Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's not here again. She's kind
Speaker 1: of checked out. Frankly, and this is stuff you should know, uh,
Speaker 1: the Wright Brothers edition, which Frankly, Um, I've been using
Speaker 1: frankly a lot in the last few seconds. Frankly is um,
Speaker 1: I think grew out of our wind Tunnel episode? Am
Speaker 1: I correct in presuming that? Mm hmmm, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I know, I think this is just
Speaker 1: on a list, Okay, whatever, Sorry. I will say though
Speaker 1: that this um, and I know I say this for
Speaker 1: a lot of episodes, like why haven't they made a movie?
Speaker 1: But it is astounding to me that there has not
Speaker 1: been a big, sweeping, three hour biopic about the Right brothers.
Speaker 1: It's it's really weird. Are we still saying biopic? That's
Speaker 1: what I say. That's fine, Yeah, it just makes sense
Speaker 1: to me. But um so, I agree wholeheartedly. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that that struck me is when I
Speaker 1: was reading some research on this is that at one
Speaker 1: point these guys, like in a test flight, got up
Speaker 1: like six feet in the air, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: I want to see what that looked like, because these
Speaker 1: are the first people, some of the first people flying,
Speaker 1: and there are suddenly six feet up in the air.
Speaker 1: And and this was in a glider. This is before
Speaker 1: it was powered flight. So they were really at the
Speaker 1: at the mercy of the wind right then and all that.
Speaker 1: It was one of the most terrifying things they've ever
Speaker 1: that's ever happened to them. And I thought that would
Speaker 1: be really something to see. And that's just one of
Speaker 1: many amazing things that the Right brothers did. They were
Speaker 1: they were amazing human beings. Yeah, I mean the story
Speaker 1: has thrills, it has is uh you know, it has
Speaker 1: thrills and chills. It's obviously something that changed the course
Speaker 1: of humanity. There are these like very movie like aha
Speaker 1: moments that happened along the way. It's two guys that
Speaker 1: were not trained engineers. They were self taught, brilliant men
Speaker 1: who figured this out, but they didn't go to school
Speaker 1: to learn it. So it's just I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: got all the right elements. I think I did find
Speaker 1: a a twenty nine minute short film from that's featured
Speaker 1: Tony Hale. Oh yeah, The Great you know Buster bluth Um.
Speaker 1: He's also the dude who he was also the dude
Speaker 1: who rocks out to Mr Robato and that classic Volkswagen
Speaker 1: ad from years back. Oh that's right, I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: But he plays one of them. I can't remember which one.
Speaker 1: And I saw a little clip from it. It looked
Speaker 1: like it was okay, like I had a decent production value.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like a drunk history episode. I know,
Speaker 1: it totally does. But it was he playing it straight
Speaker 1: or was it supposed to be tongue in cheek. No,
Speaker 1: he seemed really drunk, which was weird. Okay, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was No, it was totally straight. I mean it's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine him. Like the scene that it showed
Speaker 1: was a very serious scene of him acting, and it
Speaker 1: was very hard to not laugh a little bit because
Speaker 1: I think Tony Hales a brilliant comedic actor. So it
Speaker 1: was kind of tough. I was like, oh man, it
Speaker 1: seems funny to me. Still, yeah, I'll have to check
Speaker 1: it out. But yeah, there needs to be a big,
Speaker 1: big movie. I want to see this on the big screen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because so again, I mean, you kind of hit on
Speaker 1: some stuff, but it's It's really important to point out
Speaker 1: that the guys who were the first human beings to
Speaker 1: create um to to have to undertake a powered flight,
Speaker 1: were the same ones who invented that flying machine that
Speaker 1: allowed for powered flight. And they were a couple of
Speaker 1: self taught amateur bike shop owners who decided that they
Speaker 1: wanted to be a part of figuring out how to
Speaker 1: get humans to fly, which was super duper in the
Speaker 1: zeitgeist at the time. It was like the thing, especially um,
Speaker 1: if you were an engineer, that you were probably thinking about, Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of uh technological um razmatazz going on
Speaker 1: with things like you know, the the telegraph, which has
Speaker 1: been around for a while, I guess, but locomotion was
Speaker 1: a big one. Trains figuring out how to move humans
Speaker 1: beyond just foot power, bicycle power, um or how horsepower? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: that was that was a big deal. And and to
Speaker 1: to get people into the air flying there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people working on that, so and on one hand,
Speaker 1: it was also kind of audacious that the Right Brothers
Speaker 1: would be like, you know, we'll we'll toss our hat
Speaker 1: into the ring and see if we can be the
Speaker 1: ones to figure this out, just because they were self
Speaker 1: taught and they were outsiders as far as the scientific
Speaker 1: community was concerned. Yeah, And Dave Dave Rus helped us
Speaker 1: put this together. And Dave is keen to point out
Speaker 1: that like they were outsiders, they weren't trained engineers, but
Speaker 1: they were far more than guys that just tinkered in
Speaker 1: a bike shop. They did do that, but they they
Speaker 1: very much, um, they didn't stumble upon this thing. They
Speaker 1: very much were very data driven, very rigorous in their experimentation,
Speaker 1: and it's no surprise that they were the first. Um.
Speaker 1: They may be unlikely, but not surprising, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So even at the time, the idea was that it
Speaker 1: would probably probably be the French who were the ones
Speaker 1: that figured out human flight, and even the Right brothers
Speaker 1: apparently thought this, but it was still open enough that
Speaker 1: they decided that that they they could give it a shot.
Speaker 1: And they also saw a lot of parallels. You know,
Speaker 1: they're very famous, as we said, for owning a bike shop.
Speaker 1: That was what their their trade was in Dayton, Ohio. UM.
Speaker 1: But they saw a lot of parallels between bicycling and flight, Like,
Speaker 1: for example, UM, bicycling requires a lot of balance and
Speaker 1: you have to figure the same thing out when you're flying, UM,
Speaker 1: you have to build a machine in the most lightweight,
Speaker 1: lightweight way possible, UM that can also convey a human being. UM.
Speaker 1: Aerodynamics factor into it. So they had a bit of
Speaker 1: a head start. They weren't coming. It's not like there's
Speaker 1: nothing in the bicycling world that has anything to do
Speaker 1: with this, Especially if you're an engineer and thinking about
Speaker 1: things like aerodynamics as far as bicycling bicycling is concerned,
Speaker 1: you can translate that to to flight. And that's what
Speaker 1: the Right Brothers did. Yeah, I mean, a plane is
Speaker 1: just a bike with wings, right basically, or at least
Speaker 1: the early ones kind of work. And my dad's always
Speaker 1: said that, Jr. If anyone ever asked you what the
Speaker 1: difference between a bike and a plane is, you tell
Speaker 1: him nothing. They need pop some gin and that's right,
Speaker 1: all right. So the Right Brothers, of course, Wilbur and Orville.
Speaker 1: They were born UM to parents Milton and Susan. They
Speaker 1: were the third and fourth sons. There were seven kids
Speaker 1: total to UM. A pair of twins, A pair of twins,
Speaker 1: just two people. I kept wanting to make it for people.
Speaker 1: A pair of twins, one set of single set of
Speaker 1: twins uh died in infancy, so there were um five
Speaker 1: kids that grew into adulthood. And uh, we're going to
Speaker 1: pepper in some facts about their sister Catherine here and
Speaker 1: there throughout the episode, because Catherine, I feel like, does
Speaker 1: not get uh much credit, and she while she was
Speaker 1: not inventing the aircraft, she was very very key to
Speaker 1: their operation and uh management of these guys throughout their life.
Speaker 1: And she was a school teacher and then later on
Speaker 1: a suffragette in Ohio. Yeah, well they're there. I believe
Speaker 1: their grandfather and probably their father too, was big on
Speaker 1: um abolition and um like the whole family kind of
Speaker 1: had this uh real defined moral compass that they adhered
Speaker 1: to rigidly. Um. They also were taught as a family
Speaker 1: to be maybe a little wary and suspicious of outsiders
Speaker 1: and that you found your strength and your trust and
Speaker 1: your your basis in the family. And that actually kind
Speaker 1: of helps explain Wilbur and Orville's relationship. Neither one of
Speaker 1: them ever married, and they planned on spending their lives together.
