Wright Brothers – Wright Contemporaries

Orville Wright (middle left in the picture) had two influential friends in Dayton that helped shape his future as well as the future of aviation.

His friends, Edward A. Deeds (far left in picture) and Charles F. Kettering (far right in picture), had ties to the National Cash Register Company now known simply as the NCR Corporation. The NCR was a dominant presence in Dayton in the early 1900s. Deeds and Kettering were two of its most influential people, having prospered under the guidance of John H. Patterson the founder of the company.

The men left the NCR in 1914 to form their own company, known as the Dayton Engineering Laboratory Company (Delco), to produce the first self-starter for automobiles, an invention they worked on part-time in Deed’s barn behind his house.

Original Wright Company Leaves Dayton

Orville sold the original Wright Company in 1915, three years after Wilbur’s death. The Wright Company merged into the Wright-Martin Company and moved to New Jersey in 1917.

New Company Is Formed

That same year a new airplane company was formed in Dayton. Deeds and Kettering started the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company in 1917. They didn’t know much about airplanes but they brought in their friend Orville Wright as a consulting engineer to help them.

The timing of the formation of the company was fortuitous as World War I came along shortly after its formation. The new company was awarded hefty contracts to produce 4,000 British De Havilland warplanes and 400 trainers for the war effort. It didn’t hurt that Deeds was commissioned a Colonel and appointed head of aircraft procurement of the U.S. Aircraft Production Board.

Orville was commissioned a major in the Aviation Section of the Signal Officer Reserve Corps and ordered to remain in Dayton to advise the engineers at Dayton-Wright.

One of the more interesting projects that Kettering and Orville worked on was a pilotless airplane called the “Bug” designed to deliver a 180-pound bomb. It was a predecessor of the German World War II buzz bomb. Fifty “Bugs” were delivered but never were used before the war ended.

On one occasion, the pilotless plane went out of control setting off a chase by 100 men in automobiles. The plane came down 21 miles from Dayton. When the chase party arrived, puzzled people at the site were searching for nonexistent the pilot.

By the end of war, Kettering had become an avid flyer. One of the first pilots trained by the Wrights taught Kettering how to fly.

As a flyer, Kettering provided two pieces of advice for novice pilots. First, he advised, “never to fly on days when the birds aren’t flying, as they have more experience in the matter.” Second, if you are lost in a fog bank, “throw out a monkey wrench. If it goes up, you are flying upside down.”

Establishment OF Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

Deeds, Kettering and Orville were involved in establishing what is today known as Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In 1916, Deeds and Kettering purchased land just north of downtown Dayton along the Great Miami River. There, they hoped with Orville’s help, to establish a flying field for training civilian pilots. They barely started clearing the field when the war came along. Deeds sold his interest to the land to Kettering after Deeds was commissioned a colonel and went to Washington.

Kettering in turn leased the land to the government and the government established the first military aviation research center, named McCook Field. It became known as the “Cradle of Aviation. Among other things the first free fall parachute was developed there as well as aerial photography.

In the early 1920s, the government threatened to move out of Dayton because McCook field was becoming too small and could not be expanded. Here again Deeds became involved and a committee was established to raise money to build a new airfield in another location around Dayton. Orville was consulted and the committee recommended a location east of town not far from Orville’s old flying field at Huffman Prairie. The committee raised $400,000 and purchased 5,000 acres of land, which it presented to the government for the token price of $2.00. The land became Wright Field, named for both Wilbur and Orville, and was dedicated in 1927.

Historical Parks Established

Deeds headed the committees that established two historical parks around Dayton – The Wright Brothers Memorial and Carillon Historical Park.

The Wright Brothers Memorial is located on a hill near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base overlooking Huffman Prairie, the Wrights’ flying field in Dayton after their success at Kitty Hawk. The memorial is made of marble quarried near Kitty Hawk, NC. It was dedicated on the anniversary of Orville’s 69th birthday on August 19, 1940.

