Director of the documentary. He is the author of to swing through the sky a musical theater piece about the twin histories of jazz and powered flight. He was a longtime member of the wright experience team and was executive director of the discovery flight foundation. Paul is a graduate of Washington University in st. Louis with a degree in visual arts. In addition to aviation history and documentary film making, his career covers classical drawing, s. T. E. M. Education, exhibit design and photography. With that, id like to turn the stage over to paul and thank you all again so much for coming tonight. [ applause ] hello. Thank you so much for having me. Can everybody see me okay . Hear me okay . Great. Great. Let me make sure i turn this thing on correctly. Okay. Thank you, kathy, and to everyone at Smithsonian Associates for having me back. Im very happy to be here. Again, and share this story with you. Its, i think, a its a really fun story in a local kind of a way. Its a story of life and death and its a story of invention and tragedy and all those sorts of things, but i guess whats fun is it happened here. It happened across the river at fort meyer. This tremendous mile snon flight happened right here and it was all caught on film. What were going to be doing tonight is ill take you through the backstory, how we got to the moment of the sale of the first airplane to the military and why it was a moment for Orrville Wright to come back from what had a terrible event the year before. And then were going to take a bit ueof a side step into the fm that was shot in 1909 of the Wright Brothers together when they came back to fort meyer and how this film, how i reconstructed this film in the ekwens it w sequence it was shot. So well be looking at that film and ill be narrating it. And then well talk about what happened after the trials at fort meyer were concluded. Hopefully well have time for quiz. Sound li questions. Sound like a plan . Well its the plan weve got so were doing it. Lets begin right here. This is september 17th, 1908. Seated on the airplane, looking down is Orrville Wright. See the seated next to him, thomas. About three to five minutes after this picture was taken, thomas was fatally wound and orrville was very badly injured in a crash. This is the moment before they took off. So well come back to that moment. Its very important to realize that at this stage the Wright Brothers were, in fact, world famous. Only months before they had been obscure guys from dayton, ohio. They had a bike shop. They were known in aero nautical circles, but no one had actually seen them fly in public. There were a handful of witness whos over the years had seen their airplanes fly. But nobody really knew whif wha they had claimed was true. When Wilber Wright took off in france in 1908 and orrville talk to off here in september of 1908, the world changed and they became world famous overnight. So thats one thing to know in this story is their dramatic transformation and especially for two very quiet, train the inspective, shy men. They were put on the world stage by their own actions and had to cope with quite a lot. Im going to take you very briefly through how the airplane came to be. Because its important to realize that the Wright Brothers werent these guys who woke up one day and invented the airplane. Or they did it in six months or something. This was a years long process that began with reading. It began with learning about everything that had come before them. And it began with a single trying to solve a single problem, control. They read about the great german pilot who was killed in a crash in his wakeshifting glider. Why did he die . Why did he lose control . And temperatuit was that problet them going on this process. Let me see if i can do my pointer here correctly. Right here, their very first glider they thought was going to be goode big enough to carbig e it was too small. They didnt get hours and hours of practice. Thats 1900. 1901 they come back with a much bigger dpli bigger glider. They based it on the data, they fly it like a kite. They do get it to fly, but when they try to turn right it goes left and viceversa. The control is backwards, thats no good. Thats not what they wanted. 1902, they come back with a glider they based on their own data and actually learning what the shape of a wing does. For really the first time, a ma cap cal wi mechanical wing. And instead of the glider, its struggling to get in the air, it shoots right up over their heads. Yoo theyve got a rutter now. We as human beings have been flying in control ever since 1902. It was only once that was solved that they moved to building a powered airplane. So its a very iterative process, its very deliberate, step by step. One of the things thats important to realize in the Wright Brothers story, is that they secaccepted risk. They knew they would get hurt at any time. Here it is. This is the moment. I love showing this picture. You can download a 200 megabyte tiff from the library of congress and its so clear, its so in focus you can practically see the nails on the soles of orrvilles shoes. Hes lying down on the airplane. And that picture im sorry . [ inaudible ]. I cant. Having a request for the lights to come down a little bit. I dont know if he thats possib possible. Okay. So, where was i . This picture is so in focus, it was taken by a man who had never taken a picture before. Orrville preaim and prefocused camera and the moment it took off they got the shot. But orrville did the first flight. That airplane only flew four times on that morning. And this is the end of the last flight. Wilber broker the airplane. 