The State of Things; First Flight Special Part 2

sam frank stay show in chapel hill north carolina and i'm linda hancock and kill devil hills and this is first light special coverage live from other humans less than twenty four hours from now a team of engineers and pilots will try to replicate the wright brothers' first flight made one hundred years ago that fight is an attempt to recapture the past but innovation in the air is far from over for instance imagine jumping into your own personal flying vehicles sitting off to work again with the wright brothers in the early nineteen hundreds so just how to basic sequin other individuals with more money and prestige they'll revisit the great race and we'll talk with those behind the re creation of that historic first reading the jet trails and how far we've come and where there is to go on coming up this hour as part of our first live special this is special coverage of the first flight centennial and frank station when the w and c studios in chapel hill north carolina and i'm a lead and copper and kill devil hills on the outer banks of

north carolina for one hundred years ago tomorrow at ten thirty five in the morning eastern time a plane made of spruce in muslim lifted into the air in oracle writes words see it was only a flight of twelve seconds and it was an uncertain wavy creeping sort of light at its best but it was a real flight at last the wright brothers of course had succeeded in flying a heavier than air powered controlled airplanes they called it the flyer and from that moment on engineers pilots and airplane enthusiasts around the world have attempted to recreate the magic of that first flight and another group will try again tomorrow weather permitting at exactly the moment of the historic firsts like a replica of the plane will attempt to take off in front of thirty five thousand people at the foot of kill devil hills randall dietrich is executive director of the experimental aircraft association which is behind this attempted recreating that first flight and terry teacher was an american airlines pilot and one of two chosen to fly the wright flyer tomorrow both have been working closely to get this into the air tomorrow and they join us here

welcome thank you and nice to be well ravel dietrich one re creating this a replica and then trying to put in the end tomorrow you know one of the one of the hills of the wright brothers just because people know the time and place perhaps but we wanted to look at them or full story thompson the stores and people are already in and take the time to really discover the genius of the reprise how to work together as brothers and share that innovation to conspire preps a future generation includes and tomorrow morning to watch that's intended flight path they stand that can hide who is the name has been instrumental in this happening has spent the better part of the decade three of the past two years in rebuilding or building this plane and much more time in researching it so the question is it do you gain more knowledge of the genius of the wright brothers to their research or for getting up the ground here tomorrow thank you again kenneth and i've heard and firmly believe isn't some kind of kindred spirit or

twelve or bodices approaches craftsmanship the research that he's done all all all make him a perfect ghost world will wear this walking the grounds to day in the midst of beautiful job of recreating it is replied no elementary kids are you've been at the controls this replica this right wasn't like oh yeah we do between only outlier there than it had two letters of the wright brothers' first time i could play more about what that's like disappointed one flight in the air and it has three flyer nineteen oh two glider this is very very light so if i described before is it's like you're flying a kleenex and that their sponsor every bit of wind that that could happen across the swings it can feel startles on the ground from shadows it's i guess it's i would characterize as being very unstable you're always trying to directed from left or right up and down so i'm that it tight keep your attention so your shadow on the ground would change the heat in the

air as correct what nasa plane yes it does so it has to be so vastly different from your line of work here a pilot for american airlines and boeing seven sixty seven psalm fifty seven cents million more instrumentation and for your work that most people see and most of their lives and says this vastly different and this on the fighters just a couple of hand controls saw one hand control and the creole for lufkin right movement they haven't told people see altitudes like so much of what you know from your job of flying a plane that really is so weak we characterize it as are having to train ourselves that really into early in our look at the big picture the air is a different now so was that back then the fly control services are going to respond the same time that is farsi controlling the aircraft we had to come up with a different people had learned a difficult or methods which is real different than

