First in Flight by Stephen Kirk

Author:Stephen Kirk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography/Memoir
ISBN: 9780895874207
Publisher: John F. Blair, Publisher
Published: 1995-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Orville put on my heavy overcoat, and grabbing the ladder sallied forth from the south end of the building. At first it appeared that he was going down to repair some of the rents in the Big Hill which was being badly torn to pieces, for he began by walking backwards about 50 feet. After a while I saw him come back past the side opening in our partially raised awning door…. Thereupon I sallied out to help him and after a tussle with the wind found him at the north end ready to set up the ladder. He quickly mounted to the edge of the roof when the wind caught under his coat and folded it back over his head. As the hammer and nails were in his pocket and up over his head he was unable to get his hands on them or to pull his coattails down, so he was compelled to descend again. The next time he put the nails in his mouth and took the hammer in his hand and I followed him up the ladder hanging on to his coattails. He swatted around a good little while trying to get a few nails in, and I became almost impatient for I had only my common coat on and was getting well soaked. He explained afterward that the wind kept blowing the hammer around so that three licks out of four hit the roof or his fingers instead of the nail. Finally the job was done and we rushed for cover. He took off the overcoat and felt his other coat and found it nice and dry, but after half an hour or so, finding that he was feeling wetter and wetter, he began a second investigation and found the inside of his coat sopping wet, while the outside was nice and dry. He had forgotten when he first felt of his coat, that it, as well as the overcoat, were practically inside out while he was working on the roof.

The Wrights went so far as to try a few glides the following afternoon, but the folly of this was quickly apparent. On Orville’s second flight, a gust of wind lifted him so rapidly that, in struggling to descend, he hit Wilbur on the head with the corner of the left wing. The glider was slightly damaged by the wind. The door of the 1901 building was broken.

The next day, with winds still at forty or fifty miles per hour, they wisely stayed indoors.

Wilbur gave the blow’s obituary this way: “The storm continued through Saturday and Sunday, but by Monday it had reared up so much that it finally fell over on its back and lay quiet.”

With their buildings and flying machines largely intact, the Wrights were not the hardest hit on that portion of the coast. According to Dan Tate, five vessels washed ashore between the camp and Cape Henry, Virginia. One of them was visible from the highest dune at Kill Devil Hills.

For a time, progress on the powered machine went smoothly.

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