Carillon Historical Park was established in 1942 as a gift of Deeds. The park’s prized possession is the restored 1905 Wright Flyer. It was this Flyer that the Wrights characterized as their first practical airplane. Orville provided guidance during the restoration.

Orville Dies Of A Heart Attack

The restored Flyer was dedicated in June 1950. Tragically, Orville didn’t live to see it. He had his first of two heart attacks on October 10, 1947, as he was running up the steps of the main NCR building to keep an appointment for a luncheon with Deeds. He was hurrying because he was uncharacteristically late.

On January 27, 1948, he had spent the morning going up and down steps fixing the door bell at his home, Hawthorn Hill. He had his second heart attack shortly after his arrival at his laboratory in downtown Dayton. He died in his sleep three days later in the hospital at the age of seventy-seven.

1903 Flyer Returned to America

Orville’s death created a temporary roadblock to transferring the 1903 Flyer back from Britain to America. In 1925 Orville had sent the Flyer to be displayed in the London Science Museum after the Smithsonian Institution refused to support the claim that the Flyer was the first powered airplane.

Orville had inserted in his will the stipulation that the Flyer should remain in London after his death unless he amended the will with a subsequent letter from him indicating a change of heart.

It was known at the time of his death that the Smithsonian had recanted and Orville had agreed to the return of the Flyer. But, Orville’s letter authorizing the transfer could not be found. It was suspected that the letter was in Orville’s files in the possession of Mabel Beck, Orville’s long time, protective secretary. The problem was that she wouldn’t let anyone examine the files.

Deeds became involved to resolve the roadblock. He invited Ms. Beck to his office at the NCR. When Deeds found out that she knew where the letter was in Orville’s office, he sent her in a company car to get it.

The epochal 1903 Flyer became a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian eleven months after Orville’s death in an elaborate ceremony attended by 850 people on

December 17, 1948. The occasion marked the forty-fifth anniversary of the plane’s famous flight.

Friendly Endeavors

The threesome of Deeds, Kettering and Orville were involved in many other activities together. Deeds and Kettering formed the Dayton Engineers Club in 1914, a club of the influential men in Dayton. At its dedication, Orville was second vice-president. Later he became president.

They established a new experimental school advocating the nascent progressive education philosophy. Deeds and Kettering both had sons enrolled in the school as was Orville’s nephew Horace. Kettering provided the school building, renovating a used greenhouse he owned. Orville was on the board of directors.

The three men often had dinner together along with other friends. One night after dinner, one of the attendees wondered whether it was a good idea to lie down after a heavy meal. It was pointed out that it was not a good thing because blood circulation slows down after a nap. Orville who had said nothing up to that point then remarked, “If what you fellows say is true, there must be a lot of sick dogs in this world.”

Edward A. Deeds

Deeds was hired at NCR in 1899 as a young electrical engineer for $30 per week. He had been there for a few days when he told the plant superintendent that there was a loose brick near the top of the company chimney. The superintendent ignored him, so a Sunday, Deeds put on gloves and a wet sponge on his nose and with a camera climbed to the top of the chimney and took a picture of the loose brick.

John H. Patterson, the brilliant and often eccentric founder of NCR, admired his “pluck.” “Pluck” marked Deeds as a rising star in the company and eventually resulted in his becoming chief executive officer and chairman of the board. He died in 1960 at the age of 86.

Charles F. Kettering

John H. Patterson wanted someone to electrify the cash register so that it wasn’t necessary to turn a crank when ringing up a sale. His engineers said it couldn’t be done. A motor small enough to fit inside the register would burn out in a short time.

Kettering, 28, was Ohio State University’s outstanding engineering graduate in 1904 even though he was partially blind. Patterson hired him for $50 per week to do the job, which he did.

He was successful because he realized that a small electric motor was capable of a strong, brief burst of power. It did not need to run continuously.

The first electrified machine was installed at the M.J. Schwab cigar store near Third and Main Streets in downtown Dayton.

A few years he used the same basic idea of the electric motor in the cash register to invent the automobile self-starter, his most famous invention.