the airplane i fly now you know i've you know there have been a couple of trials with this replica that was done not out here in front of the public but in another location in november there were couple attempts a few of them got off the ground terry you're at the controls when one of them crashed which must be a kindred spirit into an issue that's right exactly right it happened and live on the fourteenth of december just a few days before their four successful flights and on the seventeenth what was that like the crash well we get a lot of our information off of that the way that the flights went was kevin flew the first flight and we we all decided that the flight was sobering almost too slow he was flying in and out of the store and so on the second flight we decided to put a little more railway elmore went and we found the upper edge of the operating a book which was my flight thirty two miles an hour's wait you faster this airplane

and so when i when i read it off the album off the rail and know about this is i says effort to control is just a little bit of control movement the whole lot thirty two miles an hour and i just went right back underground in the control of that again is that using your left hand controllers up or down or using your hips to tear down the select as your left hand and a control and they called it the ford writer on the right airplane and as it looks like a canard we read we call a canard today they call for writers say the eye your left hand controls the pitch of the forerunner so tomorrow kevin carr's conspirator is going to be the pilot at the controls and thirty five in the morning rumble dietrich weather permitting you need wind you don't need rain and i'm looking at the latest forecast needs like sixty percent chance of rain is forecast to have that yeah didn't end so what happened the evil not gotten the rain difference well again look at that the uncle to have to fly again and to make those judgments as we need for mourning at the same time

tomorrow is the centennial and will be here to celebrate that and when that when they'll provide seeds opportunity for us will like the most how much when do you need to make the sculpture you know we go i went on testing for nasa and other organizations really help along the way as well be there looking in about twelve not win that theyre looking for to give to go so we'll be measuring that indian been measuring the day here in town the other banks for a couple months now so what's really helped with the test military's done is to develop a really bad valuable cache of information to really help us tomorrow to make all that the citizenry to go into the attempting flight in achieving flight tomorrow morning are just too long i understand painstaking care has been made in doing this i get in this reenactment going to do it exactly as the wright brothers did i i was looking at the motor the other day and somebody pointed out that though the hoses leaking as it had to mean to that extent they're there's i kind of care to recreate it you're looking for the wind to be drawn from the exact same direction your point plan around to fly

into that would take off into the recent tax whichever direction comes from now when you're putting a plan together what you have to work with the wright brothers didn't exactly leave blueprints did that they did they left that they were certainly when a newspaper business is one of their professions before it became ice with an excellent aviation that matter the copious notes law but they didn't leave a whole lot of information and what the exact blueprint so one of the many things that can hide has done with the right experience to be a commission to build this one from reproduction was to go back into the notes in the minutia of those notes and to tease out a lot of the details and you know it's it's it's turned as if the great detective effort to go back into those documents how as the wiper of congress and by the right family and rakes the university and study this what a grass very scientific kind of way to tease out the tiny details that you're referring to that if the hose is leaking on a great flier that's in the pavilion here at the centennial that's what the hose did a hundred years ago and it's that authentic and

that's the kind of reverence that i think he ever experiencing terry and can really brought this effort is to not building at fire better but that exactly as it wasn't recognized the innovation filed a cousin now that they didn't have a blueprint for it might surprise some people because they hear of how exacting the wright brothers had been but is it because this was a work in progress they had to keep adding things to to correct for how it would fly as part of their day is their the process of coming through this innovation yeah i think that's that's part of it certainly was a competitive atmosphere hundred years ago i've been an entrepreneur you know protective of an investment they had made what they were discovering and then didn't want to make sure they can have the edge in the end i think that played into it in the other part of it was that they didn't take the time to do cause you realize what you're doing because you were so driven to the kind of innovation that they were going for you know they were they would do something to tell one or two of the latter easily modify it and move on to the marriage at the time that records things because rose so quickly for the first place

