Book Description

On December 17, 1903, in a fragile little plane which they had built at home for less than $1,000, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered flights in the history of mankind—and opened the Air Age. Why did these two brothers, mechanics by trade, succeed where trained scientists—working with unlimited funds and the backing of great institutions—had repeatedly failed? In this biography, authorized by Orville Wright and first published in 1943, Fred Kelly separates fact from legend and recreates the dramatic achievements of two men, self-taught inventors, who solved the “impossible” problem of flight. The Wright Brothers is a story of total adventure—the sharp physical adventure of flight in perilously frail machines, and the breathtaking intellectual adventure of minds discovering through tireless research and sudden, brilliant hunches the solution to the “impossible” problem of flight. Fred Kelly is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Wright brothers—their growth, their struggles, their disappointments and their ultimate triumph. For more than thirty years he was a personal friend of Orville Wright and talked with him daily while writing this book. The result is a vivid recreation of the birth and pioneer days of aviation and an intimate, affectionate portrait of two men whose inventive genius changed the world. “A gripping book on a fascinating subject...”—Boston Globe