Speaker 1: Um that's what they were going to do, and that's
Speaker 1: what they did until Wilbur died uh prematurely at age
Speaker 1: forty five. Um. Up until that point, they did spend
Speaker 1: their lives together. But that what I'm saying is they
Speaker 1: were they were going to grow old and die together.
Speaker 1: And from the outside it seems really weird, but when
Speaker 1: you start to read about them and who they were
Speaker 1: and how they connected, it's it's awfully sweet actually, Um
Speaker 1: that they had. They had a great love in their
Speaker 1: life and it just happened to be their brother, not
Speaker 1: in any kind of weird sexual way, not in any
Speaker 1: incestuous way. You know. I think the Greeks had like
Speaker 1: it does. It does, but we're in don't forget. But
Speaker 1: I think the Greeks had four different kinds of love,
Speaker 1: and one of them was like a love between two men.
Speaker 1: M bromance, sure, but this was brother man's and there
Speaker 1: was no man's to it. It was just they They
Speaker 1: were brothers that that fit together in a way that
Speaker 1: you rarely see siblings do. And they happened to change
Speaker 1: the world from that interconnection between them. Yeah, their mom
Speaker 1: had a college degree and she was great at fixing
Speaker 1: things because her father was a mechanic, and so they
Speaker 1: got some of the tinkering from her. Their dad was
Speaker 1: a minister and also ran. I think the church newspaper
Speaker 1: from what I could gather, and like you said, the
Speaker 1: brothers were tight. There was there were four years apart.
Speaker 1: But Wilbur wrote to this um on paper. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was a was it a memoir or
Speaker 1: did was he just writing? I don't know. I'm guessing
Speaker 1: journal I think they kept journals all right. Well, he
Speaker 1: said this from the time we were little children. My
Speaker 1: brother Oh and I lived together, play together, work together,
Speaker 1: and in fact thought together. That's thought, not fought, although
Speaker 1: they did apparently go at it in in a spirited
Speaker 1: debate kind of way, and they really love doing that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't all just like wine and roses. We usually
Speaker 1: owned all of our toys in common, talked over our
Speaker 1: thoughts and aspiration, so that nearly everything that was done
Speaker 1: in our lives has been the result of conversation, suggestions,
Speaker 1: and discussions between us. That was a great Katherine Hepburn, Oh,
Speaker 1: I could do it as Katherine Hepburn if you want, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's start over please. I think there's another quote. I'll
Speaker 1: do that one later, okay. So that kind of goes
Speaker 1: to show you, like just how how connected these guys
Speaker 1: were just from a very very young age, and they
Speaker 1: were they were four years apart. I mean, bilings that
Speaker 1: are four years apart usually don't keep in touch after
Speaker 1: a certain age, let alone spend their lives together, you know. So, UM,
Speaker 1: it was pretty cool that they had like that kind
Speaker 1: of connection and the fact that the if you put
Speaker 1: the two of them together, they were greater than the
Speaker 1: sum of their parts. Basically. UM. Apparently Orville was UM
Speaker 1: was once you got to know him, he was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun to be around. He was If you
Speaker 1: had to pick between the two Um as to who
Speaker 1: was maybe the more brilliant engineering mind, you probably go
Speaker 1: with Orville. But that's not to say that Wilbur was
Speaker 1: any kind of slouch UM. And of the two, Wilbur
Speaker 1: was the more outgoing UH person UM. Orville was very
Speaker 1: very shy, and Wilber even experienced a pretty big dip
Speaker 1: in his outgoingness. He had a year's long depression UM
Speaker 1: that do railed his college career. He was going to
Speaker 1: go to Yale study to become a minister and do
Speaker 1: who knows what else, UM, And he was playing hockey
Speaker 1: one day, I guess took a stick to the face,
Speaker 1: and I think a couple of other things because he
Speaker 1: had a long standing digestion and heart problem after that.
Speaker 1: But after his face held something, something changed in him,
Speaker 1: and he went into a year's long funk, and rather
Speaker 1: than go to college, he directed his energy towards nursing
Speaker 1: his ailing mom, who was dying of tuberculosis around that time,
Speaker 1: and spent a few years rather rather than going to Yale,
Speaker 1: staying home and just kind of being pretty down in
Speaker 1: the dumps about things. And luckily he had Orville around.
Speaker 1: Orville was also indefatigable optimist who helped Um the brothers
Speaker 1: through some really dark times and this was one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Wilbert didn't even graduate high school because of that, which
Speaker 1: is remarkable um. And also didn't know they had street
Speaker 1: hockey way back then, so that's something I learned too.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, at Um Orville was like even from it.
Speaker 1: When he was a kid, he would go door to
Speaker 1: door um collecting bones and selling them as as fertilizer
Speaker 1: to the local fertilizer place. He built a printing press,
Speaker 1: and then when he graduated high school, he launched a newspaper,
Speaker 1: the West Side News, and that's when he got Wilburg
Speaker 1: sort of out of his depression. He's like, come on, brother,
Speaker 1: you get on over here. You can be the editor.
Speaker 1: I'll be the publisher. Um. It was the same year
Speaker 1: their mother finally did pass away in eight nine of TV,
Speaker 1: and it seems like that really did kind of save
Speaker 1: his brother and put them on a on a renewed
Speaker 1: shared path together. I think. Yeah. So, UM the shortly
Speaker 1: after that, I'm not quite sure what year it was,
Speaker 1: but the bicycle was a big deal. Um. I guess
Speaker 1: it was two. I'm sorry. The bicycle craze UM was
Speaker 1: in full swing, and they decided that they would um
Speaker 1: pool their their common talents together and open a bike
Speaker 1: shop in Dayton, UM. And that's what they did. They
Speaker 1: had a bike shop for a while, for many many years,
Speaker 1: even after they were um steadily experimenting with human flight. UM.
Speaker 1: Katherine managed that bike shop. By the way, this was
Speaker 1: so you know, she was the only one in the
Speaker 1: entire family too, aside from her parents, to graduate from college.
Speaker 1: She was the only right child. I couldn't get I
Speaker 1: couldn't get a lot I tried to find out. You know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of one of those things where when they're
Speaker 1: five kids that live into adulthood, and two of them
Speaker 1: are the right brothers. You're like, oh, what did the
Speaker 1: other ones do? And there was a lot of good
Speaker 1: stuff on Katherine and how she assisted them through the years,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't really find out anything else about the
Speaker 1: other the other ones, the other two were older brothers,
Speaker 1: and both of them weirdly became book keep bookkeepers, I
Speaker 1: said the first time, but the first one became a
Speaker 1: strange from the family, moved to Kansas City. The other
Speaker 1: way moved to Kansas City, got homesick and came back
Speaker 1: to Ohio and then became a bookke. That was they led, No,
Speaker 1: they led rather unremarkable, you know, solid lives. They didn't
Speaker 1: renv it the airplane, but there's no sha they didn't.
Speaker 1: But Catherine Um, you know the fact that she was
Speaker 1: the only right child to graduate from a full four
Speaker 1: year college with a degree. Um. She also did that
Speaker 1: while she was taking care of the family after her
Speaker 1: mother died. Like the whole family was like, well, you're
Speaker 1: the only woman here, so you got to the family.
Speaker 1: And then she also um came back from college. I
Speaker 1: think she went to Oberlin and um became a teacher
Speaker 1: while she was also taking care of the family too,
Speaker 1: So she does deserve a lot more credit and kudos
Speaker 1: than she gets for sure. Uh yes, the c in
Speaker 1: the k So let's take a break. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about what's going on there
Speaker 1: at that bike shop right after this. M all right,
Speaker 1: So the brothers have a bike shop, Catherine's running the thing.
