Wright Brothers Reading Comprehension Lesson

From Bicycles to Flight

Orville Wright was born on August 19, 1871, and his brother Wilbur Wright was born on April 16, 1867, in Millville, Indiana. Both brothers grew up in Dayton, Ohio, where their father was a bishop in the United Brethren Church. Neither brother finished high school — Wilbur was injured in a hockey accident and spent several years recovering, and Orville left school to start a printing business. The brothers were self-taught engineers who learned by reading, experimenting, and building things with their hands. In 1892, they opened a bicycle shop in Dayton, where they sold, repaired, and eventually manufactured their own bicycle designs.

The Wright brothers became interested in flight in the late 1890s, inspired by newspaper reports of gliding experiments by the German aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal. They began by reading everything they could find about flight, writing to the Smithsonian Institution for information on aeronautics. They studied how birds controlled their flight by twisting the tips of their wings — a technique they called “wing warping” — and began designing gliders to test this principle. They chose Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, as a test site because the U.S. Weather Bureau told them it had strong, steady winds and soft sand dunes for landing.

Between 1900 and 1902, the brothers made hundreds of glider flights at Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills, systematically testing and refining their designs. When they found that published aeronautical data was inaccurate, they built their own wind tunnel in Dayton and tested more than 200 different wing shapes to generate their own data. By 1902, they had a reliable glider design that they could control with precision. They then turned to the problem of adding a motor. Unable to find a suitable engine, they designed and built their own lightweight gasoline engine, along with custom-designed propellers.

First Flight and Its Legacy

On December 17, 1903, at 10:35 a.m., Orville Wright climbed into the pilot’s position of their aircraft, called the Flyer, on the beach at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk. Wilbur ran alongside. The Flyer lifted off the ground and flew for 12 seconds, traveling 120 feet — less than half the wingspan of a modern Boeing 747. It was the first time in history that a heavier-than-air machine had made a sustained, controlled, powered flight with a pilot aboard. The brothers made four flights that day; the longest, with Wilbur at the controls, lasted 59 seconds and covered 852 feet.

The Wright brothers sent a telegram to their father that afternoon: “Success. Four flights Thursday morning all against twenty-one mile wind. Started from level with engine power alone. Average speed through air thirty-one miles. Longest fifty-nine seconds. Inform press. Home for Christmas.” The press largely ignored the news. Only a few newspapers reported the flights, and several got the details wrong. Most people, including many scientists and engineers, were skeptical that the brothers had really flown. The Wright brothers continued to improve their aircraft in secrecy, refusing to demonstrate it publicly until they had secured patents and business agreements.

By 1905, the Wrights had a practical airplane, the Flyer III, that could fly for more than 30 minutes and perform turns and figure eights. In 1908, Wilbur gave dramatic public demonstrations in France that astonished European crowds and convinced the world that powered flight was real. Orville also gave demonstrations in the United States, where he set new world records for altitude and flight duration. The Wright brothers’ invention transformed warfare, trade, travel, and daily life around the world. Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in 1912 at the age of 45. Orville lived until 1948, long enough to see the invention of the jet engine and the breaking of the sound barrier.

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