The Wrights were admirers of the writings and feats of the German engineer Otto Lilienthal, the American engineer Octave Chanute (1832-1910), and other glider experimenters. In September 1900 at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, they tested their own glider. Carefully recording their findings, they concluded that the previously accepted aeronautical data on which they had relied were erroneous. In 1901 the brothers tested the effects of air pressure on more than 200 wing surfaces and in 1902, executing almost 1000 glides in a new glider, they confirmed their Kitty Hawk data. At Kitty Hawk the Wrights also proved to their satisfaction that planes could be balanced best by pilots, rather than by built-in engineering devices; this was the major idea covered by the first Wright patent.
In 1903 the brothers constructed their first propeller, from original calculations; it was about 35 percent more effective than other propellers then available. They next built a 337-kg (750-lb) machine with a 12-hp motor in which, on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, first Orville and then Wilbur made the first powered airplane flights in history. Despite public indifference they dedicated themselves to the development of better engines and planes. The site of the first flight, now the Wright Brothers National Memorial, is administered by the National Park Service.
In 1908 Wilbur Wright set distance and altitude records in France. That same year the Wrights fulfilled a contract with the U.S. Army Signal Corps to produce a plane that could fly for 10 min at a speed of 64 km/hr (40 mph). They then toured Europe, where they were highly honored. Upon their return to the U.S. in 1909 they received further honors. Wilbur became president of the newly incorporated American Wright Company. He died in Dayton three years later, on May 30, 1912, of typhoid fever.
Orville Wright (1871-1948) was born in Dayton on August 19, 1871. His individual contributions to the improvement of aircraft include the development of the first wind tunnel in 1901 and the discovery, in 1902, that tailspins could be eliminated by substituting a movable vertical tail for the stationary one then in use.
In 1903, at Kitty Hawk, Orville Wright made the first successful flight, which lasted 12 sec, in a self-powered craft. On September 9, 1908, at Fort Meyer, Virginia, he simultaneously established several records when he flew the first Wright plane made under government contract for 62 min, completing 57 circles at an altitude of 36.6 m (120 ft); he became an immediate international celebrity. In 1910 Orville Wright formed the first Wright Exhibition Team, in which pilots trained by him performed in Wright planes.
He also personally tested each new piece of equipment used on Wright planes and superintended production at the Wright plants. After the death of Wilbur in 1912, Orville Wright became president of the American Wright Company. Three years later he sold his stock in the company for over $500,000. He subsequently worked as an engineering consultant. He died in Dayton on January 30, 1948.