Speaker 1: They're tinkering around in there. The world. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: previous to this bike shop opening in two, like you said,
Speaker 1: there were um electric trolleys going around and Carl Binns
Speaker 1: had built the first like real good automobile, and these
Speaker 1: guys were, you know, they like their bike shop. It
Speaker 1: was doing great. But Wilbur was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I see what's going on in France, and I think
Speaker 1: that we can do this. Brother, Like, who cares that
Speaker 1: we're not college educated? Who cares that I didn't even
Speaker 1: finish high school? And who cares that we're just bike
Speaker 1: shop owners in Dayton. I think we can we can
Speaker 1: invent a powered airplane. They even call them airplanes at
Speaker 1: the time, a powered flyer. And so he wrote to
Speaker 1: uh the Smithsonian Institution in d C. And said, uh,
Speaker 1: should I read his Catherine effort said, I believe that
Speaker 1: simple flight is at least as possible to man. I
Speaker 1: am an enthusiast, but not a crank. I wish to
Speaker 1: avail myself of all that is already known, and then
Speaker 1: if possible, add my bit you old poop. That was
Speaker 1: a great Truman. It was, and I think that will
Speaker 1: probably never happen again. I think there's one more quote,
Speaker 1: but that should be Sammy Davis Jr. Do the third
Speaker 1: quote is Truman Capponi. Then just keep building like that,
Speaker 1: all right? So, uh, the long and short of it
Speaker 1: is the secretary of the Smithsonian, a man named Samuel Langley,
Speaker 1: got this letter. He was a man who was receiving
Speaker 1: a lot of government grant to work on powered flight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was huge to everybody was working on it at
Speaker 1: the everyone was, and he was failing at it. He
Speaker 1: had something called the aerodome, which, by the time the
Speaker 1: Wright brothers got cranking up, had already failed. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Luckily he wasn't a one of those egotistical guys who
Speaker 1: controls the purse strings. He said, all right, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if you need some information, here's a bunch of information.
Speaker 1: And he sent him everything. But they had Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: he sent him like a basically a reading list and
Speaker 1: a bunch of journals that they should subscribe to and
Speaker 1: start investigating UM, and really kind of helped them get
Speaker 1: along their way. UM. This is also a time when
Speaker 1: some early flyers we're approaching this scientifically and publishing their data.
Speaker 1: Not the least of which was a guy named Otto Lilienthal,
Speaker 1: and I we must have talked about him in the
Speaker 1: wind Tunnel episode two, because he definitely was a an
Speaker 1: inspiration who I actually died during one of his test flights.
Speaker 1: And on his tombstone it says sacrifices must be made,
Speaker 1: which are has purported last words, which is controversially probably
Speaker 1: actually didn't say that, but um, that's what is on
Speaker 1: his tombstone. But he left a bunch of tables. So
Speaker 1: they started studying, like Auto Lilienthals, like flight test data.
Speaker 1: They were subscribing to journals, reading books, just just UM.
Speaker 1: They were reading everything they could about the mechanics of
Speaker 1: flight and birds and just trying to figure this out. UM.
Speaker 1: And they basically through this UM approach, through just basically
Speaker 1: absorbing them the data and the theories that were already
Speaker 1: out there. They figured out, Okay, we seem to understand, um,
Speaker 1: how to get this stuff in the air and keep
Speaker 1: it up in the air. We've got like lift and
Speaker 1: drag figured out. Um, we have power sources generally figured
Speaker 1: out what seems to be the big allunge is controlling
Speaker 1: the plane when it's in the air, because that's what
Speaker 1: got out of Lenthall, this thing where you actually where
Speaker 1: you start to turn and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: the flying craft turns back the original direction and it
Speaker 1: causes it to stall, so you no longer have any
Speaker 1: lift and you just fall out of the air like
Speaker 1: a sack of potatoes. Um. That had to do with
Speaker 1: controlling the plane. So the Right brothers identified very quickly
Speaker 1: and early on that that was a good thing to
Speaker 1: to concentrate on. And that's what they started with, was
Speaker 1: figuring out how to control the plane in the air. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because as we'll see later on when we get to France,
Speaker 1: they they could fly straight, they could fly in a circle,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't control straight and circle at the same
Speaker 1: time and fly where they wanted to fly, which is
Speaker 1: a big key in an airplane is you want to
Speaker 1: actually go someplace, not just whatever straight ahead of you.
Speaker 1: So they said Uh, Well, here's you know. The big
Speaker 1: challenge was the fact that and we've talked about this
Speaker 1: a few of our different episodes over the year about
Speaker 1: about plane flight. But there's three things you gotta do
Speaker 1: when you're up there is you gotta control your pitch,
Speaker 1: which is your nose up and your nose down. Your
Speaker 1: role which is your wing tips going you know, up
Speaker 1: or down and turning you. And then what and then
Speaker 1: you got that y'all y'all control one of the Simpson's jokes.
Speaker 1: Ever look at that y'all control? Uh, And that is
Speaker 1: nose right or nose left, And it's those three things,
Speaker 1: those three different xs controlling them all at the same
Speaker 1: time stumped everybody. Yes, um, because the flying contraptions that
Speaker 1: were being built we're basically gliders. They were basically hang
Speaker 1: gliders that people were billy, which was a big first
Speaker 1: step that we need to figure out because with a
Speaker 1: hang glider you can figure out the shape, the size,
Speaker 1: the curvature, the angle of the wing. Uh. And when
Speaker 1: the Right Brothers came into this this field, when they
Speaker 1: decided to cast their lot and to figure out how
Speaker 1: to fly I Um, basically people figured had thought they
Speaker 1: had already figured out the wing. Um, but that one
Speaker 1: thing about seeing, like controlling the wing to moving from
Speaker 1: one side to the other without stalling out. Um, Like
Speaker 1: I said, they kind of studied the mechanics of birds,
Speaker 1: and one of them noticed, I guess it was wilbur
Speaker 1: Um noticed that when a bird banks, the actual shape
Speaker 1: of its wing changes, so that when the wing twists
Speaker 1: a certain way, it causes air to go above it,
Speaker 1: to build up above it or below it, which means
Speaker 1: that you're going to turn one way or the other,
Speaker 1: depending on which way your wing is curved. And he said, Hey,
Speaker 1: if we could figure out how to make our wings
Speaker 1: do that, that might really work. But how about how
Speaker 1: about how chuck? Yeah, so here's the sort of movie
Speaker 1: one of the aha moments, and hopefully it happened like this.
Speaker 1: This is a great story if it wasn't. But he
Speaker 1: was in his bike shop. He sold a dude an
Speaker 1: inner tube and was holding the empty box when the
Speaker 1: guy left, and he said, by Zeus's beard, this looks
Speaker 1: like two parallel wings of a biplane. And when I
Speaker 1: twist this thing just right, the right wing tips curved
Speaker 1: down and the left wing tip curves up. On this box,
Speaker 1: and he was like, I think I have just stumbled
Speaker 1: upon the way to do this, except we're gonna do
Speaker 1: it initially with what was basically sort of like a
Speaker 1: glorified box kite. We're gonna do it with wires running
Speaker 1: through the wings that you can twist and warp these
Speaker 1: things from the ground, which was a big, big deal.
Speaker 1: They were doing this in Dayton. People would walk by
Speaker 1: and they're like, man, that is one crazy kite. I've
Speaker 1: never seen a kite do this kind of stuff. Oh,
Speaker 1: I think you should do that in Sammy Davis, that
Speaker 1: is one crazy kite, babe. So yeah, so they were
Speaker 1: in Dayton still at this point, flying this box kite around,
Speaker 1: and they were starting to get the hang of bending
Speaker 1: these wings to their will to make it do stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's man. It has changed not just the podcast,
Speaker 1: but my life frankly for the better. So yeah, they
Speaker 1: start testing out on as kites. So it's just pretty
Speaker 1: sensible because you know, the goal ultimately is to get
Speaker 1: a human in there and then to power the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but you know, you want to make sure that thing's
Speaker 1: not going to crash or stall out or whatever. So
Speaker 1: they would do um there. They would build these gliders
Speaker 1: and then basically control them like kites before they got
Speaker 1: in there, very sensibly, um, which I think is a
Speaker 1: pretty smart move. Yeah, they just started building them bigger basically,
Speaker 1: like each one was a little bit bigger than the
Speaker 1: one before, right, And then once once they would see
Speaker 1: like okay, yeah, this principle actually works, um, then they
Speaker 1: would start to get into the to the glider. They
Speaker 1: would convert the kite to a glider and then try
Speaker 1: themselves with them in there. So they again the purpose
Speaker 1: was to get a person aloft. It's supposed to be
Speaker 1: human flight, um, but they really lies that to get
Speaker 1: a human in the air, you needed a really really
Speaker 1: big glider or you needed a really good strong headwind.