Kettering had more than 300 inventions besides the electric cash register and the self-starter during his lifetime. They included the automotive electric ignition system, four-wheel brakes, safety glass and Ethyl gasoline.

He always preached looking ahead. “The only thing certain is change. The past should be a guidepost, not a hitching post.” Kettering died in 1958 at the age of 82.

Personal aside: In high school, I played baseball every summer on diamonds laid out on the old McCook Flying field, now called Kettering Field. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, I worked at Delco, the company that Deeds and Kettering had originated.

Schoolmates

The 1890 Dayton, Ohio Central High School class was a most unusual class. Among its 28 members were two world-class prodigies who were destined to become world famous. One was Orville Wright, who with his brother, Wilbur, invented the airplane. The other was Paul Laurence Dunbar who became the first African-American to gain national eminence as a poet and the founder of African-American popular literature.

Orville and Paul knew each other well while they were in school. Paul, talented in writing and literature, would help Orville with his school assignments in those subjects, and in return, Orville would help Paul with math and science.

The accompanying photograph shows the Dayton Central High School class of 1890. Paul Laurence Dunbar is on the left in the back row. Orville Wright is the third person to his left.

Orville began a printing business while still in high school and was the first to print Dunbar’s writings including advertising flyers and tickets for poetry recitals. One was a neighborhood newspaper edited by Paul named the Dayton Tattler. Once Dunbar wrote on the wall of the Wrights’ print shop some humorous graffiti:

“Orville Wright is out of sight
In the printing business.
No other mind is half so bright
As his’n is.”

Later, when Orville and Wilbur were in the business of manufacturing bicycles, they gave one to Paul. It can be viewed today in the Dunbar House.

Orville never received his high school diploma because he dropped out of school before his senior year to work full time on his printing and newspaper business. Paul did graduate with a distinguished record, although he had trouble with trigonometry and had to retake the course delaying his graduation. He was a member of the debating society, editor of the school newspaper, president of the school’s literary society and also wrote the lyrics to the class song.

Dunbar’s Career

Paul obtained fame and fortune before the Wrights, but his future didn’t look very bright after graduation. As with most unknown artists, he couldn’t make a living writing poetry, and he couldn’t find a good job befitting his education, because he was black.

Undaunted, he found a job as an elevator operator in a downtown Dayton office building and turned it into an opportunity. He sold his first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy, at the age of 20 for one dollar each to passengers he met on the elevator.

Dunbar asked Orville to publish the book, but Orville’s printing shop lacked the equipment to bind books. Orville recommended he use the United Brethren publishing house in downtown Dayton. Orville’s father, Milton Wright, was a bishop in the United Brethren church and in charge of the publishing operation.

There is some dispute over how many of the books were published but the estimate ranges from 300 to 500 books. It is estimated that around 200 of these books still exist. In March 2006 one of the books appeared on Ebay with a starting bid of $2,000. The book is estimated to be worth $5,000-$6,000.

Gradually Dunbar’s reputation spread. His first break came when he was invited to recite his poems at the 1893 Worlds Fair. There, he met Frederick Douglas, the famous abolitionist, who was impressed with the young poet and gave him a job.

His second break came from attorney Charles Thatcher and psychiatrist Henry Tobey, who enjoyed his poems and arranged for recitations at literary meetings and funded the publication of Dunbar’s second book of poems, Majors and Minors.

This book came to the attention of William Dean Howells, a novelist and critic and the dean of late 19th-century American letters who was also a friend and advisor to Mark Twain. Howells’ praise of Dunbar’s second book in the Harper’s Review launched Dunbar into the big time among literary circles.

The two books of poems were subsequently combined into one book named Lyrics of a Lowly Life with an introduction by Howells and became a best seller. With Dunbar’s national fame now established, he traveled to London in 1897 to recite his poems. The youngster, born June 27, 1872 in a house on Howard St. in East

Dayton, wrote his first poem when he was only six years old, and recited publicly at age nine, was now an international celebrity.