is that ambitious with their approach and i understand that we're all right at one point there was a replica somewhere along the way of a glider that was made and put a museum any order to destroy it because it wasn't exactly how it might have looked at what you're doing tomorrow with recreating that flight terry i think the wright brothers if they saw the airplane sitting here that killed all holes today i think they would think it was there and it's that this that exact route has been it's been fun also just to this entails brought together so many people in so many ways and even hear folks or dissenters evolve a little memory lane and steven wright comment on the work and having his team terry that it is so much like the original and so somebody could represent of an exact to what it was years ago that it's great feedback for the team to hear people that represent the family house because the folly of kansas city ten thirty five tomorrow morning with their

snow rain and the n and two o'clock in the afternoon as well to make content and terry you might be doing it too in the afternoon saw we that remains to be seen i've heard like a city formerly had one flight and there's an awful lot of people here that a lot of press and very important to people that and i'm a professional airline pilot so to go out and fight for these this type of crowd with one flight and my goal has been about doing that so oh thank you i tear ekg with american airlines pilot one of those chosen to fly the rights flyer and read albee trick is executive director of the experimental aircraft association come about the world was a weirdo orville and wilbur and what's ahead in the next hundred years of support for a fruit fly coverage come from the corporation for public broadcasting and listeners who support over unc it's big

this is first light special coverage on frank's day show and i'm really depend cava thousands have been coming to the wright brothers national memorial this week to mark the first sustained flight one hundred years ago tomorrow it took sixty six years from the moment the wright brothers flew that short bumpy twelve second flight to the moment when man first stepped on the moon sixty six years from a wooden cloth covered contraption to a technological marvel of apollo eleven that was a victory giant step forward in fact it's difficult to imagine that more could've been achieved in such a short space of time but as we celebrate the one hundred anniversary of the groundbreaking flight can't help but wonder what the next sixty six years whole so to help us look into the future we asked them as a researcher and econ for help andy welcome

we take your calls as well as our eight seven seven nine six to nineteen sixty eight seven seven nine six to nineteen sixty eight to join our coverage and asked some questions of other is people talk about the first flight and they were looking ahead let's cut right to the chase when am i gonna be able to get my my little car plant you know ten years twenty years well you know actually i'm part of the advanced vehicle for technology program and well you know just one final part it was doing but in terms of the personal vehicle bomb you know we hope to have the demonstrators in twenty ten twenty ten personally or vehicle which we may start referring to his phd way forward and so we're really working on that dais and that's and that is true there are there is an effort underway at nasa says said well it's more than ten right now because we've been given two thousand five start and eighteen two thousand five but you know planning can take your mother

was actually on the vehicle and it's just amazing that we're even in the planning stages well there's something else thats amazing and in some ways it's amazing it's taken so long to know that they're second problem for the wright brothers once they figured out how to fly was so what to do with the darn thing and and one of their first thought was that they could create you know airplanes the way automobiles are being sold and that idea never took off for me why do you suppose that is because there's an actual rational barriers are doing that for a thank you note that it can imagine that airplanes fly i'll have to do more important though they are always going to be so much more expensive of course but also there are a lot of interesting problems for instance if you had a car and you could only drive around bright sunny days with will win and it would cost to an awful lot of time and money to actually get her life and that the roads would be fairly limited and where you could go there be a cop on every corner that you have to talk to

and you know you could only get within on every faith twenty five miles before you actually wanted to be you still have the range for other transportation you might think that there would not be as many cars on the rest suppose so how much has changed since then and how much of those changes are recently most recent technological advantage advances and how many big took place shortly after the a wright brother's to go well you know i have a ford actually had a preacher at doing what he called the five letter he was looking for a car that would literally can roll down the road local five streets gift with mark porter a car bomb unfortunately the technology was sort of americans incomplete and leon apparent that actually crashing dion lefler of white prepared send your stop doing that but the idea was there and it's really only a matter of generally speaking for your grandma let the recall be a modest performing airplanes are relatively new why so you're going to go with it like back it was dealing with whether

