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Daring young men and flying machinesThe Wright Brothers brought to light in 'To Conquer the Air'
By Todd Leopold
(CNN) -- In his wistful song, "Dayton, Ohio, 1903," Randy Newman sums up a pastoral world: "Let's sing a song of long ago, when things could grow and days flowed quietly/The air was clean and you could see, and folks were nice to you," he sings. Newman's choice of locale and date was no accident. In 1903, in a bicycle shop on Dayton's West Third Street, Wilbur and Orville Wright were about to usher in the Air Age with their new invention, the airplane. On December 17, they would make the first successful manned motorized flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The pair of brothers may seem like unlikely candidates to create such a revolutionary invention. They were bicycle mechanics by profession, self-taught, with virtually no major financial support. Indeed, 100 years after their flight, the brothers are commonly thought of as mere tinkerers, if particularly determined ones. That image is misleading, says James Tobin, author of the new book, "To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight" (Free Press). "Both were pure scientists in the best sense, and did genuine scientific work," he says in a phone interview from his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Wrights knew exactly what they were doing in elaborate detail, he says. "Tinkering" probably better describes the brothers' main competition: the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Samuel Langley, Tobin continues. Langley had everything the brothers didn't: financial support, broad resources, several friends in high places (including Alexander Graham Bell) and the backing of the U.S. government, which was exploring military uses. But Langley couldn't let go of certain unworkable theories, and was determined to tweak his version of the airplane to match his beliefs -- and not the other way around. In this David vs. Goliath story, the underdog once again triumphed. 'They wanted to walk the walk'
But it was no sure thing. Even after the Wright brothers managed their 59-second flight with Wilbur at the controls, there was still the matter of establishing themselves as airborne pioneers, as Tobin carefully traces in his book. Langley, for example, had been fascinated by the idea of flight since the 1880s and had flown several unmanned vehicles from remote areas of the Potomac River. And several French aerialists had attempted to fly their own planes -- and France, the birthplace of ballooning, took flying seriously. But all attempts ended in either uncontrolled lurches into the ground, broken equipment, or -- in some cases -- death. Many flights were launched in the spotlight of the press, which was as quick to mock failure as proclaim success. By contrast, the Wright brothers worked largely in secrecy and waited until they knew they had a successful airplane. "There was considerable danger they'd be forgotten and their contributions buried," says Tobin. "One thing I admire is they wanted to walk the walk, and not trumpet their achievement until it was brought to completion." The Wrights took two years after the Kitty Hawk flight to perfect their machine, he adds. "That part of the story is largely forgotten." 'Something elusive about their personalities'
The Wrights have also been painted as virtual twins, two stoic Midwesterners who did everything together and barely talked to friends and family. But in "To Conquer the Air," a somewhat different picture emerges. Wilbur was the driving force of the airplane, Tobin says; Orville was his support, though he provided some nuts-and-bolts expertise. The brothers often bounced ideas off one another. The Wrights also had a devoted family, particularly sister Kate, who looked after the bachelor brothers and their widowed father, Milton, a bishop in a small Protestant denomination; and a patron, Octave Chanute, who provided them entrée into the scientific community. Tobin didn't find it easy to profile the brothers. "There is something elusive about their personalities," he says. "They had friends, but they were private and reserved. ... All their important relationships were within their family." The Library of Congress has a great deal of Wright material, but "the great bulk comes after Will's death in 1912, so people are referring to events at a distance." Moreover, the brothers sent few letters to each other; they didn't need to, usually being together. Fortunately for Tobin, letters to the family and, particularly, to Octave Chanute were revealing. By 1909, the brothers had established themselves as first in flight and taken a famous trip over Manhattan to show off the invention. But the business was already evolving. Others, particularly Glenn Curtiss, a brash motorcycle engine maker, got into the nascent airplane industry and soared to success during World War I. The Wrights, private and inclined to the scientific, wanted little to do with business. If the brothers were around today, Tobin opines, they'd be scientists, looking for another problem in nature to explore. Perhaps that was the main thing they had in common with their competitors. Almost all the early aerialists were fascinated with the concept of flight and spent countless hours watching birds. At the time, air travel seemed impossible. Today, thanks to the Wright brothers and their colleagues, it's as simple as a ride to the airport. Perhaps, Tobin suggests, we should express more wonder in their achievements. "We've gotten so accustomed to air travel," he says. "We've lost sense of the miraculous [triumph] it entailed."
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