Contracts and Return To Kitty Hawk
The Wright brothers made no flights at all in 1906 and 1907. They spent the time attempting to persuade the U.S. and European governments that they had invented a successful flying machine and were prepared to negotiate a contract to sell such machines. They also experimented with a pontoon and engine setup on the Miami River (Ohio) in hopes of flying their airplane from the water. These experiments proved unsuccessful. In May 1906 they were finally granted a patent for their flying machine.
Replying to the Wrights' letters, the U.S. military expressed virtually no interest in their claims. The brothers turned their attention to Europe, especially France where enthusiasm for aviation ran high, and journeyed there for the first time in 1907 for face-to-face talks with government officials and businessmen. They also met with aviation representatives in Germany and Britain. Before traveling, Orville shipped a newly-built Model A Flyer to France in anticipation of demonstration flights.
In France Wilbur met Frank P. Lahm, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Aeronautical Division. Writing to his superiors, Lahm smoothed the way for Wilbur to give an in-person presentation to the U.S. Board of Ordnance and Fortification in Washington, D.C. when he returned to the U.S. This time, the Board was favorably impressed, in contrast to its previous indifference. With further input from the Wrights, the U.S. Army Signal Corps issued Specification #486 in December 1907, inviting bids for construction of an airplane under military contract. The Wrights submitted their bid in January. In early 1908 the brothers also agreed to a contract with a French company. In May they went back to Kitty Hawk with their 1905 Flyer to practice in private for their all-important public demonstration flights, as required by both contracts. Their privacy was lost when New York newspapers heard about the tests and sent several reporters to the scene.
Their contracts required them to fly with a passenger, so they modified the 1905 Flyer by installing two seats and adding upright control levers. After tests with sandbags in the passenger seat, Charlie Furnas, a helper from Dayton, became the first fixed-wing aircraft passenger on a few short flights May 14. For safety, and as a promise to their father, Wilbur and Orville did not fly together. However, several newspaper accounts at the time mistakenly took Orville's flight with Furnas as both brothers flying together. Later that day after flying solo seven minutes, Wilbur suffered his worst crash when—still not well-acquainted with the two new control levers—he apparently moved one the wrong way and slammed the Flyer into the sand between 40 miles (64 km) and 50 miles (80 km) an hour. He emerged with only bruises and a cut nose, but the accident ended the practice flights—and the aircraft's flying career.
Read more about this topic: Wright Brothers
Famous quotes containing the words kitty hawk, contracts and, contracts, return, kitty and/or hawk:
“O sinewy silver biplane, nudging the wind’s withers!
There, from Kill Devils Hill at Kitty Hawk
Two brothers in their twinship left the dune;
Warping the gale, the Wright wind wrestlers veered
Capeward, then blading the wind’s flank, banked and spun.”
—Hart Crane (1899–1932)
“Bankers, nepotists, contracts and talkies: on four fingers one may count the leeches which have sucked a young and vigorous industry into paresis.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“If love closes, the self contracts and hardens: the mind having nothing else to occupy its attention and give it that change and renewal it requires, busies itself more and more with self-feeling, which takes on narrow and disgusting forms, like avarice, arrogance and fatuity.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“Resorts advertised for waitresses, specifying that they “must appear in short clothes or no engagement.” Below a Gospel Guide column headed, “Where our Local Divines Will Hang Out Tomorrow,” was an account of spirited gun play at the Bon Ton. In Jeff Winney’s California Concert Hall, patrons “bucked the tiger” under the watchful eye of Kitty Crawhurst, popular “lady” gambler.”
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,
But like a hawk encumber’d with his hood,—
Explaining Metaphysics to the nation—
I wish he would explain his Explanation.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)