After returning from London, he married Alice Ruth Moore, herself a writer and also a teacher and proponent of racial and gender equity. Paul settled down into a job at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Tragedy Strikes

Then tragedy struck. He developed tuberculosis. His marriage dissolved, and declining health lead him to dependence on alcohol and depression.

He returned to Dayton in 1904, a year after the Wright Brothers famous first flight, and bought a home for his mother that is now the Dunbar House Museum. He new he was going to die soon. She took care of him while he continued to write until his premature death in 1906 at the age of 34. His mother, Matilda, who had been born into slavery, lived on to her 95th birthday. She had a great influence on his life. It was she who urged him to educate himself and encouraged his talent.

During his short lifetime, Dunbar wrote 600 poems, 12 books of poetry, 5 novels, 4 volumes of short stories, essays, hundreds of newspaper articles and lyrics for musicals. His “Tuskegee Song” was adopted as the alma mater at the school founded by his friend Booker T. Washington.

Dunbar’s mother and father, Joshua and Matilda, had been slaves in Kentucky. Joshua escaped and served as a Sergeant with the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry Regiment during the civil war. He and Matilda separated in 1874 when Paul was twelve.

University of Dayton poet, Herbert Martin, says that Dunbar’s use of Negro dialect spoken in slave days in some of his poems was controversial to some of his modern readers who believe the use of dialect as a detriment and possibly demeaning to blacks. Martin believes that anyone who cringes at Dunbar’s use of dialect must have second thoughts abut listening to rap or vernacular speech. Martin believes “Dunbar sees the humanity, not a stereotype. His ear was marvelously accurate.”

He wrote about the joys and sorrows of life, especially the difficulties experienced by African-Americans. Here is an example from his poem, “We Wear the Mask.”

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream other-wise,
We wear the mask!

On a coastal sand dune at Kitty Hawk, NC on December 17, 1903 two brothers realized mankind’s dream to fly. Not as well known is the part their sister, Katharine, played in their success.

Man Will Never Fly

Two years earlier in 1901, the prospect of success had not seemed so sure. After Wilbur and Orville’s glider experiments at Kitty Hawk, they returned thoroughly discouraged. Their glider didn’t fly as their calculations on wing lift had predicted. A frustrated Wilbur proclaimed, “Man won’t be flying for a thousand years.”

Shortly after returning home to Dayton, Wilbur received a letter from Octave Chanute, the President of the Western Engineering Society, inviting him to speak at their upcoming meeting of the society. Wilbur knew Chanute and had had previous discussions with him about the problems of flight.

Speech Leads to Further Research

A discouraged Wilbur intended to refuse the invitation after the poor results at Kitty Hawk. But Katharine intervened and talked him into accepting the invitation. She thought it was a great opportunity to expose the relatively unknown Wilbur to the aeronautical community. She even helped Wilbur prepare for the speech.

She made sure that Wilbur’s appearance would make a good impression. She substituted Wilbur’s baggy suit with one of Orville’s. Orville, unlike Wilbur, had a reputation as a sharp dresser.

The speech was well received and served to bring Wilbur out of his funk. Reenergized, Wilbur and Orville decided to find out why the glider didn’t behave as predicted by published engineering data. This led them to design and build a wind tunnel in which they tested some 200 wing configurations. Their test results enabled them to correctly calculate lift and drag, leading to the design of an efficient wing. All of this was made possible because of Katharine’s intervention.

Success in Europe

Later, after their success at Kitty Hawk, Katharine was a great help to her brothers during their three trips to Europe where they were conducting demonstration flights.

Katharine was hesitant about going at first because she would lose her teaching job if she went. Wilbur kept after her and even promised to pay her teaching salary of $6.00 per day. Besides, she had never been to Europe and it would be fun to go.

She served as a gracious hostess to dukes, counts and kings. Among the royalty were King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King Edward VII of England, King Victor XX of Italy and Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Germany.

She wrote to her father from Italy, “We have to bounce out early tomorrow morning and take the seven o’clock car to the country. The king is to come at eight o’clock.

