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From early childhood, Wilbur and Orville Wright were mechanically minded with a pioneering urge and gift of original thinking. It was this background that determined their future.
They were absorbed in their bicycle shop when Orville suggested they might engage in the automobile business-- building the new-fangled, horseless carriage. Wilbur's reply to the suggestion was, "No, you'd be tackling the impossible. Why it would be easier to build a flying machine."
But before this another incident occurred enticing their interest in flight. They pondered the toy helicopter their father, Bishop Wright, brought home from a trip. It ascended to the ceiling and fluttered instead of flopping to the floor immediately.
It was Wilbur's reaction to Orville's suggestion about autos that prompted their study of gliders. They discovered that neither Lilienthal (who had been killed while gliding) nor any other man who had glided had an adequate method for insuring lateral balance. The Wrights' experiments at Kitty Hawk covered two periods. It was in 1900 they began flying gliders. In 1902, the "tail," a new feature, was added. The idea of making this tail movable led to the system of control generally used today-- the independent control of aileron and rudder.
"The Wright brothers were convinced they could build a successful power flyer," Mrs. Harold Miller (Ivonette Wright), a niece recently recalled. She
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WINGS FOR THE WORLD
The Wright Brothers etched their names in world history with their first successful powered flight by man.