talking to air traffic controllers it's a little bit like rubber you prepare your head hopping on one foot so what we look at in terms of the vehicle what kind of a vehicle do you envision and are you beginning to design what we have basically a plant up for the next fifteen years and we have her like a little terminal longer term vehicle the near term vehicle looks a lot like an airplane but they've tried to address the most critical issues for for instance we want leave airplanes to be very quiet and low emissions because if you're you know a lot of them into the air you're going to have a lot more impact and so what we've done is put the fairmont hotel for instance and that that that fan our wars the lives of the report from actually isn't an equivalent would be the b for the authority the beat the critical of that really mean it totally putting former clinton era years later in particular topic of the dramatic decrease harm one of the

things that we need to do is we need to make and will cost ten when you had you know like you know put the first said follow the money youre going with it where the money goes from a typical airplane about a quarter of it even the engine and about a quarter of it is in the labor to assemble the hall or kraft said well we've got to come up with at the time it is an automotive engineer and we can buy those in very small numbers for very low prices compared to conventional airports i'm going on a minute you ended nominee keep myself healthy kids it sounds like you were on the way and i appreciate your contribution thanks for joining us today and iran is a researcher at nasa come up we'll talk with author james tobin about the wright brothers and the great race for flight in the early twentieth century a line

oh yeah now that brings back memories of noble and i remember that that is the josephine is the lay low income josefina my fly machine that was recorded actually in nineteen ten now just seven years after the wright brothers make that flight and we've been talking this hour about the way the wright brothers changed life by putting man and woman and luggage into the air and also creating songs but for a moment what life might've been like back when the wright brothers were tinkering with their ideas

and in nineteen oh three was the year the henry ford introduced the famous model a harley davidson produced a first motorcycle and creole crayons made their appearance and here are a few stats for you the average life expectancy nineteen oh three forty seven years old that was in the us only fourteen percent of the homes had a that's herb and the average wage was twenty two cents an hour this was also a time when a number of men not just the wright brothers were attempting to fly and james tobin writes about that race to be the first in his book to conquer the air the wright brothers and the great race for flight and james tobin is with us now kill devil hills welcome thanks for having the well you've probably answer this question many many times but i think it probably bears repeating the contribution the wright brothers made i think people see the flyer they see that set the two wings and the structure and all that technically speaking what was that the wright brothers were innovators well i guess the thing to say is that they've they brought together an entire system of controlling an airplane invented and developed a system for

controlling airplanes that no one had ever conceived of before in fact the very idea that but the central problem with the balance control and control was the rights crucial innovations and so bam that the entire conception of an airplane not just the design and building and the flying of it is there is when when i hear folks talk lately about the enormous progress that has been made in the hundred years since nineteen oh three i can't help but think that the progress that the brothers made themselves and going from not flying at all to a major flight was in fact a larger step but other people were making attempts at being the first in this era the end of the eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds what was it that the wright brothers had a punt that allowed them to be the first was i say i think the term they understood that the problem would be propulsion and engines as samuel i neither man american rival the secretary of the smithsonian was

concentrating and they appreciate the fact that what makes it possible for a bird to fly is not only the right structure that has wings and tail feathers but the system of balance that allows birds to stay in the air to go where they want to come back to the ground safely that's really what they pursued was the fliers a bird flies and one they accomplished and this this is happening is as i said in the turn of the last century there was a time of great innovation then there were others things were coming along with an electricity the car right i think that was a time bomb a little bit like the time of our own generation has gone through with the development of the personal computer and the internet the great enthusiasm and excitement that many of us felt in the early and mid nineteen nineties when the internet began to spread and all of a sudden everybody have their own computers is a little bit like that period of the team at city nineties when there was a sense that that no technological barrier would be