The kings are a nuisance. They always come at such unearthly hours.”

King Alfonso wanted Wilbur to take him up for a flight, but the king’s mother wouldn’t give him permission.

She was the first women to attend a monthly banquet of the Aero-Club de France as the members raised their glasses of champagne to toast the Wright name.

The brothers were by nature, shy, quiet and reserved. They didn’t like crowds. She told them how to behave and what they should wear. Unlike her brothers, Katharine was not only outgoing, but also poised and charming. King Alfonso pronounced her the “ideal American.” Crowds in Paris followed her everywhere she went while shopping in Paris and she became famous for her stylish hats with long plumes. She even flew twice as a passenger with Wilbur wearing a fancy dress, the second time in front of King Edward. In so doing, she became one of the first women to fly in an airplane.

Katharine even took French lessons. In the southwestern city of Pau she engaged a French tutor for two hours each morning. Soon she was fluent enough to speak the language with French dignitaries.

She became as well known as her brothers in Europe. All three of them were awarded the French Legion of Honor.

Wright Family’s Close Bond

There were five children in the Wright family. Katharine was the youngest and the only girl. She was born on the same day as Orville, August 19. Orville was three years older and Wilbur, seven years older. The three of them grew up together while their two older brothers married and struck out on their own.

When Katharine was six, Wilbur and Orville began to include her in their activities. She helped them earn money for their hobbies by collecting bones to sell to a fertilizer plant and scrap iron to sell to a junkyard. Later in life, she was alleged to have provided financial help for her brother’s aeronautical activities, but this was false. The brothers paid all of their expenses themselves form their bicycle business earnings of some $3,000 per year.

Their father, Milton, a Bishop in the United Brethren Church, was gone most of the time traveling on church business. Left to themselves, his three children developed ties of loyalty, respect and affection.

Their bond grew stronger after their mother developed tuberculosis and died when Katharine was only fifteen. Her father, recognizing her remarkable maturity, began to share family leadership with her and placed her in charge of running the household, which included paying the bills.

In 1914, she helped organize a march through Dayton in support of women’s suffrage. The march drew 1,300 to the city’s streets, including Orville and her father, Milton.

When her father died in 1917, he left the original house they lived in on Hawthorn Street in Dayton to Katharine. By that time, the family was living in the white brick mansion called Hawthorn Hill in Oakwood. It had been Katharine’s idea to build the house on 17 acres in Oakwood, a city adjacent to Dayton.

Milton encouraged Katharine to go to college as her mother had done, as he was a strong believer that women should have intellectual growth. She matriculated to Oberlin College in Ohio, a center for woman’s rights. She graduated in 1898 with a degree in classics. Orville, who was particularly close to his sister, gave her a diamond ring as a graduation gift. She wore the ring on her trip to Paris.

Katharine returned to Dayton and taught Latin at Steele high school, the same school that my mother later attended. She also wanted to teach Greek but never got the chance. Some writers have written that she also taught English and history but that has not been substantiated. She had a reputation as being an excellent teacher and a disciplinarian in the classroom.

Katharine was a member of an organization of teachers that met monthly to read plays. The club, Helen Hunt Club, was the second oldest women’s club in Dayton.

They didn’t have much in way of costumes and stage settings, but they were a powerful influence for drama among women of the city.

She maintained close ties with Oberlin and was later elected to their board of trustees, the second woman to have the honor. When Orville died, he honored his sister by designating in his will $300,000 to Oberlin. The money was worth millions in today’s dollars.

Oberlin used the money for the Wright Laboratory of Physics which still stands today.

She attended football games with Orville at Oberlin as well as the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State University. She wasn’t a strong sports fan but went along to provide Orville company. Orville delegated the task of obtaining the tickets for the games to Katharine.

Katharine Nurses Brothers

She continued teaching until Orville’s near fatal airplane crash during Army trials at Fort Myer, Va. in 1908 that killed his passenger, Lt. Thomas Selfridge. She rushed to the hospital at Fort Myer to care for Orville and never returned to teaching. Wilbur encouraged her to work with them saying that she could make more money than returning to teaching.