Speaker 1: And they didn't have the money or the resources to
Speaker 1: build a really really big glider of the size that
Speaker 1: it would have taken to just fly it around Dayton,
Speaker 1: So they started looking for places that have um, really
Speaker 1: high winds. And I mean, if this is going to
Speaker 1: be turned into a really good movie, there's going to
Speaker 1: be like letter writing scenes, because they did a lot
Speaker 1: of letter writing, and it actually like moves the story
Speaker 1: forward quite frequently. Is one of those cases they wrote
Speaker 1: to the National Weather Service or the U. S. Weather Bureau,
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, can do you have any wind
Speaker 1: data around the United States? And they said, by God, sorry,
Speaker 1: by Zeus Beard, we do. We have reems of that stuff.
Speaker 1: And they sent them the September and August I believe
Speaker 1: weather data for the United States, all the weather stations
Speaker 1: across the United States. And they started pouring over the
Speaker 1: data looking for reliable, um strong winds. They found several. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What they wanted though, was um they wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of work in private. So they said, who has a
Speaker 1: lot of wind and not many people around? And where
Speaker 1: they landed, uh quite literally was Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Speaker 1: And this is at the outer banks of North Carolina,
Speaker 1: which now, um is sort of a different place. I
Speaker 1: mean it's still um it's not like Daytona Beach or anything.
Speaker 1: But back then there was like not much of anything there,
Speaker 1: had really good wind, had sandy dunes that if you
Speaker 1: did crash this thing, it wouldn't be as bad as
Speaker 1: as crashing like in a in a hard field and
Speaker 1: like a frosty field. And Dayton, Ohio. And so they
Speaker 1: said this is the place, Let's go down to Kitty Hawk. Uh.
Speaker 1: They did so in nineteen hundred with a seventeen foot
Speaker 1: wingspan glider. They had that same you know, same wire
Speaker 1: technology to bend these wings like the box kite, and
Speaker 1: they couldn't get it off the ground with a passenger,
Speaker 1: so it couldn't be a glider. And they said, we
Speaker 1: still got to treat this thing as a kite. Basically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they went back to the drawing board. They couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out what the problem was, Um, and they realized that
Speaker 1: there might have been something wrong with the wings, so
Speaker 1: they started kind of pouring themselves into the wing a
Speaker 1: little more. Um. They figured out that maybe the curvature
Speaker 1: of the top of the wing needed to be taller
Speaker 1: and closer to the front, and they came up with
Speaker 1: another glider, the nineteen o one glider, which had a
Speaker 1: twenty two ft wingspan, and went back to Kitty Hawk UM,
Speaker 1: and this time they did manage to get in the air. Um.
Speaker 1: They took this glider for a flight, but just like
Speaker 1: with Otto Lilenthal, it's stalled out with Wilbur on it
Speaker 1: and it crashed to the ground. He cracked his head
Speaker 1: open on a strut, a wing strut, I believe, and
Speaker 1: Um could have died. He was very lucky he didn't die,
Speaker 1: but he didn't UM And they said, okay, well back
Speaker 1: to the drawing board. We we've got to figure this out.
Speaker 1: And they figured something out that I think probably pushed
Speaker 1: them along. They what they were doing wasn't wrong. They
Speaker 1: were following data that was wrong from the guy who
Speaker 1: died from auto lilienthal. They should have been their first clue.
Speaker 1: They figured right. They figured out that his data wasn't
Speaker 1: particularly reliable um Or it was just plain old and correct,
Speaker 1: and that there's always soo something called Smeaton's coefficient, which
Speaker 1: was the value for air density that you would use
Speaker 1: when you're figuring out things like drag or lift. And
Speaker 1: they went back to the drawing board and said, we
Speaker 1: are going to have to conduct our own experience and
Speaker 1: create our own tables. And this is when they built
Speaker 1: their very famous now thanks to our episode on wind tunnels.
Speaker 1: Wind tunnel, that's right, UM. They like we said there
Speaker 1: were wind tunnels around, but they had one themselves. I
Speaker 1: think it's about six ft long, and they built two
Speaker 1: hundred little model wing designs. Because you know, we said
Speaker 1: it before, but it bears in mind repeating it. They're
Speaker 1: working with UM these wings are stacked, so it's not
Speaker 1: just like it's not a well is that funny? Forgive it?
Speaker 1: I think I know what you're talking about. It it's
Speaker 1: not just a single wing coming out each side. It's
Speaker 1: like a biplane or a box kite. So you've got
Speaker 1: you've got four different well not four different, it's really
Speaker 1: two different things you're trying to figure out. But you've
Speaker 1: got four wings. And you know, they had to carve
Speaker 1: these things to um. You know, they like what if
Speaker 1: the top wing is a little bit different and the
Speaker 1: bottom wing is a little bit different. So it's a
Speaker 1: lot of experimentation that went into this, and they built
Speaker 1: two hundred model wings, uh and tested them in that
Speaker 1: little wooden wind tunnel. And the real key though, was
Speaker 1: that they had equipment that could very accurately measure that
Speaker 1: lift and drag and they could really kind of stack
Speaker 1: everything out head to head and see which one worked
Speaker 1: the best. Yeah, they which combination right there. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: built what are called balances, which measure the movement of
Speaker 1: the say like the wing or the the movement of
Speaker 1: the air around the wing. Um. We talked a lot
Speaker 1: about that in the wind tunnel episode, but I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that engineers basically consider that the balances that they
Speaker 1: created to be on par if not exceeding the impressiveness
Speaker 1: of the fact that they achieved flight. Like these balances
Speaker 1: were not so precise and they built them out of
Speaker 1: old bike spokes and hacks all blades, But that that
Speaker 1: was one of the things that were well known for
Speaker 1: was they could take they could say, oh, yeah, hacks
Speaker 1: all blade, what could I use this for? And they
Speaker 1: would just fit it into different scenarios in their mind
Speaker 1: and say, oh, I could do this, or I need
Speaker 1: to build this. What could I use for this? And
Speaker 1: they would come up with hacks all blades and bike
Speaker 1: spokes and then more impressive than that, these things would
Speaker 1: actually work. So thanks to their dedication to experimentation and
Speaker 1: and taking down data and then building these balances that
Speaker 1: gave them very very accurate data, they not only were
Speaker 1: able to build their own um tables to figure out
Speaker 1: which wing shape and form and size was going to
Speaker 1: produce the best lift and the best control um they
Speaker 1: also were able to revise s. Meeting's coefficient, which has
Speaker 1: been in use since the eighteenth century UM from point
Speaker 1: zero five to point zero zero three three and if
Speaker 1: you if you do the math today using modern equipment.
Speaker 1: It was almost exactly precise. And they figured it out
Speaker 1: thanks to their hack saws and bike spokes. That's right.
Speaker 1: And Jimmy Smeaton sat up in his grave burped out
Speaker 1: a little dust bubble, right, and then laid back down.
Speaker 1: Uh no, I don't feel like it's to do. So
Speaker 1: they have their own data. Now they go back to
Speaker 1: Kitty Hawk in two well armed, feeling good. They get
Speaker 1: their third glider going based on this data, and it worked.
Speaker 1: They carry a person, and they had this you know,
Speaker 1: they had this sliding effect that caused Wilbert to crash
Speaker 1: in that last flight. So they added a rudder to
Speaker 1: stabilize things during turns. And they made thousands of test
Speaker 1: flights with this glider over the course of like nineteen
Speaker 1: o two and nineteen o three. A couple of times
Speaker 1: they went over six feet like you said earlier, in
Speaker 1: altitude and a glider, and they said, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a great time for a break. They said, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what's next. We've gotta power this thing with
Speaker 1: an engine or we're just gliding around like a bird.