852 feet, one minute flying, hut a humic in the ground, front came off. This was the second time they broke this airplane. The first time was on december purpose toth. They broke the 1902 glider several times. They brock tke every flying mac they ever built. Again, accepted risk. 1904, they build an airplane almost eye dant dent c almost identical to the 1903, but they keep it in ohio this time. This is the airplane that gets them in a complete circle. So step by step, Getting Better all the time. This airplane still has a lot of stability problems, it wants to fly like this. Very, very difficult to fly. And, in fact, this is if you can see there, theres the airplane on its nose. You can get very paralyzed in a crash like that. Theres Nothing Holding you in on the airplane, youre lying down on the wing, it stops, you keep going. Extremely dangerous. Back up, again, this is risk that they accepted. They didnt fly high at this point. They didnt fly fast. They were simply going as much apps they could as they could i step by step teaching them stof selves to fly. But they solved it. They put together three axe sis control. Theyve impruchd the powoved th of the airplane and fuel on the airplane. Wilber stays in the air for 23 miles flying around huffman prairie. An extraordinary achievement. And actually two days ago i was at huffman prairie, i was preparing my new film at the air force museum over the weekend and when you go there, how many of you have been to the huffman prairie some oh, quite a few. Go. The National Park service maintains it, it is unchanged from how it was when the Wright Brothers were there. And i was there with the retired general from the French Air Force anticipated walked out into the field and he said, you just you just feel it. You just feel it. And you do. Its really quite an extraordinary place to go. So whats interesting about what happens here in 1905 after those flights, and i ask this question whenever i give a presentation at the elementary school, i say youve invented the airplane and this great thing, what do you do next . What do you do next . [ inaudible ]. Exactly, sell it. Thats right. Thats what the Wright Brothers did. Thats what they set out to do. The experimental phase ends the invented phase ends in 1905. They carry on with Research Development for all of the rest time, but the primary purpose is no longer inventing, but business. And its a very clear decision they make. So the airplane goes away. And they dont do anything with the airplane in terms of flying it or showing it or anything for three years. What they want to do is get the business set up and they go after two things. Customers and patent. Patent was incredibly important to them. This is actually the page, the drawing page from their famous patent. Turn it so you can see it a little better. And what its based on is not the airplane, not the powered airplane. Its based on their control system and the principles of their control system. Because what they realized is that they had contracted the problem of three axe sis control. Does everybody know what that is in an airplane . Okay. A buy cycle is two axe sis control, roll, bicycle leans and y yaw, turn it with the handlebars. Airplane has one more axis, pitch, so youre diving, turning, and rolling. You know, and you need all three in order to fly in control in order to balance the airplane in the air. Thats what they patented was the principle and the mechanical solution that they came up with this. And, again, when i was just back in dayton, the retired superintendent of the park said this patent was bullet proof. There were a lot of lawsuits against the Wright Brothers. A lot of people tried to get around the patent. It went on for years. Thats a whole other lecture. Suffice it to say they never lost a case. And what they created has been, you know, the underpinning of how airplanes are controlled. Its based on the 1902 glider. This is the one where they learned how to really master a machine in the air, a heavier than air machine. They had over 1200 glides in this machine. But, by 1908, the Wright Brothers are not alone in getting into the air. Some of what theyve done has leaked out. They tried to keep a very tight lid on it, but word has gotten out. Theyve also been to europe trying to sell the airplane. In fact, they wrote to nations all over the world, all over europe, japan, russia, because theyre own country, the United States, kept turning them down and saying they would write to the army and the army would say we are not turning money loose for flying machines. Were not spending money on arial experimentation. And they kept it writing back saying were done with that, we have it and heres what it does. It went back and forth and they kind of gave up. And, like i said, people started getting into the air. This is january, 1908 in france. Thats henry flying the winning the arch deacon cup, if im remembering that name right. First kilometer in a circle. Wright brothers have flown many, many times that already, but not in public. Big hero. Glen curtis, july 4th, 1908. One kilometer in a Straight Line wins the Scientific American cup. Again, the Wright Brothers, much further along than that. But, nobody had seen what theyve theyd done. The New York Times even published a piece called are they saying are they flyers or liars . Thanks to, in part, to a very to a young army wlout waslieute was a balloonist, he had met wilber in france when he was trying to sell the airplane there. And he believed the Wright Brothers. He could he got know him and really understood what was going on. And he was one of the ones who helped advocate with the military back here in washington. And they put out this famous notification, i believe its number 486. What we would today call an rfp. And it was four the specifications of a flying machine. We will buy one if it meets these requirements. And it was open to bid. And actually a lot of people did bid on it. One guy was actually in prison in texas who bid on it. And they only accepted three proposals, one guy never showed up. The other guy had worked actually with the secretary of the smithsonian and others and he showed up with parts and a suitcase. Not really what they were looking for. And of course the Wright Brothers had what they had. And it was based in large part on what they had done. But it was, again, a different thing than the Wright Brothers had ever done. The army wanted two people sitting upright. Theyd never done that before. They