Katharine had acquired plenty of experience taking care of the brothers when they were sick. She cared for Wilbur when at 17, he had eight teeth knocked out playing hockey and subsequently developed a severe infection that persisted for months. She and Wilbur took care of Orville when at 25, he developed typhoid fever from contaminated well water and was unconscious for nearly two weeks. She took care of Wilbur for the last time when he developed typhoid fever and died in 1912 at the age of 45.

Since Wilbur was in Europe at the time of Orville’s crash, Katharine represented the family at Selfridge’s funeral and then signed her brother’s request to the Signal Corps for a nine month extension in the flying machine acceptance tests to give Orville time to recover from his injuries.

When Orville returned home from the office he was so frail that Katharine had to help him go everywhere. Orville visited his shop twice a day to see Charlie Taylor.

Orville on crutches needed help from his sister to make the trip.

He couldn’t stay long because it was too cold and he couldn’t stand cold. The house was kept very warm – too warm for Katharine’s comfort – it was her duty to massage Orville’s legs every evening. She wrote his letters and took care of all other household duties. When Wilbur invited Orville and Katharine to visit him in Europe, it was a break she needed. There she led the grand life and enjoyed every minute of it.

Later, when the Wright Company was formed in 1909 to manufacture airplanes, Katharine became an officer in the company and was secretary of the executive committee.

Katharine was active in the suffrage movement. Her father, the Bishop, and Orville supported her in her fight. On Saturday, October 24, 1914, they both marched along side her and 1,300 others through downtown Dayton. The sidewalks were full of thousands of spectators.

Katharine Marries

The brothers never married. After their father’s death, both Katharine and Orville continued to live at Hawthorn Hill until 1926. Then Katharine, at age 52, fell in love and married Henry Haskell, who had been a fellow student and trustee at Oberlin. He was then a widower and the editor of the Kansas City Star.

At Oberlin he had been her tutor in math. Some writers have written that she had helped her brothers in making calculations on their machines. This was not true because mathematics was never her strong skill.

This was not Katharine’s first romance. She had been engaged in college but never married. Upon graduating from college she began her teaching career and in those days teachers were prohibited from marrying.

She was engaged for a year before telling Orville that she intended to marry because she had a premonition he would be upset. She was right. Orville was so upset by the marriage; he refused to speak to her and remained estranged from her until she was on her deathbed.

He had even refused to attend her wedding that was held at the home of classmates living in Oberlin. The president of Oberlin College was one of those in attendance. After the wedding the couple moved to Kansas City.

She wrote to a friend in 1929, “I will not stay longer than my business keeps me since I can’t go home to Dayton. In my imagination I walk through our Dayton home, looking for Little Brother and all the dear family things that made my home. But I never find Little Brother, and I have lost my old home forever, I fear.”

Orville’s behavior is hard to understand. He had become excessively dependent on her and may have come to believe that she had broken a sacred trust between them.

Wilbur had once written to his father about a quirk in Orville’s personality. He never said what it was. Maybe this was a manifestation of it.

Tragically, Katharine died almost three years after her marriage at the age of 54. She had caught a cold that turned into pneumonia. Orville arrived a day before her death and was at her bedside when she died. He brought her back to Dayton and buried her in the family cemetery lot in Woodlawn Cemetery near the University of Dayton. During her funeral, airplanes from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base dropped flowers on her grave.

Two years after her death, Harry Haskell built a fountain in her memory at Oberlin College. He commissioned a bronze figure by Andrea del Verrachino of a small boy angel playing with a dolphin. The angel is lifted into the air by his wings.

Orville attended the dedication of the statue along with Haskell.

Each year the National Aeronautic Association awards the Katharine Wright Trophy to the woman who is most supportive of someone’s efforts in aviation.

Alexander Graham Bell, the famous scientist and inventor of the telephone, was also interested in inventing a practical airplane. In the process he gave few favors to the Wright Brothers.