Speaker 1: So we'll be back right after this to talk about
Speaker 1: their power source. Okay, Chuck, Um, so they have they
Speaker 1: have the shape, the size, the design of the actual
Speaker 1: flying machine, but unless they power it, it's just gliding basically,
Speaker 1: And they knew that gliding wasn't going to cut it.
Speaker 1: What's more, it's worth pointing out, Chuck, that they had
Speaker 1: already contributed to um aeronautics and our understanding of aerodynamics
Speaker 1: to an astounding degree that the data sets that they
Speaker 1: came up with from their wind tunnel was the greatest
Speaker 1: most advanced set of data any scientists one planet Earth
Speaker 1: had at the time. And again, these are the self
Speaker 1: taught right brothers working in their bicycle shop who are
Speaker 1: doing this. But they said that's not enough. We're really close.
Speaker 1: We think we can figure this out. We we are
Speaker 1: going to invent the airplane basically. Um. And that's what
Speaker 1: they said about doing Yeah so um, And I still
Speaker 1: can't imagine dude being six feet up the poop your
Speaker 1: pants feeling that must have been. You know who could
Speaker 1: do it really well? I see Sam Rockwell, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's either Orville or Wilbur maybe or of both. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd be like Tom Hardy and legend. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: change him up. He wouldn't be twins, but he could
Speaker 1: play both parts. That'd be kind of cool. You only
Speaker 1: gotta pay one guy, that's right, but you have to
Speaker 1: pay him twice. So, uh, they go back to Dayton.
Speaker 1: They decided, Uh, they were trying to figure out to
Speaker 1: power this thing, and they said, well, if we're gonna
Speaker 1: power this, need to figure out the engine and the propeller.
Speaker 1: And they thought about the Navy. They were like, the
Speaker 1: Navy builds plenty of propellers for their boats, and they
Speaker 1: were very surprised to learn that in all those years
Speaker 1: that the Navy never really worked on thrust in the
Speaker 1: design of a propeller. So they said, thrust is the
Speaker 1: key here. So we're gonna go back here and we're
Speaker 1: going to carve dozens and hundreds of little tiny propellers
Speaker 1: by hand from little tiny pieces of wood. I bet
Speaker 1: you love that, don't you. God I love it, And
Speaker 1: I mean I try to carve something every time I
Speaker 1: go camping, and then thirties five years, I've never carved
Speaker 1: anything that was worth keeping. What do you do you
Speaker 1: have like a go to like fertility idol or I
Speaker 1: used to try and carve like tobacco, pipes and then uh,
Speaker 1: just little people and that was just never any good
Speaker 1: at whittling and stuff. But it's how would you get
Speaker 1: the hole through the pipe that was the problem. Sure,
Speaker 1: so you got the pipe, it was just not functioning well.
Speaker 1: I would have to then take it homeland, like use
Speaker 1: a drill or something. But it never made it. They
Speaker 1: always just ended up in the fire. I got you, okay,
Speaker 1: but back to where you came from, your stupid pipe.
Speaker 1: So they're carving these little propellers and they and and
Speaker 1: Dave points out to that they may have been the
Speaker 1: first engineers ever to come to the realization that the
Speaker 1: same forces that generate lift in an airplane and a
Speaker 1: curved wing, which is Bernoulli's principle, was the same force
Speaker 1: that worked with a propeller, and that a propeller was
Speaker 1: essentially just a wing that's uh vertical in spens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they figured out that there's a direct correlation between lift
Speaker 1: and thrust and it just has to do with whether
Speaker 1: the wing is horizontal or vertical. And the idea that
Speaker 1: they were the first ones to figure this out is
Speaker 1: just mind boggling to me. But they seemed to be
Speaker 1: and at the very least even if they weren't the
Speaker 1: first ones to figure it out, they were the ones
Speaker 1: who figured out how to build a propeller blade such
Speaker 1: that it did produce thrust. So um, they figured out
Speaker 1: how to get this thing to be more than a
Speaker 1: glider by propellers moving and pushing the plane through the air,
Speaker 1: propelling it, you could say. But they had to figure
Speaker 1: out how to power the propellers. And that was a big,
Speaker 1: big problem because at the time the thing that had
Speaker 1: held people back for a very long time was um
Speaker 1: steam technolo ology was basically all you had, and you
Speaker 1: just were not going you were you were not getting
Speaker 1: off of the ground with a steam engine. UM. So
Speaker 1: the Right Brothers apparently wrote a bunch of letters to
Speaker 1: a bunch of different engine making companies and said, here
Speaker 1: are you know parameters or design parameters. Can you fulfill these?
Speaker 1: And they couldn't. Not a single company came back and
Speaker 1: said we can do this, although apparently a couple did,
Speaker 1: but but said we could do this for you know,
Speaker 1: King's ransom, and they're like, we can't afford that. So
Speaker 1: the Right Brothers, being the Right Brothers, just said we'll
Speaker 1: just do this ourselves. Yeah, we'll go back to that
Speaker 1: bike shop and they had a guy work in there
Speaker 1: named Charlie Taylor who was a machinist, and he was
Speaker 1: you know, it just sounds like another one of these
Speaker 1: guys that was just really good at figuring stuff out.
Speaker 1: In the movie, Charlie and Catherine would be romantic interests
Speaker 1: of one another, would be super cute. Well, there's actually
Speaker 1: a sad story later that involves that. But will it
Speaker 1: make the story even better for the end? Okay? Um,
Speaker 1: let's say just they just had a briefling and maybe
Speaker 1: she inspired him to tink her better. Okay, does it
Speaker 1: work that way? Sure? I can why not? Or maybe
Speaker 1: she gives them the brilliant idea during some like hot coitus. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was thinking maybe like a rowboat ride on the lake.
Speaker 1: But sure coitus, I guess you could have coitus in
Speaker 1: the in the rowboat on the lake. You should just
Speaker 1: abandon this. So Charlie builds a sixth grade classes by
Speaker 1: the way, I know, we should probably take all that out. Okay.
Speaker 1: So Charlie builds a four cylinder engine out of aluminum,
Speaker 1: and no one had ever used aluminum before an aircraft construction,
Speaker 1: So this was yet another thing that the right, brothers
Speaker 1: in Charlie Taylor came up with that would ended up
Speaker 1: like revolutionizing aviation. It became the backbone of aviation. He's
Speaker 1: using this lightweight aluminum, super strong, super light. And they
Speaker 1: connected this thing to the propeller using bicycle chains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if they if they weren't showing off before, they
Speaker 1: were by then because the engine they created, they figured
Speaker 1: out they needed a minimum of eight horsepower, and the
Speaker 1: engine they created was twelve horse power, so it had
Speaker 1: more than enough to to power the propellers which would
Speaker 1: produce thrust, which would actually create powered flight. And those
Speaker 1: bike chains, um were pretty ingenious too because there were
Speaker 1: um two sets of gears, one on each side, going
Speaker 1: toward each propeller, and those bike chains connected the propeller
Speaker 1: to the engine. But they to keep the propellers from
Speaker 1: shooting the I guess it would be yaw out the
Speaker 1: yin yang um from creating a gyroscope with the two
Speaker 1: propellers going the same way, they decided to have the
Speaker 1: propellers going the opposite direction of one another. To make
Speaker 1: that happen, they just turned one of the bike chains
Speaker 1: into a figure eight. How ingenious is that? Going in
Speaker 1: opposite ways kind of like oh, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: you see on airplanes these days, exact like, so the
Speaker 1: right brothers figured that out too. So now suddenly they
Speaker 1: put all this stuff together. They put together some controls,
Speaker 1: because remember controls were like one of the big um,
Speaker 1: that was one of the big challenges. They figured out
Speaker 1: a whole set of controls that controlled the rudder, that
Speaker 1: controlled these elevators in the front of the airplane that
Speaker 1: kept the nose from diving or lifting too much, um.
