The Wright Brothers

I listened to the audiobook by David McCullough called The Wright Brothers.  Several hours of the book were spent white knuckled in a snow storm driving back from Grand Marais. A good book can keep your mind off your troubles. This was a good book and it is no wonder that the author has won so many prizes. The Wright brothers, specifically Orville and Wilbur, were talented and curious but not well educated. They ran a printing press and bicycle sales and repair business in Dayton, Ohio. Together they got the idea of building a flying machine. They worked on the machine at home. They decided they needed more wind so they went to the national weather bureau and asked for the windiest location. The weather bureau answered with Kittyhawk, North Carolina. They took their camping equipment, machine, tools, and clothes to Kittyhawk and started building. They attached cloth to the wings. They kept records of all their experiments. Eventually the Wright brothers began to fly. A man from France offered to buy their plane. Wilbur and Orville figured they should offer the U.S. military a chance to buy it before they sold it to France. The U.S. military didn't believe the Wright brothers. So off to France they went. Many times the Wright brothers were not believed but that didn't seem to bother them. Wilbur and Orville never married although their other siblings did. Wilbur seemed to be emotionally stable compared to Orville but Orville was the engineering leader. I forget that 100 years ago it was unusual to see a plane in the sky because, in this day and age, it's unusual not to see a plane in the sky.