too high to get across when i'm when technology could deliver and a new better life for people we still hear that kind of talk these days but i think that the belief in that in that period was even stronger but it wasn't just that these inventions are kind of piggyback on each other is that when i was there is there was something in the air so you know in the water at that time whether certain key things that happened that made other development possible francis internal combustion engine it was very significant to the most successful development airplay but i think too that because of thomas edison particular who was not only a great image of a great promoter there was a there was a sense that that innovation and new technology was was beckoning to all kinds of creative individuals and so that sense of excitement caught on with many many people tried thanks james tobin is our guest here in kill devil hills north carolina he

is author of to conquer the air the wright brothers and the great race for flight if you'd like to join our conversation our numbers one eight seven seven nine six to nine eight six to as one eight seven seven nine six to nine eight six to now they were of course bicycle mechanics from dayton ohio and i i was really surprised to read that in that arrow that as you've been talking about they didn't have more patents per capita than any other place in the us have become a great summer of machine shop's an industry and so there was a sort of creative combustible call it where people would were walking around a meeting each other and talking about machinery and new kinds of devices and so it was a great place that to inspire new kinds of technical work and also a great place to have to get new ideas the rent and to defy materials of the rats mated they could turn around a western avenue in west dayton and then go shop somebody at the kinds of things that they need and they

spoke the same language as these other machinists around town so that was the place to do business like in modern terms like on an incubator exactly are people say so i'm going to have you know silicone valley of the nineteen nineties one eight seven seven nine six to nine eight six to the number if you'd like to join the conversation with james tobin he's author of to conquer the air the odd book about the wright brothers it's out this year daryl collins he's say at a ranger here at the outright brothers national memorial has been giving speeches for years to visitors who come here are to make berlusconi yesterday he said that when fire was invented we don't know where that happened was discovered we don't know where that happened precisely and wind man decided that it would be easier to roll things on a wheel rather than love them we're not precisely sure where that haven't yet we know where a man flew for the first time does how would you rank getting into the air with those other developments as breakthroughs is it the third after fire and there we

are and i say that it certainly up there in the top five or ten great technical innovations in history but i think to that but why this appeals to people so much there's a certain spiritual carter i think that people have always looked at birds at the idea of flight to somehow coming closer to heaven coming close because when these two brothers actually brought that myth to life i think there was a sense that that human beings have had transcended their limitations this was really the first great great event in that terrific sense of self confidence that we've had in this period since the industrial revolution under severe time it will lead to a terrific the destruction also that sense of of finding the end to our limits i think is part of what crept up in people's fascination with flight and yet as much as we recognize that today is the wright brothers did not get immediate recognition no that's correct

know took several years before they were able to really explain to the world what they had done is they had a photograph famously taking here a hundred years ago tomorrow a ten thirty five in the morning and yet seeing that photograph was a believing that with a photograph was not seen for a number of years anyway and even so i think it was more poorly photographs were taken when they developed a much better more practical airplane back in dayton over the next couple years for a stake in that airplane were convincing evidence because was very high off the ground the race proceeded in private after their work here are both bubbles hear it it can talk and then back and then they want to get this thing right before the show to the world they want their plan would fly much further than a hundred twenty feet before they showed it off so they kept their work to themselves for several years at very protective of that is you're saying because they wanted to make sure that their path would be protected the

banks are put in for a patent before they service they did that they're there nineteen oh two glider was the first machine that embody the principles of control instability that were really the key to their innovation so that was what their patent attorney advised them to get a patent and never mind never mind the power that's correct i won eight seven seven nine six to nine eight six today is our number and jeff is with us now from muncie indiana welcome to kill devil hills north carolina jeff thank you i had a question for james tobin well i had more of a comment i lived very explicitly lives in indiana where will america's modern inventor that holds the patent to a device that the wright brothers were invented that was almost a gauge or where i met with them manager eric hummel and ahead and gave that up where they could change the angle of the way

