First Flight: The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Airplane
by T. A. Heppenheimer

ISBN: 0471401242
Format: Hardcover, 394pp
Pub. Date: February 2003
Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 20,299

Hardcover, February 2003
Barnes & Noble price: $24.00



From the Publisher

How did a couple of bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, accomplish what some of the greatest minds in the world had been trying and failing to achieve for an entire century? Dumb luck? Trial and error? Or were the Wright brothers superb engineers whose invention was the product of diligent study, careful analysis, and a thorough understanding of the successes and failures of their predecessors? In First Flight, acclaimed aviation writer T. A. Heppenheimer debunks the popular assumption that the Wright brothers were a pair of amateurs whose successful attempt to build and pilot a powered airplane was the result of simple persistence and serendipity. He demonstrates that Wilbur and Orville Wright were true engineering geniuses who had already produced substantial improvements on the inventions and research of others--and whose feat equaled those of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and other giants of the age of invention.

This compelling biography/technological history traces the brothers?interest in mechanics, engineering, mathematics, and flight to their earliest childhood, when they "lived together, played together, worked together, and, in fact, thought together." It shows how, from early efforts in the printing business--which included a press designed and built by Orville and a paper-folding device designed and built by Wilbur--to their successful ventures in the newly emerging bicycle industry, both brothers demonstrated a high degree of ingenuity, creativity, and engineering prowess. Recounting the contributions of such important aviation pioneers as Samuel P. Langley, Octave Chanute, and Otto Lilienthal, First Flight reveals that the Wright brothers succeeded by focusing on the single problem that none of their predecessors fully confronted: how to control the flight of a powered, heavier-than-air vehicle.

Follow the Wrights as they reason their way to "wing warping" as the key to directional control, rethink accepted ideas on the optimum shape of an airfoil, and devise methods for the sustained and repeated testing of their theories and designs. You'll go with them to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where they test a series of gliders, develop crucial piloting skills, and race against the well-financed Langley/Smithsonian Institution project to achieve the first piloted, powered flight. First Flight features clear, easy-to-understand explanations of early flight technology and detailed accounts of the Wright brothers?substantial post-1903 contributions to air travel. It is must reading for aviation buffs, history and biography readers, and anyone who enjoys a rousing tale about real people who set their sights on a goal and triumph against the odds.

From the Critics

Publisher's Weekly
Aviation writer Heppenheimer (A Brief History of Flight) delivers a thorough look at the Wright brothers. Debunking the standard view that the brothers more or less invented their flying machine by luck and persistence, Heppenheimer definitively establishes a number of crucial facts about Orville and Wilbur that challenge current assumptions. He shows that the brothers were both driven, visionary individuals: Orville built his boyhood kites to help him "appreciate the importance of light weight in aeronautics"; their attempt at printing a newspaper failed financially but "showed them that they could measure up to the demands of challenging tasks by using their hands and their wits." He shows that the brothers were careful students of early pioneers in flight technology such as Otto Liliental and Octave Chanute, as well as contemporary rivals such as Samuel Langle and Glenn Curtiss, against whom the litigious brothers brought a legendarily tenacious patent lawsuit. Most important, Heppenheimer not only presents a detailed portrait of the brothers?groundbreaking and painstaking work in the workshop that "was the focus of their lives," but also reintroduces to the historical record their many technological and business adventures after the famous flight at Kitty Hawk. (Feb.)

Library Journal
Aviation writer Heppenheimer (A Brief History of Flight) here dismisses the popular notion that the Wrights were lowly bicycle mechanics who overcame their limitations through hard work and perseverance. Instead, he shows that the brothers enjoyed the advantages of upper-middle-class family life, an accessible home library, loving parents, and proper home schooling. The book examines the teenagers?various entrepreneurships prior to their self-introduction to the subject of flight, carefully demonstrating their potential for genius in each endeavor. Also covered are the early experiments with lighter-than-air flying contraptions, reminding the reader that not one of the Wright forerunners had mastered the issue of control of the airplane in flight. The first men to investigate the issue of controlled flight became the men who invented the airplane--the Wrights. Following their successful powered flights on December 17, 1903, Heppenheimer traces in detail the Wrights?continued work in Dayton, their adulatory reception by the public, their bitter patent suits against Glenn Curtiss and others, Wilbur's tragic death, and Orville's protracted feud with the Smithsonian Institution over its refusal to accept the Wrights as the Fathers of Flight. This somewhat specialized study runs counter to recent anti-Wright historiography (Herbert A. Johnson's Wingless Eagle and Seth Shulman's Unlocking The Sky) and will appeal to aviation scholars and enthusiasts. Recommended for all aeronautical collections and large libraries.-John Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Athens Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Customer Review

Bill Marsano, A reviewer, February 21, 2003
This One Really Takes Off
By Bill Marsano, an aviation buff living in New York City. The centennial of flight has given us a spate of Wrighteous books this year, but few can match this one for expert knowledge and for pleasurable reading. Heppenheimer is an aviation expert and writer who has covered the ground exceedingly well. Most important, he avoids the folkloric view of the Wrights as a couple of plucky, red-cheeked mechanics who somehow kicked an airplane into being for a lark. They were, in fact, a pair of solid and serious young Midwestern businessmen who looked the part: Even in the workshop they customarily wore jacket and tie. They flew with their hats on. Generally they resembled a couple of bankers who are about to turn down a loan application. Beyond that, they were not merely mechanics but natural-born engineers and self-taught scientists who observed, studied, tested--and learned from their mistakes as well as their successes. Most of us have heard the 'story?of the Wright Brothers--this book helps us comprehend the astonishing magnitude of their achievement, which took them less than five years, working part-time and paying their own way. Heppenheimer brings a lot of color into his story--the Wrights and others are revealed to us as human beings rather than icons--and he goes far afield, too, bringing us the stories of those others who preceded and competed with the Wrights. The result is a nicely rounded saga of man's long struggle to progress from wishes to wings. He also answers a question people often forget to ask: The Wrights produced the first man-carrying powered airplane in 1903; they set the world on its heels when, in 1908, they went to France for their first large-scale public demonstrations (before an extremely skeptical audience)--so how was it that they faded so quickly from the scene? I won't reveal the answer here (though I will suggest that the facts seem to pre-figure the later struggle between the Apple and the PC). And I will strongly urge you to read this book.

Buy now and get an additional 5% off as a Thomas user.