The Wright Brothers

      More Letters From Paradise
        The Wright Brothers

For centuries men have looked at the birds flying in the sky, with envy. One ancient Greek myth tells of a man named Icarus, who fashioned wings of feathers and wax. But when he flew too close to the sun,the wax melted and he plunged into the sea.

It was Leonardo DaVinci, who made the first intensive study of flying. His famous notebooks show drawings of bird's wings, and a man recalling in a machine for flying.

The dream of flying became real through the efforts of two brothers Wilber and Orville Wright. Working alone in their Dayton, Ohio bicycle shop they read all the information about gliders, and even constructed a wind tunnel in order to study wing shapes.

But their story is best told in the new biography "The Wright Brothers," by David McCullough, the two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I feel that this book is one of the best biographies I have ever read.

I fear that if I write too many details of the book it will ruin it for any reader. Charlie Taylor, a brilliant mechanic built  a four cylinder motor  which delivered 8 horsepower to the two hand-carved spruce propellers, eight and a half feet long , via a chain link drive.

The story of those test flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and all the rest of the story I will leave to the book. But I will mention that the Wright Brothers home and bicycle shop can be visited at Henry Ford's Greenfield Village Museum, Dearborn, Michigan. If you are ever in the Detroit area, be sure to visit it.

The only other event which can compare to the Wright brothers, is when Neal Armstrong carrying a patch from their 1903 airplane, stepped out onto the moon.

       Aloha
       Grant