did one person lying down. They wanted it to fly 40 miles per hour, stay in the air for an hour. They, you know, it was more than they had actually done. So they got out their 1905 machine, they hadnt flown it in three years. They take it back to north carolina, they put seats on it. Its got a bigger engine, its got better propellers, and they go to practice. And they do practice. And they take up one of their mechanics. Its the first passenger flight. Happens down in north carolina. Theres very few pictures of the airplane down there. This is the best one. And they start practicing with this new control system because instead of before they had a hip cradle and cryou moved your hip to do the wings. Theyre completely changing it because theyre setting and you they have to use these levers. Orrville designed the control system and wilber got confused flying the airplane and the airplane went in and he crunched it. He was fine, but the airplane was total. Practice, done. No more practice. And they didnt really have all that much practice. So wilber goes off to france with an airplane they built in 1907. Orrville comes to fort meyer with an airplane almost identical to it, and they go to unveil the airplane. This is a pick tire ture of wil france. They were amazed by him because he didnt want to say in fancy hotels or anything like that. He slept in the hangar with the airplane. He got himself around on a bike. Very modest and selfafacing guy. Its kind of kind of hard to ov the fact impact that wilburs had in 1908. Because no one had seen what they could do. People were in the air flying circles. With you wilbur took off and kept into turns. And came down and landed they couldnt believe the control he had. And the man well see this with orville. They must have had nerves of steel. Because they hadnt flown the actual airplane airplanes ever. And doing a fullup test in front of everybody saying i dont believe you. And then they do it. Were fortunate to have footage to see what this looks like. Thats wilbur getting into his arp. When he got to france he changed the controls. Because orrville had you moving left to go left and down to go right and down was up and which was bake ard. And wilbur didnt like it he change it so left was left and the right was right. The irony was that orrville couldnt fly wilbur he iss and wilbur couldnt fly orrville. He puts down the nose and its full throttle. You cant just climb away. This is very, very typical what you would have seen wilbur doing that summer. Is flying graceful circles low to the dwround. And he demonstrate over and over again is complete control. He never hotdogs the arp. He wasnt who he was at a person or a pilot and not as a businessman. And thats why they did this. Its not because they wanted to show off the airplane and make big names. They wanted to go into business. They patented the control system. Anybody building an airplane would have to pay a royalty. They were going to make money. Thats why they did it. Its perfectly fine. Its okay. I dare say, i would do that if i invented the airplane. This is great because you actually see the airplane land on skids which you dont often get to see. Yeah, quite amazing. So, wilbur blows everybodys mine. Orrville comes to ft. Myer in late august. Theyre already world famous before he has done anything. And his brother set a very high bar for him to meet expectations were zero. Now theyre really high. One of the requirements was that the airplane had to be transportable on a wagon. So this is where they bring it in. Right near where wright gate is at ft. Miles an hour myer. How many of you are familiar with the joint base at great. Orrville didnt have the advantage that wilbur had of sol attitude and peace and quota. He was world famous. A lot of people came to see him. He wasnt with his brother. He was perfectly capable of doing this by himself. But he was in a very different circumstance than wilbur was. And so this is the airplane. Thats orrville standing there. And there is the airplane while it was being assembled. In whats call the balloon shed ill get to that in a minute. At ft. Myer. There was a photographer there by the name of c. H. Clawedy. And the smithsonian has his original negatives. Its as if we hired a photographer at the time to go back in time appear take beautifully Crystal Clear closeup shots of this airplane, see exactly how it went together. And this is one of my favorite pictures he shot because i love the airplane in the foreground and the man soldier on horseback in the background. It was a transition from one century to another. This is also a picture of orrvilles control system. And at this time anybody who is building an airplane generally came up with their own control system. So it was you when you learn to fly a particular kind of airplane, thats it. You didnt fly any other kind of airplane because you didnt know how to make the levers work. What you see here are three levers. These two orrville held in one hand, thats for turning. That holds both thats wing warping and rudder. But the stick is actually split so he could actually trim it a little bit, if you can imagine how you would with one hand split two sticks apart, foreand atf. Crazy. And thats the elevator control there. You can tell by wilbur wanted oh redesign it. Orrville had to do two trials for the army. One an endurance test flying with a passenger for an hour and once distance and speed test, Cross Country and had to fly at least 40 miles an hour. Orrville was no where near ready to do this when he put the airplane together so he did a lot of training flights, practice flights. And they didnt have quite the same big bang effect that wilburs did. But it once again proved what they had done was real. I want you to look at the difference. I mean, but still was a big deal. Look at the crowd. Look at the crowd. And this is just to see him practice. And just look at the difference. Look where he is, the lying down. On a desserted strip of sand, his berry and six other people. They probably didnt get more than 10 feet off the ground. And l