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The Wright Brothers Facts & Worksheets

Wilbur and Orville Wright ("The Wright Brothers") are American inventors and aviation pioneers. They successfully built the world's first motor-operated airplane.

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Wilbur and Orville Wright (“The Wright Brothers”) are American inventors and aviation pioneers. They successfully built the world’s first motor-operated airplane. Thanks to their creations, people are now able to travel to other countries in a very short amount of time.

See the fact file below for more information on the Wright Brothers or alternatively, you can download our 24-page The Wright Brothers worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE

  • Wilbur was born on a farm near Millville, Indiana, on April 16, 1867, and Orville was born a few years later on August 19, 1871.
  • The Wright brothers were the sons of Milton Wright and Susan Catherine Koerner Wright. Their father was a church minister and took duties as the editor of a church newspaper.
  • The Wright brothers attended public schools and grew up in an intellectual environment. Wilbur and Orville’s parents always encouraged their children to be curious and pursue intellectual interests.
  • Bishop Wright had an extraordinary influence on the lives of his children. Because of his mentorship, the Wright brothers became independent thinkers who were confidence in their own talents, had strong faith in everything they did, and always persevered during hard times.
  • After their mother’s death, Wilbur and Orville opened a print shop. They published two local newspapers and another newspaper for Dayton’s African American community, known as The Tattler. The printing shop achieved a great reputation for the quality of the papers. This was one of the first signs that the Wright brothers were gifted with technical abilities.

The Starting Point

  • In 1892, the brothers opened a new shop to sell bicycles and do repair services. The profits for the print shop and the bicycle shop were later used to fund their aeronautical experiments from 1899 to 1905.
  • Since they were young, The Wright brothers always had a fascination with everything related to flight and watching people fly. After the death of Otto Lilienthal due to a glider crash in August 1896, the Wright brothers began to be seriously interested in flight.
  • The brothers realized that a successful airplane would require wings to generate lift, a propulsion system to move it through the air, and a system to control the flight.
  • While most flight prototypes at that time relied on natural factors, such as wind to control the flight direction, the Wright brothers preferred to place control of their machine in the hands of the operator.
  • After experimenting with various designs, the Wright brothers decided to attach helical twists across the wings. This made the pilot able to raise or lower the wing tip at will.
  • In 1900, the Wright brothers began to test their prototype for take-offs and landings in Kitty Hawk, an isolated village on the outer banks of North Carolina.
  • The first glider prototype was a biplane that had 15 square meters of wing area and a pitch control. The brothers flew the glider as a kite to gather information that later became very important in the design of future aircraft.
  • Learning from numerous experiments and failures when studying their gilder, the Wright brothers later constructed a small wind tunnel to gather information on the behavior of wings of various shapes and sizes.
  • They tested between 100 and 200 wing designs in their wind tunnel to obtain information on the effect of different wing shapes, tip designs, and gap sizes.

POWERED FLIGHT

  • To perfect their aircraft model, the brothers continued to move forward with the design and constructed their first motor-powered machine. They built a four-cylinder internal-combustion engine with the assistance of Charles Taylor.
  • This engine functioned to spin the propellers and make the aircraft fly on its own without having to wait for strong winds.
  • On December 17, 1903, Orville made his first successful flight, covering 36 meters through the air in 12 seconds. For the first time in history, a machine had successfully sustained a flight under the complete control of the pilot.
  • From 1904 – 1905, they continued to improve their designs and their machine. By October 1905, the brothers could fly for up to 39 minutes at a time, performing circles and other maneuvers.

GO PUBLIC

  • The claim that the Wright brothers had flown in the air raised curiosity from many companies and governments. In February 1908, the Wrights signed a contract for the sale of an airplane to the U.S. Army.
  • Within the next month, they also signed a second agreement with a group of French investors who were interested in building and selling the Wright machines under license.
  • With the positive responses from the public and investors, the Wright Company was formed in 1909 and incorporated Wilbur as president and Orville as one of two vice presidents.
  • The Wright Company established a factory in Dayton and a flight school at Huffman Prairie. From this company, the first step towards the rapid development of commercial aircraft began.

DEATHS AND LEGACY

  • In May 30, 1912, Wilbur died in his bed, exhausted by business and legal concerns. Orville continued Wilbur’s leadership of the Wright Company until 1915, when he sold his interest in the company to a group of financiers.
  • Orville won the 1913 Collier Trophy for his work on an automatic stabilizer for aircraft and helped the Dayton-Wright Company develop of a pilotless aircraft bomb.
  • On January 27, 1948, Orville Wright passed away from a heart attack.
  • Due to their inventions, the Wright brothers will always be remembered as the pioneers of airplanes.

The Wright Brothers Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about The Wright Brothers across 24 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use The Wright Brothers worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Wilbur and Orville Wright (“The Wright Brothers”) who are American inventors and aviation pioneers. They successfully built the world’s first motor-operated airplane. Thanks to their creations, people are now able to travel to other countries in a very short amount of time.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • The Wright Brothers Facts
  • The Wright Writes
  • True or False
  • Watch It Fly
  • Aviation Companies
  • The Wrights’ Lessons
  • Know the Crew
  • Plane Collections
  • Departure Procedures
  • The First Flight
  • Plane Trivia

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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