Speaker 1: And then they had the little lever that that um
Speaker 1: warped the wing one way or another to let you bank.
Speaker 1: And so they could control pitch, roll and yaw on
Speaker 1: a engine powered aircraft with dual propellers, and they were
Speaker 1: ready to go. All right, So here's how this thing
Speaker 1: is actually flown, which is pretty interesting because you know,
Speaker 1: like you said before, UM they were figuring out, like
Speaker 1: the biggest trick was how to figure out how to
Speaker 1: control this thing so you could make it go where
Speaker 1: you wanted it to go, And no one had really
Speaker 1: done this effectively yet. So it's sort of um operated
Speaker 1: like like you said, like a hang glider, and that
Speaker 1: the pilot is laying down on his stomach. In the
Speaker 1: middle of the plane, you've got the engine on the right,
Speaker 1: and then right in front of the pilot was what
Speaker 1: was known as the elevator, which are two little um
Speaker 1: stacked wings that could be adjusted in the adjust them
Speaker 1: with a little wooden lever and the left hand of
Speaker 1: the pilot to control the pitch and that is nose
Speaker 1: up or down right. UM. And those apparently used to
Speaker 1: go in the back of the plane and otto lilienthal
Speaker 1: um crashed with the elevators in the backs of the
Speaker 1: right brothers were the ones that moved into the front,
Speaker 1: which helped quite a bit. That was a big one. UM.
Speaker 1: There is also the hip cradle, yeah that side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like using your hips to to steer the
Speaker 1: plane basically. UM. And so the the the this little
Speaker 1: the hip cradle that you laid in UM was connected
Speaker 1: to wires that pulled on the wings that caused them
Speaker 1: to warp one way or another. And then it also
Speaker 1: was connected to the rudder so that that would stabilize
Speaker 1: UM yaw as well. So you had two different mechanisms
Speaker 1: that controlled three those three different axis. It really is
Speaker 1: super ingenious. Now, all of a sudden, you have a
Speaker 1: plane that's that's under human control, right, Like they couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out at this point a joystick that could control
Speaker 1: all those things at once, So that that hip cradle
Speaker 1: was that I think pretty smart um to take off,
Speaker 1: Like this is the one thing I actually never knew.
Speaker 1: Always wondered how did they Like, surely they didn't have
Speaker 1: that engine powerful enough to get them going and take off,
Speaker 1: And that is correct. They actually had to get up
Speaker 1: in the air for those twelve horses to do their work.
Speaker 1: And to do that, they slid this thing on a
Speaker 1: dolly on a sixty ft rail basically by the hub
Speaker 1: of a bicycle wheel. So they get it going on
Speaker 1: this dolly and then it launches and then that's when
Speaker 1: the engine has enough I guess enough of the head
Speaker 1: start with a thrust to get it going in the air. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when the thing kind of launched off of the rail,
Speaker 1: it was in glider mode a little bit. That helped
Speaker 1: the engine kick in or take over get enough power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean imagine they had the engine going. No they no,
Speaker 1: they totally did, but like you were saying, it wasn't
Speaker 1: enough to just go from a standstill. They needed that
Speaker 1: that glide. That glide to get it started. So on uh,
Speaker 1: December sevente am. Actually there was an unsung test flight
Speaker 1: that doesn't get a lot of praise. But on December
Speaker 1: they tried their first attempt in this this this powered flyer,
Speaker 1: and they tossed a coin to see who would go
Speaker 1: in Wilbar one and it went um down the track
Speaker 1: and went off of the track and crashed immediately and
Speaker 1: broke the elevators. So they took three days to repair
Speaker 1: the elevators and on the next try, on December seventeenth,
Speaker 1: that was Orville's turn, and so he became the first
Speaker 1: human to fly in a powered flight. Orville, Orville, right,
Speaker 1: did you flew for twelve seconds? Um? Just a few feet?
Speaker 1: I believe, I don't. I think it was about at um.
Speaker 1: But it was controlled. He landed it, and it was
Speaker 1: a It was a genuine powered flight. And from that
Speaker 1: first flight, I think even from the one that um
Speaker 1: that Wilburg tried three days before, they're like, this is
Speaker 1: gonna work. You can tell from the way the controls responded,
Speaker 1: and I think this is going to work. We just
Speaker 1: gotta we just gotta keep trying. So they did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So on that same day they did three more flights
Speaker 1: and the longest one. Wilbur. I love that they were
Speaker 1: taking turns. I think it's so cool. Um. Wilbur piloted
Speaker 1: eight fifty two ft and about a minute in the air,
Speaker 1: which is remarkable. Like this is the moment of the movie,
Speaker 1: you know, where everyone is just going crazy. It's like
Speaker 1: the high point of the film. And uh, then they
Speaker 1: go in and just like a movie, they go inside,
Speaker 1: they're having a cocktail, they're warming up and they're so happy,
Speaker 1: and a big gust of wind comes in and lifts
Speaker 1: this thing off the ground and smashes it and breaks
Speaker 1: it into pieces. Oh man, could you imagine? Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine seeing that. You'd just be like, oh,
Speaker 1: look the things that being lifted into the air, look
Speaker 1: at it. Glad. Oh god, no, They're like it's tied down.
Speaker 1: And then Sam Rockwell goes to Sam Rockwell, Yeah but
Speaker 1: crash right, Yeah, that's the problem. So. Um. They apparently
Speaker 1: were not particularly worried about this at this point because
Speaker 1: they had already shown multiple times that this proof of
Speaker 1: concept was was it would work. Um that they had
Speaker 1: they had undertaken the first flight. Uh, they done it basically,
Speaker 1: so they Um. They went back to Dayton. They had
Speaker 1: a habit of leaving their UM there, their test flyers
Speaker 1: at Kittie Hawk because they beat them up so badly
Speaker 1: that wasn't worth you know, moving them back UM. And
Speaker 1: some of them are preserved. And I believe that first
Speaker 1: flyer that they create it is in one of the
Speaker 1: air and space museums, maybe maybe in Dayton. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure it would make somewhere. It might be at UM
Speaker 1: the one out by Dullus maybe, or maybe I've just
Speaker 1: seen a replica. I feel like I've seen one in
Speaker 1: an airport and not a museum. So that was definitely
Speaker 1: a replica. And it was actually only six inches why
Speaker 1: and a kid was flying it around. It was our
Speaker 1: c control. Yeah, come to think of it, I've got
Speaker 1: this all wrong. So the Right Brothers they released a
Speaker 1: press release like they were acutely aware of you know,
Speaker 1: what they've just done. This wasn't something they had fallen
Speaker 1: backwards into. This wasn't something that you know, just happened
Speaker 1: through sheer luck like they worked their way too powered flight.
Speaker 1: So they let the world know about it, and they
Speaker 1: got zero response in return. Basically, yeah, this was pretty disappointing.
Speaker 1: I think they, you know, sent out this press release
Speaker 1: like you said, and got nothing. And I think they
Speaker 1: were like, um, hey, everyone, we flew a plane, like
Speaker 1: this thing that everyone's trying to do all over the world.
Speaker 1: We did it hi and it was it seems to
Speaker 1: be just a case of um. Like like Dave says
Speaker 1: a boy who cried Wolf, like these newspaper editors had
Speaker 1: been burned by writing about other people who said they've
Speaker 1: done it, and they're like yeah, right, um and it
Speaker 1: took This is kind of one of the greatest parts
Speaker 1: of the story. I think. In September nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: a journalist that was writing a beekeeping journal called Gleanings
Speaker 1: and b Culture, Mr. I A. Root was the first
Speaker 1: person to actually say, yeah, I'll write about this thing
Speaker 1: that sounds like a good story. Culture. Who would who
Speaker 1: would play him? Who? I John c Riley? I think,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, good, good call man. Okay. So so John
Speaker 1: c Riley shows up. He he had read about the rights,
Speaker 1: and he said can I can I see one of
Speaker 1: your flights? And they invited him out and he wrote
Speaker 1: about it, and it didn't get much attention at the
Speaker 1: time because I don't think Gleanings and b Culture had
Speaker 1: a really huge readership. Story though, I think you should
Speaker 1: read this quote in whatever whatever accent you want to read. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read a regular God and his great
Speaker 1: mercy has permitted me to be at least somewhat instrumental
Speaker 1: in ushering in and introducing to the great wide world
Speaker 1: an invention that may outrank the electric cars, the automobiles,
Speaker 1: and all other methods of travel, and one which may
Speaker 1: fairly take a place beside the telephone and wireless uh
Speaker 1: telegraphy am I claiming a good deal? Well, I will
Speaker 1: tell you my story and you shall be the judge.
