GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
Orville Wright


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There are 22 quotes matching Orville Wright in the collection:



I feel about the airplane much as I do in regard to fire. That is, I regret all the terrible damage caused by fire. But I think it is good for the human race that someone discovered how to start fires, and that it is possible to put fire to thousands of important uses.

Orville Wright

Asked during WWII if he ever regretted being involved in the invention of the airplane.

The airplane stays up because it doesn’t have the time to fall.

Attributed to Orville Wright

It became the weary answer to questions of how wings work.

I found myself caught in them wires and the machine blowing across the beach heading for the ocean, landing first on one end and then on the other, rolling over and over, and me getting more tangled up in it all the time. I tell you, I was plumb scared. When the thing did stop for half a second I nearly broke up every wire and upright getting out of it.

John T. Daniels

He snapped the famous photo of the Wright's first flight, here describing what happened to the Wright Flyer later that day. Quoted in 2004 book The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright

I believe that my course in sending our Kitty Hawk machine to a foreign museum is the only way of correcting the history of the flying machine, which by false and misleading statements has been perverted by the Smithsonian Institution. In its campaign to discredit others in the flying art, the Smithsonian has issued scores of these false and misleading statements. In a foreign museum this machine will be a constant reminder of the reasons for its being there, and after the people and petty jealousies of the day are gone, the historians of the future may examine the evidence impartially and make history accord with it. Your regret that this old machine must leave the country can hardly be so great as my own.

Orville Wright

Letter to the Smithsonian, regarding sending The Flyer to the Science Museum, London, England, in 1928. My granddad, William English, saw The Flyer there and told me about it.

The Flyer in London

The original Wright brothers aeroplane the world’s first power-driven, heavier-than-air machine in which man made free, controlled, and sustained flight invented and built by Wilbur and Orville Wright flown by them at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina December 17, 1903. By original scientific research the Wright brothers discovered the principles of human flight as inventors, builders, and flyers they further developed the aeroplane, taught man to fly, and opened the era of aviation.

Inscription next to The Flyer

When it was finally brought back to the United States and unveiled at the Smithsonian in 1948, after that institution dropped claims that Langley was first with powered flight.

The Flyer at Smithsonian

Like all novices we began with the helicopter in childhood, but soon saw that the helicopter had no future, and dropped it. The helicopter does with great labor only what the balloon does without labor, and is no more fitted than the balloon for rapid horizontal flight. If its engine stops, it must fall with deathly violence, for it can neither glide like the aeroplane or float like the balloon. The helicopter is much easier to design than the aeroplane, but is worthless when done.

Wilbur Wright

Letter written in 1907. Quoted in the 1954 book Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The Letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

See 21 other Wilbur Wright great aviation quotes.

It is a bare possibility that a one-man machine without a float and favored by a wind of, say, 15 miles an hour, might succeed in getting across the Atlantic. But such an attempt would be the height of folly. When one comes to increase the size of the craft, the possibility rapidly fades away. This is because of the difficulties of carrying sufficient fuel. It will readily be seen, therefore, why the Atlantic flight is out of the question.

Orville Wright

Circa 1908.

All who are practically concerned with aerial navigation agree that the safety of the operator is more important to successful experimentation than any other point. The history of past investigations demonstrates that greater prudence is needed rather than greater skill. Only a madman would propose taking greater risks than the great constructors of earlier times.

Wilbur Wright

July 1901. First published as Die wagerechte Lage Während des Gleitfluges in Illustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen. Wilbur’s original unpublished English manuscript did not survive. This translation from The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

See 21 other Wilbur Wright great aviation quotes.

The flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years — provided, of course, we can meanwhile eliminate such little drawbacks and embarrassments as the existing relation between weight and strength in inorganic materials. No doubt the problem has attractions for those it interests, but to the ordinary man it would seem as if effort might be employed more profitably.

New York Times

Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly, by an anonymous author (presumably an editor) in The New York Times, 9 October 1903. I have a good PDF copy.

