The Wright Brothers Tale
The Wright brothers conducted the first manned flight: you’d expect that to be the end of their biography, right? Wrong, says this Hourly History book : “The brothers’ first flight is the middle of their story, not the beginning or the end.” As kids, their interest in flight was initiated by a toy helicopter “though the helicopter soon broke”. It helped that they came from “a family of adventurous individuals”. Years later, the brothers referred to tables developed by an expert in aeronautical experimentation, Octave Chanute to “calculate the amount of headwind they would need to make the plans for their glider work”. The answer was 15 to 20 miles per hour. They got in touch with the US Weather Bureau to find a location with that type of wind. The answer? Chicago. They dropped Chicago since it would attract too much attention. Instead, they settled on remote Kitty Hawk. The first successful flight in 1903 lasted just 12 seconds and covered a distance of 120 feet ! Over ...