 



cessful attempt to repair one in 1901. 

 "I never did get it to work," he said. 



Taylor built an engine that barely 

 ran. The first one spit raw gas and oil 

 all over the pilot and operated for only 

 15 minutes before it exploded. But 

 this flawed design propelled the first 

 successful flight with only four-tenths 

 of a gallon of gasoline. 



The Wrights were finally ready to 

 test their machine on Dec. 14, 1903. It 

 was a beautiful day and 

 seven people showed 

 up. The brothers had 

 friends among the few 

 residents of the area, 

 and they visited regu- 

 larly at the nearby 

 lifesaving station. But 

 the air was still, and 

 they needed a 15-mph 

 head wind to take off. 

 They decided to try 

 anyway by launching 

 from the top of Big Kill 

 Devil Hill, a 100-foot- 

 tall dune. Of course, the 

 effort would not count 

 as powered flight 

 because they needed to 

 building take off into a wind 



from level ground and 

 land at a point as high 

 or higher. But they'd waited too long 

 not to fly that day. 



"They'd been laughed at for four 

 years," Gillikin says. "They knew it 

 would fly." 



Wilbur won the coin toss and 

 piloted the plane, but the attempted 

 flight ended quickly and badly. As the 

 craft sailed off the dune and pulled 

 sharply into the air, he panicked and 

 overcompensated by flying it into the 

 ground. Repairs to the plane took a 

 couple of days. 



On the morning of Dec. 17, the 

 brothers rose early to try again. They 

 were living in a shack with holes in 

 the walls so large that they had to 

 brush sand from their food between 

 bites. The night had been bitterly cold, 

 and there were ice-covered puddles 

 around their camp. The 27-mph wind 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 5 