The exact date they predicted inorganic flight might take a million years is unfortunate for the Times, as it was on 9 October 1903 one Orville Wright wrote in his diary: “We started assembly today.”

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 57 seconds inform Press home Christmas.

Orville Wright

17 December 1903. This first telegraph home had two transcription errors. It should have read 59 seconds and Orville’s name was spelled Orevelle. Bishop Milton Wright received the telegram at about 5:30 PM, and showed it to Katharine a few minutes later. Supper was delayed while the telegram was sent over to Lorin’s home and the news was telegraphed to Octave Chanute.

Success

Flying Machine Soars 3 Miles in Teeth of High Wind Over Sand Hills and Waves at Kitty Hawk on Carolina Coast

Steadily it pursued its way, first tacking to port, then to starboard, and then driving straight ahead. “It's a success,” declared Orville Wright to the crowd on the beach after the first mile had been covered. But the inventor waited. Not until he had accomplished three miles, putting the machine through all sorts of maneuvers en route, was he satisfied. Then he selected a suitable place to land, and gracefully circling drew his invention slowly to earth, where it settled, like some big bird, in the chosen spot.

“Eureka,” he cried, as did the alchemists of old.

Virginian-Pilot newspaper

Much embellished ‘report’ of the first 12 second flight. Published 18 December 1903.

I’ve seen him! I’ve seen him! Yes, I have today seen Wilbur Wright and his great white bird, the beautiful mechanical bird. There is no doubt! Wilbur and Orville Wright have well and truly flown.

Le Figaro

11 August 1908.

See three other Le Figaro great aviation quotes.

The exhilaration of flying is too keen, the pleasure too great, for it to be neglected as a sport. It seems to me that its use will be somewhat similar to the automobile, as far as pleasure goes; that is, that people will have aeroplanes for pleasure runs, for fresh air, and for sight-seeing — perhaps even for touring, when starting devices are either carried along, or to be found readily at stopping points. There will be races, I suppose, and contests, and many of them will be beneficial as stimulative to inventive progress, just as races and contests have improved the automobile. But the greatest development in a sporting line, as I see it, will be for the pure pleasure of flying.

Orville Wright

The Future of the Aeroplane, Country Life in America magazine, January 1909.

Air-Sailing

I cannot but believe that we stand at the beginning of a new era, the Age of Flight, and that the beginnings of to-day will be mightily overshadowed by the complete successes of to-morrow.

Orville Wright. The Future of the Aeroplane

Country Life in America magazine, January 1909.

The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine.

Orville Wright

Writing in the Flying and the Aero Club of America Bulletin, December 1913.

My brother climbed into the machine. The motor was started. With a short dash down the runway, the machine lifted into the air and was flying. It was only a flight of twelve seconds, and it was uncertain, wavy, creeping sort of flight at best; but it was a real flight at last and not a glide.

Orville Wright

Describing the first flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft. How I Learned to Fly, as told to Lesie W. Quirk, Boys’ Life magazine, September 1914.

Boys' Life magazine

When my brother and I built and flew the first man-carrying flying machine, we thought that we were introducing into the world an invention which would make further wars practically impossible. That we were not alone in this thought is evidenced by the fact that the French Peace Society presented us with medals on account of our invention.

Orville Wright

Letter to C. M. Hitchcock, 21 June 1917.

We realized the difficulties of flying in so high a wind, but estimated that the added dangers in flight would be partly compensated for by the slower speed in landing.

Orville Wright

How We Made The First Flight, Flying magazine, December 1918.

How We Made The First Flight, Flying magazine

What? Only sixteen hours! Are you sure?

Orville Wright

On hearing about the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic, 15 June 1919.

The wildest stretch of the imagination of that time would not have permitted us to believe that within a space of fifteen years actually thousands of these machines would be in the air engaged in deadly combat.

Orville Wright

From radio message on 16 December 1923, broadcast on Station WLW, Cincinnati for 20th anniversay of the first flight. Quoted in 2004 book The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright .


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