Speaker 1: So that was pretty good. I mean, for no accent whatsoever. Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought you were talking about the actual article. So
Speaker 1: um yeah. They still didn't get any kind of attention
Speaker 1: from that, but it is a pretty great little footnote
Speaker 1: to the whole thing that that was the first article
Speaker 1: that was written on them and the Gleanings and bat Culture.
Speaker 1: They even wrote the War Department. He said, Hey, we
Speaker 1: invented an airplane. Do you want to buy it? And
Speaker 1: they said nah. Yeah. One of the reasons why it
Speaker 1: was because the War Department was like, well, can you
Speaker 1: send us a specifications. The Right brothers were like, no,
Speaker 1: we invented this, and yeah, you give us a contract
Speaker 1: first and then we'll give you the specifications of the
Speaker 1: War Department said Now. Even worse than the fact that
Speaker 1: they weren't getting any kind of credit for their accomplishment
Speaker 1: and no takers on um selling their their design, was
Speaker 1: that over in France. Remember we said that even the
Speaker 1: Wright brothers thought that the French would be the first
Speaker 1: to a powered flight. Um. The French were convinced that
Speaker 1: they would be the first to the power flight and
Speaker 1: that they had cracked it. There were Um. There was
Speaker 1: a Brazilian balloonist named Alberto Santos Dumont. I think they
Speaker 1: made a movie about him recently. He's a super colorful character, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I believe they did. He gave a demonstration.
Speaker 1: I got a movie. Yeah. I feel like they just
Speaker 1: called it Dumont with an exclamation point maybe. Um. But
Speaker 1: he he flew a plane in Paris, I believe, of
Speaker 1: his own design, UM, and it just flew in a
Speaker 1: straight line, no control. But it was enough at the time,
Speaker 1: because again no one was paying attention to the Wright brothers.
Speaker 1: It was enough for the French to be like succer Blue,
Speaker 1: you know this is the flight has been achieved, and
Speaker 1: the Wright brothers are like, no, this doesn't know. What
Speaker 1: we're doing is so much better than this. N o
Speaker 1: eight there was a guy, a Frenchman named aure Farman,
Speaker 1: who was the first to fly a powered plane in
Speaker 1: a one kilometer closed circle. This is nineteen o eight.
Speaker 1: It bears mentioning that the Wright brothers, who again their
Speaker 1: total outsiders, no one's listening to them. Three years previous
Speaker 1: to this they had stopped the experimental stage, they had
Speaker 1: reached the point where they had produced a reliable plane.
Speaker 1: And by nineteen oh five, three years before this, French
Speaker 1: pilot did that one kilometer closed circle flight that just
Speaker 1: knocked the socks off of the French um. They had
Speaker 1: done a twenty four and a half mile circle in
Speaker 1: thirty nine minutes. The Wright brothers had three years before this.
Speaker 1: And so imagine accomplishing this and then seeing people doing
Speaker 1: like like preschool or stuff compared to what you're doing,
Speaker 1: getting all of this praise and attention and press lavished
Speaker 1: on them, and no one's listening to you. This is
Speaker 1: the situation that the Right Brothers found themselves in at
Speaker 1: the time. Okay, so Wilbur has had enough. He goes
Speaker 1: to France and nineteen eight on August eight and he said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna go demonstrate this thing. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna show them that flying straight is stupid and I'm
Speaker 1: going to show them that we can actually make this
Speaker 1: thing turn and do whatever we want. And so he
Speaker 1: went to a little small racetrack outside of le Mons
Speaker 1: and uh, got on the ground and said, gentlemen, I
Speaker 1: am going to fly. And they all spoke French and
Speaker 1: they were like what he said, but he said something,
Speaker 1: I think he's about to do something big. So uh
Speaker 1: he he flew. And if the French were like suckaboo
Speaker 1: at that one flight, they were really knocked out at
Speaker 1: this one. Uh. They all realized that what was going
Speaker 1: on in front of their eyeballs was something that the
Speaker 1: French had never accomplished, that no one had ever accomplished before,
Speaker 1: and that they were basically done. And uh. There was
Speaker 1: a frenchman supposedly that was there that was quoted in
Speaker 1: the newspapers by saying, nissen batu, we are beaten. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mean imagine being like a French at the
Speaker 1: time and seeing like, you know, somebody in hang a
Speaker 1: hang glider with a bicycle gear on it and being like,
Speaker 1: people are flying, people are flying, and then somebody shows
Speaker 1: up in like a piper cub is like watch this.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the level of knock your socks
Speaker 1: off that that the French saw, um, and that was it.
Speaker 1: Like from that point on, the right brothers were overnight sensations.
Speaker 1: They were the first superstars of the twenty century for
Speaker 1: being the first to fly, and they finally started to
Speaker 1: get their claim. So, yeah, these guys are superstars. Katherine
Speaker 1: is actually, uh, if you remember, we haven't talked about
Speaker 1: her in a bit, she's actually a superstar too, because
Speaker 1: she goes with them. She learns French for the express
Speaker 1: purpose of helping the brothers out while they go on
Speaker 1: an eventual European tour. Um she negotiates a deal with
Speaker 1: because these guys, you know, I get the sense that
Speaker 1: neither one of them were businessmen, and they really sort
Speaker 1: of had their head in the invention game. And so
Speaker 1: Catherine was really key for you know, initially managing that
Speaker 1: bike shop and then helping them out with their journaling
Speaker 1: and data keeping, and then she's the one that actually
Speaker 1: negotiated with the army, because, yeah, the army said, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll give you guys some money. We'll give you guys
Speaker 1: twenty dollars as a grant, but you've got to be
Speaker 1: able to fly a pilot and a passenger. Um, and
Speaker 1: I presumably you know a couple of pomps or something
Speaker 1: and a gun maybe sure would be my guess, at
Speaker 1: the very least a guy with a rifle. Yeah. Side,
Speaker 1: was this before or after um the tragic game of
Speaker 1: hide and Seek with Katherine and Charlie Taylor where he
Speaker 1: hid in the trunk and got locked in and suffocated
Speaker 1: to death that you referenced earlier. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, okay, but it was around that time from
Speaker 1: what I understand, right, I think so. So Katherine, she
Speaker 1: negotiates this money, and wilbur Uh is in France and
Speaker 1: Orville at this time, goes back to d C and
Speaker 1: he eventually, in d C does a flight that goes
Speaker 1: for seventy minutes. Yea. So the French when they saw this,
Speaker 1: the French governments like, take our money, how much do
Speaker 1: you want for this plane? And they started to negotiate
Speaker 1: with France to sell their military planes. That got the
Speaker 1: attention of the U. S. War Department finally said Okay,
Speaker 1: we're on board. We'll start buying planes from you too.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't realize about the Rights is that they spent several
Speaker 1: years UM around this time training the militaries of the
Speaker 1: US and Europe how to fly planes and selling them
Speaker 1: planes instructors. Yeah, they really were so um. During one
Speaker 1: of this these training I guess kind of demonstrations, Orville
Speaker 1: had a passenger named Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, and they went
Speaker 1: up and we're circling a field and I'm not quite
Speaker 1: sure what malfunction they had. Do you know what what
Speaker 1: it was? Uh? No, I just know that Orville had
Speaker 1: to cut, you know, cut the engine basically and try
Speaker 1: and land. He was going to try to glide in
Speaker 1: and it didn't go very well. The plane, I guess,
Speaker 1: lost its lift and just fell out of the sky again,
Speaker 1: which was a real problem back in those days. And
Speaker 1: um Orville broke some ribs, um he sprained his back,
Speaker 1: but Thomas Selfridge died. He foctured his skull. He became
Speaker 1: the first casualty of a powered airplane crash in the
Speaker 1: history of humanity, which is kind of a dubious honor. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was Orville recovered, of course. Uh. He came to
Speaker 1: France and this is when Catherine also came to France,
Speaker 1: and this is where they did their big sort of um,
Speaker 1: sort of the victory tour, where they were demonstrating this
Speaker 1: thing all over Europe. People loved it. It was huge. UM.
