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After last week's book by David McCullough, I thought I'd read another of his right away. This week it's his new book The Wright Brothers. Not too surprisingly it concentrates on their efforts to create a viable means of powered flight. It is in no way a technical analysis of what they did or of their progress. It's an historian's look into a family that took a hobby, a passion and turned it into something world changing.
There is not much question the Wright Brothers happened to come along at the right time. With the development of the internal combustion engine, powered flight was going to be possible sooner or later. From Otto Lillienthal onward, there were others who first designed features of aircraft we'd recognize today, some of which the Wrights did not even use. One person or another might quibble about who may have made the first true flight and where. But there is no doubt at all that it was the Wrights who built and flew the first airplanes capable of reliably taking off, maneuvering at will and even safely coming back to where they started.
For someone like me who grew up in a family of engineers, David McCullough does a beautiful job of explaining precisely why it was the Wright Brothers, who changed powered flight from something any number of people thought ought to be possible to a reality. There were two main keys. First Wilbur Wright was a stickler for details. He would not do anything by halves. Second both of the brothers were conversant in mechanics and had the faith in each other to be able to argue about technical matters and in the end see the best of what the other was thinking. There were times even after the Wrights' first flights that they were discouraged and baffled about what had worked and what didn't. They'd read all the literature they could get their hands on and tried all the reference material on the subject. They came to a point at which they knew they were operating beyond what anyone else had achieved. Eventually someone else would have accomplished the same things. But it was the Wrights together who had the wisdom at that point in time to know how to keep going forward.
Next week: Go Set a Watchman. I read the whole book yesterday, which was the first day it was available. But I think it would be wise to take a week to think about it, perhaps re-read it, before I give my opinions. I will say it's not as instantly recognizable as a classic as To Kill a Mockingbird is, but generally my impressions are favorable.
There is not much question the Wright Brothers happened to come along at the right time. With the development of the internal combustion engine, powered flight was going to be possible sooner or later. From Otto Lillienthal onward, there were others who first designed features of aircraft we'd recognize today, some of which the Wrights did not even use. One person or another might quibble about who may have made the first true flight and where. But there is no doubt at all that it was the Wrights who built and flew the first airplanes capable of reliably taking off, maneuvering at will and even safely coming back to where they started.
For someone like me who grew up in a family of engineers, David McCullough does a beautiful job of explaining precisely why it was the Wright Brothers, who changed powered flight from something any number of people thought ought to be possible to a reality. There were two main keys. First Wilbur Wright was a stickler for details. He would not do anything by halves. Second both of the brothers were conversant in mechanics and had the faith in each other to be able to argue about technical matters and in the end see the best of what the other was thinking. There were times even after the Wrights' first flights that they were discouraged and baffled about what had worked and what didn't. They'd read all the literature they could get their hands on and tried all the reference material on the subject. They came to a point at which they knew they were operating beyond what anyone else had achieved. Eventually someone else would have accomplished the same things. But it was the Wrights together who had the wisdom at that point in time to know how to keep going forward.
Next week: Go Set a Watchman. I read the whole book yesterday, which was the first day it was available. But I think it would be wise to take a week to think about it, perhaps re-read it, before I give my opinions. I will say it's not as instantly recognizable as a classic as To Kill a Mockingbird is, but generally my impressions are favorable.