that blow air and they have alleged that they were getting off their primary over the way to map how they were able to develop a worrying about one that you do anything about that if the wind tunnel that the that the brothers built in nineteen oh one is really at the heart of their whole scientific endeavor they had i've come to kitty hawk for the first time in nineteen hundred the test a glider they came back again with a new collider in nineteen oh one and its performance was frustrating to them you realize that they needed much more trial experimental data now than they've been able to dig up by simplifying the glider so they built this when tom you're quite right and he's extremely ingenious devices for measuring lift and drag and it's really those devices that allow them to build a successful glider of nineteen oh two which let him turn the first hour firefight you know three so you're quite right that's that's really at the heart of their of their work because they could get the numbers and what they needed to do yeah well what

they what they did was to basically build a kitty hawk in a box and then construct and the dozens of little miniature wing shapes and different curvature different sizes differing shapes to test all those shapes to figure out what was the maximal with the absolute optimal shape and size for winning a number that was extremely important to the to the success of a glider in the flier was that the world's first model airplane you know what if you were just when she actually test it were just women ships there were actually model airplanes that have been flown for many years before the wright brothers' summer threw themselves center line later competitor at the smithsonian flew model airplanes yeah but those have been around for several decades and and the wright brothers i think was with orville wright who actually had a toy helicopter their father brought them both of them a little a little toy that flies or attack helicopter have airplane and eating seventies and that was really when they say they said later that was the beginning of their interest in florida because it would develop their toy helicopter of course came before the real

thinkers would be another few decades before this of course it gives the helicopter to fight if you want to join our conversation are number here at kill devil hills is one eight seven seven nine six to nine eight six two that's one eight seven seven nine six to eight six to have a comment or question for james tobin who is author of to conquer the air the wright brothers and the great race for flight i'm linda hancock in kill devil hills and we'll have more of our conversation just ahead and your calls one eight seven seven nine sixty nine what does cool in a foreign country on

monday have to do with the price of beans in your local market on wednesday and what does that have to do with the new movie that's opening this weekend maybe possibly everything is kate and alex chadwick please join the day from npr news and in the early nineties and it's because fb it's bad as bell it's

b it's been it's b there's a special first flood coverage on frank's day's show in chapel hill north carolina and i'm melinda penta out and kill devil hills we are talking with author james tobin today he is author of to conquer the air the wright brothers and the great race for flight were taking your calls as well our number is one eight seven seven nine six to ninety eight

sixteen that's one eight seven seven its toll three nine six to nine eight six to seven if you were arranging now on out the screenplay for of the wright brothers' how would you choose fully depict onscreen alerts and i know you you could go for fiction the logical thing in getting across wilbur wright's personality in particular was to get it get the sense of enormous charisma he clearly impressed people that the minute he met them whenever he would have these small conversations with oh you know media and possible and mr isn't just dignitaries of various types and always come away thinking this guy really means what he says he's done what he says is done and he isn't meant to be taken seriously and yet we also know that that he was not flamboyant it was not you know not a flashy individual in any way so oh i don't know sort of a sam shepard play

of the wilber was nowhere as good looking as sam shepard but durr that that would be that that sort of strong intelligent but quiet individual that's that that's silly that you want or what was as the serve that would not make the same sir personal impression although probably a warmer friendlier individual people said that his brother was but i think that wilbur is the one that would come across on screen as the real the real central character they worked in private because they wanted to be able to do what they had to do they did want crowds around they were reclusive about trying to keep away media coverage yes there were after nineteen oh three oh yes definitely that they have a great deal of work to do so after nineteen oh three and you know i think many scientists will tell you that if this is just a lot of work into it to bring any new thing into into being and so they protected their time i've been struck this week watching the centennial of ads by the memory of wilbur a normal when they were given a bigger dealers are honorary celebration in dayton in nineteen oh

