Wright Brothers (Orville & Wilbur) — "We have not been able to do much with the machine on account of the bad weather."
We have not been able to do much with the machine on account of the bad weather.
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About Wright Brothers (Orville & Wilbur) (Wilbur 1867-1912; Orville 1871-1948)
American aviation pioneers who achieved the first sustained powered controlled airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, NC, on December 17, 1903. Closely associated with Octave Chanute (their gliding mentor and aeronautical correspondent). For an intellectual contrast, see Samuel Pierpont Langley, Smithsonian Institution Secretary and government-funded aviation researcher — Langley's Aerodrome crashed twice into the Potomac in October-December 1903 with $50,000 of War Department funding; the Wright Brothers' bicycle-shop empiricism beat Langley's institutional Big Science by 9 days. The most-cited example in engineering history of empirical-tinkerer beating institution-funded credentialism.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Progress gets stopped by things outside your control, and the only rational response is to acknowledge it plainly and wait. The brothers aren't complaining — they're recording a fact. Bad weather isn't failure; it's a condition. The work remains; the machine is ready; the obstacle is temporary. Patient persistence means staying ready without forcing outcomes when circumstances won't cooperate.
Relevance to Wright Brothers (Orville & Wilbur)
The Wright Brothers chose Kitty Hawk specifically for its steady coastal winds, yet weather constantly interrupted their 1900–1903 experiments. Their diaries and letters are full of exactly this tone — flat, factual, unemotional. Two bicycle mechanics, they treated flight as an engineering problem requiring systematic iteration. This sentence reflects their character perfectly: no self-pity, no drama, just a variable logged and a return to waiting.
The era
In the early 1900s, powered flight had no instruments, no weather forecasting services, and no enclosed test facilities. Experimenters were entirely at nature's mercy. Kitty Hawk's isolation meant wind and storms dictated the schedule absolutely. Between 1900 and 1903, the brothers spent more days grounded than flying. Their December 17, 1903 success required weeks of waiting for conditions cold and windy enough to make the attempt viable.
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