The Wright Brothers
Author : David McCullough
Publisher : Simon & Schuster, Rs699
Two-time Pulitzer winner David McCullough claims and provides an account of how two brothers without any engineering degree or advanced education went on to design an aircraft and flew it too, writes KUMAR CHEllAPPAN
After reading The Wright Brothers: The Dramatic Story Behind the legend authored by David McCullough and published by Simon & Schuster, the first thing I did was to ring up three eminent scientists who were my colleagues at Sri Sankara College, Kalady. Dr Vishwambharan is a senior scientist at Naval Physical and Oceanographic laboratory, Kochi, while Dr T Sabu is Kerala’s leading environmental scientist. Gopakumar, with a Masters in Physics is a software consultant.
All three feigned ignorance about the educational background as well as the family details of Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright, the brothers from Ohio, whom 82-year-old McCullough claims as the duo who invented aircraft and the first people who flew an aircraft.
The word claim has been used deliberately because McCollough’s arguments that it was the Wright brothers who invented the aircraft and were the first to flew it are mired in controversy. More of it later. “The Dramatic Story Behind the legend” is an account of how two brothers without any engineering degree or advanced educational qualifications (Yes, both Wilbur and Orville were school dropouts!) went on to design an aircraft and flew it too.
The book reads like an exciting thriller, no doubt. While projecting the Wright brothers as the pioneers who flew an aircraft, McCollough forgot about others who reportedly achieved the feat much before them.
John Brown, the Australian-born aviation historian says the credit for making the first ever flight should go to Gustav Whitehead, a German immigrant, who flew over Connecticut on August 14, 1901. “It was two years, four months and three days before Wright Brothers made their flight,” says Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft, rated as the Bhagavad Gita of aeronautics history.
“Whitehead’s aircraft was named ‘The Condor’ and he flew 1.5 miles at a height of 50 ft,” says Brown. But in page 260 of his book, McCollough describes this claim as an annoying one and says there is no proof of such a flight. David Brown has written that two popular US newspapers, Bridgeport Herald and Washington Times had carried spot reports about Whitehead’s feat. McCollough, who is known for his objectivity as an author and a TV presenter, should make correction for his error at least in the next edition of the book.
In spite of the fact that McCollough has courted controversy by belittling the feat of Whitehead, the book on the Wright brothers is a splendid account of how Wilbur and Orville designed and built a “flying contraption” with $15. They did not have any science or engineering background. The brothers had a cycle manufacturing unit and that was their only link with engineering or mechanics.
What makes the feat unique is that scientists and engineers of their times had scoffed at the idea of air planes and flying. Simon Newcomb, professor at Johns Hopkins University dismissed the idea of flight as a myth, while the chief engineer of the US Navy rejected all prophecies of flying “as wholly unwarranted”.
They learnt everything by observing nature. Their curiosity was generated by watching birds in flight. The pioneers in flying began their career by bringing out a newspaper Westside News in 1889 which they later renamed as The Evening. In 1893, the brothers launched Wright Cycle Exchange, the precursor to their later day manufacturing enterprises Wright Cycle Company. Their branded bicycles were instant hit with the new generation.
Wilbur, the eldest of the two, familiarised himself with terms like equilibrium, lift, pitch, roll and yaw, words which find everyday use in flying. Otto lilienthal, the German gliding enthusiast, who got killed while trying to fly in a glider built by himself made Wilbur to dream and think big. Empire of the Air, a book authored by French farmer Pierre Mouillard and the flying experiences recorded by lilienthal “infected us with their own unquenchable enthusiasm and transformed idle curiosity into the active zeal of workers,” the brothers have recorded.
McCollough gives the readers a true account of how the brothers designed and developed the first glider. He has quoted extensively from the letters written by the brothers to their sister Katherine and father, Milton Wright, a bishop with one of the many Christian sects in Ohio. The language used by the brothers is that of a common man and it is possible for an average reader to comprehend what was being done by them.
Wilbur and Orville spent hours on the seashore of Kitty Hawk, the island along North Carolina, watching how the birds fly and studying the movements of their wings. No engineering drawings or complicated mathematical equations! What makes the book interesting is the kind of narrative used by McCollough which could be enjoyed by all kinds of readers. One gets the message that science and engineering should never be taught in smart class rooms with DVD players. For the Wright brothers, nature was their class room, birds, animals, trees and landscapes were there teachers.
One particular paragraph (page 38) sums up how the author elucidated the secret behind flying; “Wilbur’s observations of birds in flight had convinced him that birds used more positive and energetic methods of regaining equilibrium than a pilot trying to shift the centre of gravity with his own body. It had occurred to him that a bird adjusted the tips of its wings so as to present the tip of one wing at a raided angle, the other at a lowered angle. The chief need was skill rather than machinery. It was impossible to fly without both knowledge and skill, and skill came only from experience-experience in the air”.
This comes as nothing surprising as McCollough is a twice Pulitzer Prize winning author. The story about Wright brothers is a classic case of how a book on science has to be written. Such books and authors are strange objects in India. This book is a must read for all those who are interested in the art and science of flying.
However, the author has failed to mention Pushpaka Vimana, the aircraft said to have been used by the demon king Ravana in the epic Ramayana and also about the flight claimed to have been made by Shivkar Bapuji Talpade in a flying machine over Bombay’s Chowpatty in 1895. This would have made the book more interesting for the readers in sub continent. And also about Thanga Thiruppati Nadar, a school teacher in Chennai who came forward claiming that he has the designs to build aircraft which would take off and land vertically so that precious land need not be wasted. Nadar had applied for a patent for such an aircraft.
The Wright Brothers made the first ever flight on December 17, 1903. Even after 112 years, India with the world’s largest pool of engineers and scientists is yet to design and develop an aircraft of its own. This is something which needs to be discussed urgently.
