100 Years of Flight

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• KWAME HOLMAN:

  Where Orville and Wilbur Wright succeeded a century ago just outside Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, modern day pilots found themselves struggling today.

• SPOKESMAN:

  And there it goes!

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  During an initial try, a replica of the craft flown in 1903 couldn't get airborne. The muslin-winged flyer drooped off the end of its track and sputtered into a mud puddle.

• SPOKESMAN:

  ( Groans )

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  The attempt to recreate the historic flight had been delayed for three hours by a downpour. Earlier, President Bush made a quick trip from Washington to North Carolina to pay tribute to the Wright brothers' accomplishment.

  He told a drenched crowd of 35,000 that weather conditions 100 years ago were not ideal either, but that didn't deter the first flight.

• PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

  The Wright brothers had some disappointments along the way, and there must have been times when they had to fight their own doubts. They pressed on, believing in the great work they had begun and in their own capacity to see it through.

  We would not know their names today if these men had been pessimists. And when it was over, they marveled at their own achievement.

  As Orville wrote in a letter to a friend, "Isn't it astounding that all these secrets have been preserved for so many years just so we could discover them?"

  The Wright brothers' invention belongs to the world, but the Wright brothers belong to America. (Cheers and applause)

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  A second attempt to reenact the flight was delayed and finally abandoned.

• JIM LEHRER:

  And to Jeffrey Brown for a look back at the Wright brothers' remarkable pursuit.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  In 1899, 32-year-old Wilbur Wright wrote to the Smithsonian Institution asking for information. "I am an enthusiast, but not a crank," he wrote, "in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine."

  Wilbur and younger brother, Orville, sons of an Ohio preacher and owners of a Dayton bicycle shop, had decided to join the ongoing race to fly.

  An exhibition at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum captures some of what went into that effort. Instruments used in a wind tunnel, such as model wings, and balances that measured lift and drag. Replicas of the gliders the brothers used in thousands of experimental flights as they honed their skills. And, of course, the original Wright flyer that took off from Kitty Hawk on North Carolina's windswept Outer Banks on December 17, 1903.

  On the first flight, seen here in a computer simulation, Orville Wright piloted lying down. The craft reached an altitude of 10 feet and flew 120 feet. It lasted all of 12 seconds, just enough to change the world. Peter Jakab is curator of the exhibition and author of several books on the Wright Brothers.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Many people were trying to fly at this time. What was it that made the Wright brothers the ones to succeed?

• PETER JAKAB:

  Well, the Wright brothers had special talents, to be sure. They were very skilled in many ways. But I think their approach to the problem really in large measure explains why they were successful and so many others were not.

  First and foremost, they understood that the airplane was not just one invention but it was many inventions, all of which had to work in concert for the airplane to fly.

  For example, you had to have a good set of wings, but you also had to have a control system, propulsion system, even the pilot. The pilot is part of that system. And when they were developing their earlier gliders, they were not only developing the technology, but they were also teaching themselves how to fly. So when they got on board that airplane on December 17, 1903, they were already qualified pilots.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  If I'm reading this right, there seems to be a scholarly reappraisal of the Wright brothers. Tell us a little bit about them.

• PETER JAKAB:

  Well, you know, the thumbnail sketch of Wilbur and Orville Wright is high school dropouts, bicycle makers, invented the airplane. And while that's all technically true, it really belies the true nature of the story.

  Although neither Wilbur nor Orville had a high school diploma, they had the equivalent of a modern undergraduate education. They were both very strong students. Their family encouraged inquisitiveness. They had a fine home library. They were skilled both in the technical areas as well as the humanities.

  Wilbur, in particular, was a fine writer and enjoyed writing. They also had a lot of skills that stem from their bicycle work. If you think about a bicycle, it's a completely unstable machine but it's an entirely controllable machine. And their experience with that freed them to think about the airplane in that way.

  They were not at all gripped by the notion that the airplane had to be an inherently stable craft which was the case with many of their contemporary experimenters.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Why did they pick the Outer Banks first for their glider experiments and then for their first flight?

• PETER JAKAB:

  They began with their first craft in 1899. It was a small, 5-foot wingspan biplane kite, and they used that to test their basic control mechanism, their means for balancing the airplane in roll, what we call roll today, which is balancing the wings. That was successful so they immediately began designing a full-sized piloted glider in 1900.

  But to fly that they couldn't just go out to the local Dayton school yard or something like that. They needed open spaces with strong, steady winds. So they contacted the U.S. Weather Bureau and got locations around the United States that had those conditions. And they wrote to a number of places, and they got a very welcoming letter back from the local people of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. And there also was a railhead at Elizabeth City, North Carolina, so they could transport their aircraft by rail fairly close to the final destination and take a boat over to Kitty Hawk. And they found Kitty Hawk just a very welcoming place.

  They always saw their trips down there as vacations and became quite fond of the local people. So first they were looking for good conditions and then it just became a welcoming place and an enjoyable place for them to work.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  So, set the scene for us 100 years ago. What was that day like?

• PETER JAKAB:

  Well, you know, people wonder, well, why did they fly in December? I mean, gee, it's cold and the winter is closing in, and so forth. They actually go down to Kitty Hawk in September 1903, fully prepared to fly the airplane.

  But they had a number of teething problems with the transmission system and the propeller shafts and essentially getting the propulsion system to work properly. And finally, after a lot of difficulty and breaks and repairs, they were able to get it going.

  And on December 14, 1903, they flipped a coin to see who would be the first pilot. Wilbur won the toss, made an attempt, but the airplane stalled in takeoff and the airplane really wasn't a true flight. Patched it up and on December 17, they awoke to freezing cold winds. It had rained the night before and there were ice on the water puddles, frozen on the sand dunes.

  The wind was blowing nearly 30 miles an hour. And they were thinking, "Well, gee, this isn't the best set of conditions." But they didn't want to leave Kitty Hawk without making an attempt. So they set up the aircraft, put out the signal flag to alert all the local villagers to come and witness the flight, and now it was Orville's turn to fly. He got on board the airplane.

  In fact, just before he got on the airplane, there's a great scene one of the local people recalled. They saw Wilbur and Orville off to the side chatting with one another and shaking hands and the comment was, the later recollection was that they sort of looked like they were two people shaking hands as if they would never see one another again.

  And Orville got on the airplane and most people have seen the famous photograph of it lifting off at 10:35 a.m. December 17 with Wilbur trailing behind. And there you have the eureka moment, the moment of invention caught on film.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Is it possible standing here today to see a direct relationship between the plane that the Wright brothers flew and what we all fly in today?

• PETER JAKAB:

  Yes, in fact the real importance of the anniversary that we're celebrating is not that the airplane got off the ground first but that it embodies all the critical elements of every airplane that flew subsequently.

  For example, a modern passenger airliner or a military jet fighter fly in exactly the same way as the Wright brothers' airplane did. It may look a little strange, the Wright flyer, it doesn't look like a modern airplane, but in terms of its control system, its aerodynamics, and all the other basic elements in the design, in fundamental terms it's just like any other airplane.

  And when we celebrate this 100th anniversary, that's the legacy of the Wright brothers. They created a technology that could evolve into what we have today.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Peter Jakab of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, thank you very much.

• PETER JAKAB:

  My pleasure.