Bell believed that the Wright Flyer was dangerous because of the high speeds needed for take-off and maintaining lift during flight. He believed that wing warping, the Wrights’ system for exercising lateral control, was dangerous because it required flexible wings. Bell thought there was a better design solution. Bell’s Interest in Aeronautics

Bell, born in Scotland in 1847, exhibited a lifelong curiosity, which drove him to investigate diverse problems ranging from aeronautics to eugenics. His greatest

interest was in helping the hearing impaired. His mother was deaf, as was his wife, who had been one of his deaf students. Helen Keller credited him for leading her “from darkness into light, from isolation to friendship.” Throughout his life he listed his occupation as “teacher of the deaf.”

His invention of the telephone in 1876 was directly related to his study of sound waves as it related to deafness. The “decibel,” a standard measure of sound intensity was named after Bell.

At the age of 23 he moved to Ontario, Canada and later to Boston, since that was a center of scientific activity.

He became obsessed with the wonder of flight and in 1898 began studying equilibrium and stability by flying kites. He started with simple box kites and expanded into several boxlike cells.

Looking for a strong, but lightweight structure, he began combining and arranging triangles. This led him to build a pyramidal structure with three triangular sides and a triangular base. The geometric form created is known as a tetrahedral.

Bell patented the tetrahedral structure and its use became popular in architecture. Bell, however was interested in using the structure to build a kite-like airplane. He would find out later that he was heading down a blind alley.

Bell Organizes a New Association

Bell was a prolific scientific thinker but he was not good with tools. He needed help to build and fly his cherished tetrahedron. So, he organized a group of young men interested in aviation in 1907 and called it the Aerial Experimental Association (AEA). Its purpose was to build a practical powered airplane.

The Wrights had solved the puzzle of flight in 1903 and had already produced a practical plane in 1905. Bell did not think the Wrights had the ultimate solution, and that he was on the verge of a better answer. His tetrahedral cell structure would be more stable than the Wright machine and add materially to the knowledge of flight.

Among the AEA members was Glenn Curtiss, a famous motorcycle racer, who was appointed director of experiments. Curtiss was good at building gasoline engines and had built an engine that had been used on an experimental airplane. It was Bell’s hope that a propeller-driven tetrahedral kite would provide automatic stability at slow speeds. He believed that Curtiss could provide the engine.

Another member of the AEA was Lieutenant Thomas F. Selfridge, a recent graduate of West Point who was appointed secretary. He came to Bell’s attention after he had sought an interview with Bell regarding his kite experiments. Bell was a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt and used the President’s influence to have the Army Signal Corps assign him to the AEA for one year.

The Army later assigned Selfridge to the committee reviewing the performance of the Wright Airplane in accordance with the Signal Corps performance contract.

Orville was not pleased with the Selfridge assignment because of Selfridge’s association with the AEA. Tragically, Selfridge became the first airplane fatality when as a passenger riding with Orville, the airplane crashed at Ft. Myer in 1908.

AEA Flying Experiments

Returning to the AEA activities, they built a large kite that was named the Cygnet, meaning, “little swan” in French. It was composed of over 3,000 tetrahedral cells. Lt.Selfridge was the test pilot in the first test flight of the Cygnet as a glider towed by a boat. Unfortunately, it crashed and was dragged to pieces by the towline.

Bell made two more versions of the Cygnet, but neither one was successful. In 1912 his Cygnet III with a 70-horsepower motor was reported to have flown one foot.

In the meantime Curtiss and other members of the AEA were more interested in producing more conventional aircraft. They designed a series of airplanes with the stylish names of Red Wing, White Wing, June Bug and Silver Dart.

The “June Bug” won the Scientific American Trophy in an exhibition on July 4, 1908. Curtiss flew 5,360 feet in just under 2 minutes. The flight made the newspaper headlines.

