One Life. No. 003
The Wright Brothers
Makers of the first controlled, powered airplane flights
18671948
They Said a Million Years. It Took 69 Days.
8 sourcesTranscriptRead while listening
The story in brief
Wilbur Wright was born in Indiana and his brother Orville in Dayton, Ohio. Neither had a high-school diploma. Their bicycle shop paid for their flying experiments. While others built engines, they worked on balance and steering. In 1901 their glider at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, lifted about a third of what the books promised. They checked the math, found a century-old number was wrong, and tested about 200 small wings in a homemade wind tunnel. On 17 December 1903 Orville flew their powered Flyer for 12 seconds.
By 1905 they could circle a cow pasture for over half an hour. Then they hid the plane until someone would sign a contract, and a Paris paper said they were “either fliers or liars”. In 1908 Wilbur flew in public in France, and the doubters became believers. That September Orville crashed when a propeller split; his passenger, Thomas Selfridge, became the first person killed in an airplane. From 1909 they sued rivals who used their steering without paying; critics called them greedy.
Wilbur died of typhoid in 1912, at 45, in the middle of the legal fight. Orville lived almost 36 years without him, until 1948. Every airplane still steers by roll, pitch and yaw, the controls they worked out. In 2021 a scrap of their 1903 Flyer flew on Mars.
In their own words
For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man.
I confess that, in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that men would not fly for fifty years. Two years later we ourselves were making flights.
This flight lasted only 12 seconds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world…
Sources (8)
- Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute, 13 May 1900 (Library of Congress, Wright Papers)
- Wilbur Wright, speech at the Aéro-Club de France, Paris, 5 November 1908, in The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (1953)
- Orville and Wilbur Wright, The Early History of the Airplane (1922), with Orville’s “How We Made the First Flight” (1913)
- The New York Times, “Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly”, 9 October 1903
- National Park Service, Wright Brothers National Memorial and Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park
- US Centennial of Flight Commission, “The Wright Brothers: 1901”, and NASA Glenn Research Center, “The Smeaton Coefficient”
- Tom Crouch, The Bishop’s Boys (1989), and David McCullough, The Wright Brothers (2015)
- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “1903 Wright Flyer”; NASA and AP on Ingenuity and “Wright Brothers Field” (2021)
Updated October 6, 2026.
Transcript
The New York Times said a flying machine might take a million years.
69 days later, Wilbur and Orville Wright flew one.
Two bicycle makers. Neither had a high-school diploma.
Yet for almost 5 years, much of the world doubted them.
At home in Ohio, they read how a famous glider pilot lost his balance and fell to his death.
Others chased engines. The brothers chased the balance he lacked, and found it in birds twisting their wingtips.
But at Kitty Hawk, their glider barely lifted, far less than the books promised.
On the way home, Wilbur lost hope: "I said to my brother Orville that men would not fly for 50 years."
So they checked the math. A century-old textbook number was wrong. In a homemade wind tunnel, they tested 200 tiny wings to get it right.
After nearly 1,000 glides, they could tilt, climb and turn. Every plane since steers that way.
They added an engine. A coin toss gave Wilbur the first try. He came down in seconds.
3 days later, Orville flew: 12 seconds, 120 feet.
Back home, they circled a cow pasture for over half an hour, then kept the plane hidden until someone signed a contract.
A Paris paper said they were either fliers or liars.
When the buyers signed, Wilbur flew in public in France. Within 2 minutes, the doubters became believers.
Rivals used their steering without paying. The brothers sued for years, and critics called them greedy. In the middle of the fight, Wilbur died of typhoid fever, at 45.
Orville lived almost 36 years without him, long enough to fly in an airliner with wings longer than his first flight.
In 2021, a scrap of their first plane flew on Mars.
