Got It Wright
     “Isn’t it astonishing that all these secrets have been preserved for so many years just so we could discover them?” – Orville Wright
     One famous American who was  born in August was Orville Wright, brother  of Wilbur Wright. He was born in Dayton, Ohio, to a family that valued and encouraged their children’s intellectual pursuits, creativity and inventiveness. As a child, Orville was fascinated by mechanics.
     As a young adult, Orville became a champion bicyclist which led to him start a bicycle business, along with his brother Wilbur. In his bicycle shop, Orville had many opportunities to experiment using his mechanical abilities. He possessed
an adventurous nature and a drive to accomplish the tasks he attempted.
     Orville and his brother began reading everything on the subject of flying and soon obtained all the scientific knowledge of aeronautics that was available in the late 1890s.  Beginning in 1900, the Wrights built seven aircraft over time and eventually
crashed each one testing their theories. By the fall of 1903, they had constructed an  airplane with wings 40.5 feet long and weighing about 600 pounds plus the weight of the pilot. They also designed and built their own lightweight gasoline engine for the plane.
     On December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wrights make the first sustained, controlled, powered flights in an airplane, the Flyer 1, covering up to 852 feet and staying in the air for up to 59 seconds. After four flights, the aircraft was overturned by a gust of wind and destroyed.
     Information for this article taken from www.lucidcafe.com/library and www.wright-brothers.org.