Bell increasingly became more of a figurehead for the organization. His one significant contribution to flying machines was the fundamental concept of the modern aileron. Casey Baldwin, an AEA member designed it following Bell’s instructions. Bell never did like the Wrights’ wing warping mechanism and he thought the new design would get around the Wrights’ patent on wing warping. The aileron was first used on the White Wing.

The Wrights Protest

Orville wrote Curtiss that the June Bug contained key elements covered by the Wright patent and that permission had not been given to use their patented features in a machine used in exhibitions or for commercial purposes.

Curtiss answered that he was not intending to enter the exhibition business and that the matter of patents had been referred to the AEA. Despite his declaration, he ignored the Wrights and entered the exhibition business.

Subsequently, Curtiss challenged the patent in court and lost. In 1914, The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Wrights’ patent covered the concept of ailerons.

Curtiss, still searching for a way to avoid the patent, participated in a new approach to undermine the patent. He and others believed that if it could be shown that Langley’s unsuccessful Aerodrome could have flown in 1903, it would undermine the Wright claims.

Dr. Samuel P. Langley, the former Director and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution designed the Aerodrome and was a good friend of Bell. The Aerodrome crashed

into the Potomac on its two attempts to fly. The last attempt to fly occurred a mere nine days before the Wrights’ successful first flight on December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk.

Reconstruction of the Failed Aerodrome

Bell, a member of the Board of the Smithsonian and a strong supporter of Langley who had died in 1906, proposed that a medal be established in Langley’s honor and awarded annually to an aviation pioneer. He suggested that the Wright Brothers be the fist medal winners. Both proposals were accepted and the first award ceremony was held on February 10, 1910.

The Wrights graciously accepted the award, but unfortunately the event created difficulties for them. In making the principle address at the ceremony, Bell seemed to place more emphasis on honoring Langley than on the Wrights.

He made a point to honor Langley by referring to his airplane, the Aerodrome, “as a perfectly good flying machine.” “It was simply never launched into the air, and so has never been given the opportunity to show what it could do.”

The aggrandizing of Langley continued after the ceremony. The report of the event in the Smithsonian Annual Report stated that the Wrights credited Langley with a critical role in their own success. This false statement subsequently was used by opponents of the Wrights to undermine their standing as the true inventors of the airplane.

On March 30, 1914 Bell hosted a meeting at his Washington home of those interested in rebuilding Langley’s Aerodrome. It was hoped that, if successful, this would restore Langley’s tarnished reputation and undermine the Wright patent claims. Among those attending that meeting were Curtiss and the current Secretary of the Smithsonian, Dr. Charles D. Walcott. The group gave Curtiss $2,000 of Smithsonian funds to reconstruct and test the Langley Aerodrome.

The reconstructed Aerodrome briefly flew, although hopped may be a better description. Curtiss and the Smithsonian claimed that this proved that the original Aerodrome could have flown before the Wrights’ success in 1903. Ultimately, the claim was rejected, but not until the Smithsonian admitted almost 30 years later that they had covered up the fact that the Aerodrome flown by Curtiss had been redesigned from the original.

Unauthorized Examination of the Flyer

One other episode involved Bell. Bell and two other members of the AEA tried to visit Orville in the hospital after Orville’s brush with death after his crash at Ft. Myer in 1908. Orville’s Doctor denied them admission. Leaving the hospital, they visited the barn where the wrecked Flyer had been crated for return to Dayton. The box had yet to be nailed shut because some of the parts had been taken to Orville for his examination. Bell, who was not authorized to visit the barn, was observed to pull a tape measure from his pocket and make at least one measurement. To say the least, Orville was disturbed about the incident.

Alexander Graham Bell won the honor to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences and contributed five papers to the academy’s proceedings, but none were about aviation. While he was one of America’s famous scientists he did not have the mathematical sophistication to do more theoretical work. He made no further contribution to aviation.

The AEA lasted until 1909. By that time, Selfridge had died and Curtiss had left to form his own company. In a solemn ceremony at Bell’s summer mansion in Nova Scotia, the remaining members voted to dissolve the association at the stroke of midnight, March 31.