Wright, Wilbur
Along with his brother Orville, he invented, built, and flew the world's first successful airplane.
Most quoted
"The difficulties which obstruct the pathway to success in flying machine construction are of three general classes: (1) Those which relate to the construction of the sustaining wings; (2) those which relate to the generation and application of the power required to drive the machine through the air; (3) those relating to the balancing and steering of the machine after it is actually in flight."
— from Speech to Western Society of Engineers, 1901
"The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously at the birds soaring freely through space, at tremendous speed, without any obstruction, without any effort, in a leisurely and graceful manner."
— from Some Aeronautical Experiments, 1900
"The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously at the birds soaring freely through space, at tremendous speed, without effort, in a leisurely way, on the crest of the air current."
— from Speech to the Western Society of Engineers, 1900
All quotes by Wright, Wilbur (377)
I have learned that carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks.
The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine. The control of the front rudder was difficult.
We had taken up aeronautics merely as a sport. We reluctantly entered upon the scientific side of it.
The subject is too great to be treated as a side issue, and too new to be dealt with by rule of thumb.
What is chiefly needed is skill rather than machinery.
The difficulties which obstruct the pathway to success in flying machine construction are of three general classes: (1) Those which relate to the construction of the sustaining wings; (2) those which relate to the generation and application of the power required to drive the machine through the air; (3) those relating to the balancing and steering of the machine after it is actually in flight.
We had to go ahead and discover everything ourselves.
The man who wishes to keep at the problem long enough to really learn anything positively must not take dangerous risks. Carelessness and overconfidence are usually more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks.
I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine. I wish to avail myself of all that is already known and then, if possible, add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain final success.
The airplane is the nearest thing to animate life that man has created. In the air, it can move in three dimensions and respond to the slightest touch of control.
We had to develop a theory of our own and then test it in practice.
The only birds that fly with any regularity in a wind of 20 miles an hour are the large soaring birds, and they fly high in the air and not near the ground where we would have to learn.
We could not understand that there was anything about a bird that could not be built on a larger scale and used by man.
It is the complexity of the flying problem that makes it so difficult.
We had to proceed entirely by observation and experiment.
The balancing of a flyer may seem, at first thought, to be a very simple matter, yet it is really one of the most difficult points to be obtained.
We were not the first to build and try experimental flying machines, but we were perhaps the first to treat the problem as one of sound engineering.
The problem of flight could not be solved by building a machine and then hiring a balloonist to run it. The operator must be part of the machine.
We had to develop a method of control that was instinctive and instantaneous.
The dream of flight is universal. It is the realization that is difficult.
Contemporaries of Wright, Wilbur
Other Inventions born within 50 years of Wright, Wilbur (1867–1912).