The Wright Brothers: Even More Badass Than You Thought

Popular Mechanics ^ | July 2, 2015 | Matt Goulet

[EveningStar]

For his new book, The Wright Brothers, ­Pulitzer Prize winner David ­McCullough pored over newspaper articles, photographs, and more than 1,000 letters to create a gripping account of Wilbur and Orville's quest to fly.

[EternalVigilance]

The Wrights changed the world on their own dime.

How about Musk?

[GreenHornet]

Yep. Remarkable, courageous, persistent, innovative American men.

Yeah, but they were white, so it's only a matter of time before the left starts fabricating stories about how their invention was stolen from a poor black lesbian somewhere.

[AlaskaErik]

Recently uncovered video of the Wright's flight tests.

Let me guess...in Brian Williams' basement. And he's in it.

[BobL]

Incredible...thanks for the story.

[Lake Living]

To quote our pres, “You didn’t build that!”

[Sequoyah101]

Ping. Thanks

[apocalypto]

A friend is reading it and said it is a terrific book.

[windsorknot]

I just downloaded the Kindle edition. This is of special interest to me, living in the Dayton, Ohio area.

[Noob1999]

btt

[OftheOhio]

I was gifted to work at Wright Patterson Air Force Base for almost twenty years including some time near Huffman Prairie. As I was going to and from I never failed to look over at the field where the first Master pilot was born. Wilbur taught himself through trial and error. He made the first 360 degree turns here and I suspect he flew into his own prop wash as I did later in my first hour of flight training. He practiced this over and over again in this small portion of the Prairie until he had mastered it, it seems flight training was born here also.

[OftheOhio]

How cool, Tupelo. You will like this article. Thanks to First_Salute for this excellent article.
https://dljh1964.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/charles-e-taylor-the-man-aviation-history-almost-forgot/

[rlmorel]

And even worse, people will believe it.

[Hebrews 11:6]

My great-uncle, Richard Scheffel, hung out in the Wrights' bicycle shop in Dayton at the turn of the century. It was before cars, so a bicycle shop was the place for a preteen boy to hang out. He had several fun stories he used to tell about them.

[Arm_Bears]

Experts built the Titanic; an amateur built the Ark.

[Hebrews 11:6]

an amateur built the Ark

But with excellent supervision.

[pa_dweller]

They also created their own wind tunnel to test their designs after finding some predecessors' data faulty. It's on display at the Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers

[Arm_Bears]

Indeed.

(What’s a cubit?)

[a fool in paradise]

Popular Mechanics thinks the Wright Brothers were awesome because at the dawn of the automotive age, they used their bicycle shop to produce a working flying contraption.

Over 100 years later and we still don’t have our flying cars!

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Time to go,all in on wing warping futures. Stupid iPhone keypad.

[ExCTCitizen]

Gus Whitehead flew first...