nine they avoided as many of the public events as they possibly could they stayed in their shop the blinds over the windows and worked that's what they were about one eight seven seven nine six to nineteen sixties a number she'd like to speak with author james tobin about the wright brothers we go now to dayton ohio and banners their hi there dan fine welcome to the program oh my goodness are human and pianist dan patterson is is one of the great aviation photographers in the world and that and has has taken the photographs of the out of the original nineteen oh three wright flyer up close and the smithsonian says not a plant but unless you're from it and what's up aficionados write history here in dayton are thrilled jim tobin rote really the definitive history of the wright brothers and i just want to call and congratulated him on a magnet

i did and as that is that my residents of dayton i'm curious are your take on the wright brothers is there some some aspect of and that you think the world outside of dayton may not understand about them well i think that they are a lot of people just consider them bicycle mechanic who got lucky and it's so much more story in jim's book really does in particular you know it's a fascinating story and merle were thrilled that all this attention is being given to those guys because they deserve it this is a puzzle about why this only bicycle mechanics time keeps rattling around and end them part of it is i think people don't understand that bicycle technology and eighty nine it was actually fairly sophisticated technology and civil rights were at the cutting edge of that it's

many many years ago i had the opportunity to photograph buckminster fuller before he died in vain and he went on and on about the wright brothers and jets would use that how advanced bicycle technology was at the turn of the last century and that that's where they got their inspiration and their technical expertise to move ahead the solar pretty good guess the bicycle as important a number ways in this story and one thing one way that i think is often overlooked is that wilbur especially had thought a great deal about something that all of us who ride bicycles take for granted which is how a bicycle balances right that i think in turn led him to see how crucial question of balance and steering was a development here playing owen patterson thank you dan thank you so much having us today well we're glad to do that for a thanks again won eight

seven seven nine sixty nine eight six two is the number should like to join the conversation from north carolina ohio where for you might be we'd love to have you here and talking with james tobin who is author of to conquer the air your book you write about the personalities of the wright brothers one thing that comes up in the story doesn't his head after they got the patent for action nineteen oh two glider which took into those into account the idea of controlling the flight and thought that and with that for that patents and for people who were trying to violate the patent and you write that this is the candidate is not that they were especially litigious but it offended your sense of right or wrong well i think that's right and i think any of us who had invented something as important as the airplane would be quite eager properly so to protect our intellectual property and i remember folks who were all too eager to imitate of designs and they want to make sure that they got the proper credit for the one thing that they wanted to do very much was that that they were not for to

make a grey pile of money but they did was set themselves up as independent scientific experiment years without business worries because they want to pursue these problems that they've been interested and farther they reached in the study of aerodynamics as a science and they were not on it to be able to do that they knew that their chance to have that future was all wrapped up in a patent so they're protected for so we go to the phones again and michael joins us now from burlington north carolina hi michel don't you want a family and whenever we would travel through our vacation destination in the car together they're always be good story yet malik europe and added there were plenty stories that we had that the wright brothers experience between krugman i've been down to the outer banks well i guess the story that's most commonly taught

about that trip of theirs was a terrible time it wilbur had simply getting to the outer banks the first time he came he says a nineteen hundred wilbur didn't come until several weeks later and wilbur found himself in a very leaky boat trying to get from elizabeth city north carolina over here to the outer banks this is before there were there wonderful bridges that good people direct access to the islands so it was a kind of a hair raising journey and that was so that was a story that the year that the right family always told without wilbur almost get to kitty hawk the first time he tried it got here it was a rather debt i'm sorry go ahead michael raynor was you know they took they took the train from our from dayton down to norfolk virginia and i'm at another train from norfolk to elizabeth city north carolina where that was the jumping off point to get over to the outer banks were like you walk around the tanks and you get as stephen is with us now in raleigh hi there steven welcome to the show analyst even

i are here we are here and to be until beverly hills to be great i was wondering if there were art whether they rape women are formulas that the right of the guy's out back then that i believe and i don't i'm not a pilot or an engineer might my expertise is limited to her that that early period so i don't know if there are formulas that are used in a way to what is still uses is the most important thing of all which is that the whole system of controlling an airplane through three axes role pitch an er that every aircraft still uses today as always use they were the first to understand that you had to be overturned an airplane in all three axes and so in that sense it every airplane even even rockets still use that essential system so so what you know what i flew down here i'm from detroit michigan was so a version of the wright brother's airplane it's not