Speaker 1: And like you said earlier, they were Wilbur and Orville
Speaker 1: and Catherine for were the first big celebrities of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. It's it's pretty astounding. And Orville was like,
Speaker 1: where's Charlie Taylor? And Katherine was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen him in like a year now. He
Speaker 1: just kind of dropped off the face. So strange. So UM.
Speaker 1: When they their company became established, the right company to
Speaker 1: design and build planes. UM, when that got again got
Speaker 1: off the ground, sorry everybody. UM. Orville was kind of
Speaker 1: dedicated to the actual production and invention side, while Wilberg
Speaker 1: dedicated himself to the business side, meaning he ran around
Speaker 1: suing anybody he thought was infringing on their patents. UM.
Speaker 1: And he spent a lot of time doing that again.
Speaker 1: Remember they were kind of raised not to trust outsiders
Speaker 1: like they trusted their family. Um, which is the opposite
Speaker 1: of the stuff you should know motto UM. And on
Speaker 1: some trip while he was I believe filing one of
Speaker 1: these patent infringements, were investigating it. He died. After a
Speaker 1: trip to Boston, he caught typhoid and I looked, and
Speaker 1: typhoid Mary was not cooking at the time. She was
Speaker 1: on hiatus. Because I thought, wouldn't that just be amazing
Speaker 1: if he caught typhoid from typhoid Mary? But he did
Speaker 1: not um or as far as I could find, he
Speaker 1: did not. So he went back home to Dayton and
Speaker 1: he died. And he was only forty five actually. And
Speaker 1: remember Orville and Wilbur planning to like spend the rest
Speaker 1: of their lives together. So this had a pretty big
Speaker 1: effect on Orville. Yeah, I get the sense. And this
Speaker 1: is where I sort of hinted earlier about Catherine and
Speaker 1: her romance. Um. She went with him and kind of
Speaker 1: stayed with Orville. He he didn't have much interest in
Speaker 1: running the right company anymore, so he sold it in
Speaker 1: nineteen fift sold all their patents for a million bucks
Speaker 1: about six million dollars today, so a huge sum of
Speaker 1: money to you know, retire for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: And that's what he did. Um, he still did stuff
Speaker 1: and this was a Hawthorne Hill is big mansion in Dayton. Um.
Speaker 1: Like he built an automatic toaster that sliced the bread. Um,
Speaker 1: he built a system of chains that let him adjust
Speaker 1: the furnace from upstairs. He built a circular shower, like
Speaker 1: he was he was never gonna stop building things. But
Speaker 1: it was all I got the sense, and just sort
Speaker 1: of retirement hobby sort of way. But Catherine, the sad
Speaker 1: ending there is. Um she met a man and fell
Speaker 1: in love I can't remember his name, and decided to
Speaker 1: get married and was really nervous about Orville. I think
Speaker 1: he was so used, so dependent on her being around
Speaker 1: that that she rightfully was scared and she was correct.
Speaker 1: And he refused to speak to her ever again after
Speaker 1: she got engaged and got married, which is really kind
Speaker 1: of credty. Uh, that's the nicest way to say it.
Speaker 1: And and it made me kind of think ill of
Speaker 1: him at the end, and she got pneumonia and was dying.
Speaker 1: Basically he still wouldn't talk to her. And finally one
Speaker 1: of his friends said, you gotta go talk to Catherine, man,
Speaker 1: this is your sister. And apparently he did arrive at
Speaker 1: her deathbed at least, but but she had died. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I don't I think he got there first, but
Speaker 1: she she did pass away of pneumonia, and us just
Speaker 1: very sad ending to her story of after not getting
Speaker 1: much credit over the years and sort of being at
Speaker 1: the beck and call of these brothers that were brilliant
Speaker 1: inventors and being a key part of their team, and
Speaker 1: then being too scared to tell her brother that she
Speaker 1: had fallen in love and getting married. It was really sad.
Speaker 1: That is very sad. Um So she so Orville outlived
Speaker 1: her as well, Huh, I didn't realize that. Well, he kept,
Speaker 1: like you said, tinkering kind of in retirement as a
Speaker 1: as a as a consummate inventor for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life and he actually died. Um. Well, he suffered
Speaker 1: a heart attack while fixing a doorbell and then died
Speaker 1: three days later, apparently super alone. I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: that was a real bummer ending that hadn't anticipated, Chuck,
Speaker 1: It's a double bummer. I thought we were gonna end
Speaker 1: it kind of like um him saying him being like
Speaker 1: I invented to the end, and then you know, the
Speaker 1: the SUSA band starts playing I got mad at my
Speaker 1: sister because she found love and I never did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or he did find love and it was his brother
Speaker 1: who died years before. Perhaps, so that's it for the
Speaker 1: right brothers. Huh, that's it. Evil Kinevel got a two
Speaker 1: parter and the Wright brothers didn't. He broke more bones.
Speaker 1: We're never gonna live that down. Nope, I'm never going
Speaker 1: to let us live live at that down. Ah, you
Speaker 1: got anything else? Nothing? Did I say that already? Maybe? Okay?
Speaker 1: Either way, it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this from a ten year old fan. We love
Speaker 1: hearing from our young listeners. Hi, guys, my name is
Speaker 1: Quinn and I'm ten years old and from Vancouver, BC.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy listening to your podcasts on my way
Speaker 1: to school. The two most interesting podcasts that I've listened
Speaker 1: to so far, so what about soap? It's really cool
Speaker 1: how soap is made? And the second one about porcupines.
Speaker 1: It's so cool that the old world porcupines have straight quills.
Speaker 1: Now the New world porcupines have barbed quills and how
Speaker 1: they're harder to get out of your body. I am
Speaker 1: very interested in the Titanic and the story behind it,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering if you guys ever thought of
Speaker 1: doing a podcast on the Titanically. Yeah, we totally should
Speaker 1: if you have. It's a very interesting topic to listen to.
Speaker 1: Uh So if you thought about doing that, then maybe
Speaker 1: you could do it. It would give me something to
Speaker 1: look forward to on the car right to school. I
Speaker 1: really hope you read this email, and I'm also hoping
Speaker 1: that you can write back if you have time. You guys,
Speaker 1: keep up the good work, and please keep making podcast
Speaker 1: for me to listen to all caps. Thank you so much, sincerely, Quinn.
Speaker 1: That was a great email, Quinn, thanks a lot for
Speaker 1: It's great and that cute thing happens to where it's
Speaker 1: from the parents email, which is always one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things. So I wrote back to Quinn's I think
Speaker 1: dad and said to tell Quinn that this is gonna
Speaker 1: be uh it's gonna be a listener mail. So yeah, Quinn,
Speaker 1: We've been wanting to do a Titanic episode for a while,
Speaker 1: but there was a period there where everyone had seen
Speaker 1: Titanic so recently the movie that it was like, why
Speaker 1: why would you even bother to do an episode on it?
Speaker 1: Right now? Everybody like it? Now, that's not what James
Speaker 1: Cameron says. Now we can do one, and it's high time.
Speaker 1: I've wanted to since since day one. So listen out
Speaker 1: for a Titanic episode and know that that that came
Speaker 1: from you there, Quinn. Yeah, that'll be a two part probably,
Speaker 1: we'll see. Only time will tell. If we mentioned Evil
Speaker 1: Kinevel in it, then yes, it probably will. Write. If
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with this, like Quinn did,
Speaker 1: we are always on the lookout for emails from you.
Speaker 1: You can send it to us at stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.