By Mrs. Grier The Wright Brothers

Wilbur and Orville Wright Wilbur was born April 16, 1867 in Milville, Indiana. Orville was born August 19, 1871 in Dayton Ohio. They made the first successful manned powered flight (the first airplane to fly with people and an engine)

When they were young… Their mother was very mechanical and encouraged them to explore things. Their father brought them a toy helicopter when he came home from a business trip, and they were fascinated by it. A German named Otto Lilienthal was doing work on gliding (flying without a motor) and they read about his work.

The Problem Many people had tried to build flying machines. The Wright Brothers realized that the biggest problem with flight was controlling the plane once it was in the air. If the pilot didn’t have control of the plane, it would always crash.

The Solution They studied how birds flew. They started with kites shaped like their design for a plane. Once they could control those from the ground, they moved on to gliders (planes without engines). They spent 4 years experimenting at Kitty Hawk, a beach in North Carolina. On December 17, 1903, they made the first successful flight in an airplane. It lasted 12 seconds.

Because they flew… People can fly anywhere in the world on an airplane. Wars are fought differently. NASA was created. Man walked on the moon.

My inventor reminds me of… Leonardo Da Vinci tried to create flying machines 400 years before the Wright Brothers. Howard Hughes was an American Aviator who invented many kinds of planes and started his own company, Hughes Aircraft.

Inventor or Scientist I think the Wright brothers would say that they were scientists. They did not come up with the idea of flying, but they did use the scientific method to develop a way to fly.

Bibliography Orville Wright’s Biography, http://wright.nasa.gov/orville.htm, accessed June 16, 2010. The Wright Brother’s Invention Process- The First Flight, http://wright.nasa.gov/first.htm, accessed June 16, 2010. The Wright Brother’s Invention Process- Flight Development, http://wright.nasa.gov/flightdev.htm, accessed June 16, 2010. Wilbur Wright’s Biography, http://wright.nasa.gov/wilbur.htm, accessed June 16, 2010 Orville and Wilbur Wright, http://gardenofpraise.com/ibdwrigh.htm, accessed June 16, 2010 The Wright Brothers Take Off. Weinstein, Mike. Appleseeds; Dec2002, Vol. 5 Issue 4, p2, 6p, 2 color, 7 bw. Accessed June 16, 2010, EBSCO.