santa letter heard about the band re writing the radio or let them and that both mama those were going you know it didn't get anywhere and pretty but they did come up with new understandings of political asians om i think that those have been revised over time and refined so i'd i doubt that their exact calculations are the ones that are still being used today with steven thank you for your call you know we as i mentioned people see that image of the flier and it's on the back of our license plates in north carolina on the court a commemorative quarters first day but he was the propeller and it was the motor that made this more than a glider that made a flyer and put it in the air you think that their innovations in in making the propeller often get overlooked oh absolutely on the gm they thought that the propeller was going to be easy that the big topic tomorrow propeller but found in fact that

the us can be very difficult they spent several weeks months even or nineteen oh three testing figuring out how to build up an aerial propeller again with their wind tunnel so that was crucial to the success of this whole endeavor and a dear friend of mine was explaining that the propeller they had any idea it was essentially another wing it's a rotating way yes ah nobody thought of it that way before so they get a patent on that if they get a patent on the propeller i believe that they did but i'm not sure i should know that they get they have a number of their you know aviation patterns down through the years the wilbur was the one who was the innovator in that direction was a lot more i think they work together on the market but i think that was very much a joint project after wilbur diet pointing to look at typhoid fever easily in his forties orval basic i think you wrote he didn't really do that much after that into other than protecting the patents that the hat right protected the predecessor became the grand old man of

aviation even though you're still a young man yeah i think that the portals labor leader life shows us the extent to which wilbur was really the driving force in their careers as inventors what warhol was certainly a very bright fellow and didn't didn't work on some kinds of aviation related devices but never really have the drive to do anything big again and really kind of went into a prolonged retirement after his brother died james dobbins thank you so much and thank you for being with us here until years james tobin is author of to conquer the air the wright brothers and the great race for flight finally

leave you today breaking his silence at the other night here at the wright brothers national memorial we were walking by the display tent for the replica of the right's nineteen oh three flyer that's the one it'll try to recreate all rights first flight tomorrow morning and sunday night and we found it was still a work in progress for men are huddled over the engine and greg cone is the mechanic who's been in charge preparing it to run for tomorrow's flight this as a history lesson there is really cool with us or have the same problems you know we read the couple is that there isn't notes you read the play to have a magnet on troublesome and we have no troubles as ronan rockwell we had a runner up so that tells us implication is darn close the school it's almost routine it's all something your time you see it run because you know we see the big picture of that was

horrible line on and wilbur center scientists they actually works and this is boise or soil or go to smithsonian in dc of hang they're just still like a like a butterfly like a sculpture but in actuality the thing is a living breathing dragon nominates a fire breathing creature that is almost unpredictable yesterday afternoon they did a test run of that engine unlike the privacy that the wright brothers had back in nineteen oh three the crowd was gathered as the wright flyer was rolled out of the tent and there are also the more modern aviators flying overhead not just seagulls but is in nineteen oh three to two men standing at the propellers pushing hard to turn them to turn over the engine if you try and then that at hp three weather permitting thirty five thousand

here that three wright flyer between the very first thought coverage of first flight centennial celebration is produced by beverly able that they do with olive press or even self interrogation the technical glitch of regularly spaced life of an outbreak of what i call the case stands and john robins weston is the director fred wasser the executive producer of friday show and i'm willing to uncover the wright brothers memorial and kill devil hills tomorrow morning if the rains hold back an attempt will be made to fly a replica of the wright brothers nineteen oh three flyer sent ten thirty five eastern time exact moment orville wright first left the ground one hundred years ago support for first flight coverage comes from the corporation for public broadcasting i

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