Orville and Wilbur Wright: Pioneers of the Age of Flight

Orville and Wilbur Wright: Pioneers of the Age of Flight — page 5
The brothers played with the bat so much that they eventually broke it but instead of crying over a wrecked toy they built a new one When that one wore out they built another one We built a number of copies of the toy which flew successfully said Orville many years later Without even thinking about it the young Wright brothers had built their first flying machine They didn’t stop there though The inventive boys had so much fun building small bats that it gave them an idea for a bigger and better project They set out to create a bat so big that the two of them could fly in it Orville and Wilbur tried a number of designs using different combinations of materials shapes and concepts but none of their supersized bats would fly We found that the larger the bat the less it flew said Orville Not surprisingly the youngsters didn’t yet know enough about the physics of flight to create a human-sized flying machine We finally became discouraged said Orville We abandoned the experiments Still he said that little bat was what launched the Wright brothers future fascination with flight Taking Off Unlike many parents of the day Milton Wright and his wife Susan encouraged their kids to explore everything that grabbed their attention to read as much as they could and to let their imaginations soar They wanted the kids to get outside get dirty build things and broaden their horizons Portraits of Milton and Susan Koerner Wright the parents of Orville and Wilbur Wright 88