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Kill Devil Hill: The Epic of the Wright Brothers, 1900-1909
Combs, Harry
389 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1979
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November 25, 2011
THE definitive book on the accomplishments of the Wright Brothers. Written in a concise scientific way, yet sprinkled with passionate lyrical, poetic phrases.
Harry Coombs and Martin Caidin have both ridden the footloose halls of air and speak with authority backed by wisdom and knowledge. The foreword was written by Neil Armstrong.
The first powered and controlled aerodynamic flight of man occurred the morning of December 17, 1903. This feat rivaled man's discovery of the use of fire.
Orville and Wilbur grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Wilbur was seriously injured and withdrew from the world after a ice hockey stick slammed into his mouth. His mother eventually lost her health ministering and nursing him. After she took ill, Wilbur in turn tended to her needs. When she died, he joined his brother, Orville who had made significant improvements to a printing press. Wilbur improved upon their office machines. In late 1892 the printing business hit the doldrums. Bicycles, "safety bicycles"- with both wheels the same size were all the rage. The brothers then opened a bicycle shop where they not only sold the bikes, but repaired them as well.
A September 1894 article in McClure's magazine about Otto Lilienthal and his achievements with gliders galvanized the brothers. The brothers brainstormed together and were determined to fly. In 1899, Wilbur wrote to the Smithsonian and asked for a bibliography of aeronautical publications which launched both brothers into a trajectory into the air. Interestingly enough, Harry Coombs was inspired to write this book upon presentation of "The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright" by Neil Armstrong.
Powered flight was developed from three paths:
1. Gliders, laboriously built and re-built to perfection and powered solely by the wind in Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Then work began on powered flight. The first sustained flight with no mishap: December 17, 1903.
2. More refinements made to powered flight. The early Kitty Hawk model abandoned. Construction and flight tests now at Huffman Prairie, located 8 miles from The City of Dayton.
3. Orville demonstrating flight to the military at Ft. Meyer; while Wilbur demonstrates in Europe.
The years 1889-1909 were the seminal years of flight. It was in this decade that aerodynamic gliders steered by man who lay prone to do so is perfected and evolved into powered flight and saw the development of the airframe of today with elevators, ailerons, and tail rudder.
The end of that decade saw the Wright Brother's triumph over skeptics, over come misleading statements in the press written in ignorance from distant cities, false claims by others looking to steal their thunder, and finally opened the eyes of the politicians in Washington to the potential of flying.
Wilbur succumbed to Typhoid May 30, 1912. Orville lived to see the propeller yield to the jet engine, lived to see Robert Goddard build his rockets, lived to see supersonic flight and man flirt with the edge of space. Orville passes on January 30, 1948.
Just a few years after 1903:
Eleven years later aerial combat in the skies over Europe.
Twenty Four years later Lindberg flies solo from NY to Paris.
Forty years later aircraft are used in WW 2. The Enola Gay brings the war to it's conclusion.
Forty-four years later Yeager flies faster than sound.
Fifty-Four years later Sputnik is launched. The space age begins.
Sixty-six years later Man walks on the moon.
What a legacy the Wright Brothers left. They changed the course of history.
When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface in July 1969, he looked up to see a glowing blue and white jewel in the heavens. A heaven as black as the blackest velvet. He could make out the line that the Atlantic Ocean made when it met the sands of the Carolina Coast. Neil Armstrong had brought a piece of the original linen wing fabric from the Kitty Hawk flyer that flew on Dec. 17, 1903.
Harry Coombs and Martin Caidin have both ridden the footloose halls of air and speak with authority backed by wisdom and knowledge. The foreword was written by Neil Armstrong.
The first powered and controlled aerodynamic flight of man occurred the morning of December 17, 1903. This feat rivaled man's discovery of the use of fire.
Orville and Wilbur grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Wilbur was seriously injured and withdrew from the world after a ice hockey stick slammed into his mouth. His mother eventually lost her health ministering and nursing him. After she took ill, Wilbur in turn tended to her needs. When she died, he joined his brother, Orville who had made significant improvements to a printing press. Wilbur improved upon their office machines. In late 1892 the printing business hit the doldrums. Bicycles, "safety bicycles"- with both wheels the same size were all the rage. The brothers then opened a bicycle shop where they not only sold the bikes, but repaired them as well.
A September 1894 article in McClure's magazine about Otto Lilienthal and his achievements with gliders galvanized the brothers. The brothers brainstormed together and were determined to fly. In 1899, Wilbur wrote to the Smithsonian and asked for a bibliography of aeronautical publications which launched both brothers into a trajectory into the air. Interestingly enough, Harry Coombs was inspired to write this book upon presentation of "The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright" by Neil Armstrong.
Powered flight was developed from three paths:
1. Gliders, laboriously built and re-built to perfection and powered solely by the wind in Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Then work began on powered flight. The first sustained flight with no mishap: December 17, 1903.
2. More refinements made to powered flight. The early Kitty Hawk model abandoned. Construction and flight tests now at Huffman Prairie, located 8 miles from The City of Dayton.
3. Orville demonstrating flight to the military at Ft. Meyer; while Wilbur demonstrates in Europe.
The years 1889-1909 were the seminal years of flight. It was in this decade that aerodynamic gliders steered by man who lay prone to do so is perfected and evolved into powered flight and saw the development of the airframe of today with elevators, ailerons, and tail rudder.
The end of that decade saw the Wright Brother's triumph over skeptics, over come misleading statements in the press written in ignorance from distant cities, false claims by others looking to steal their thunder, and finally opened the eyes of the politicians in Washington to the potential of flying.
Wilbur succumbed to Typhoid May 30, 1912. Orville lived to see the propeller yield to the jet engine, lived to see Robert Goddard build his rockets, lived to see supersonic flight and man flirt with the edge of space. Orville passes on January 30, 1948.
Just a few years after 1903:
Eleven years later aerial combat in the skies over Europe.
Twenty Four years later Lindberg flies solo from NY to Paris.
Forty years later aircraft are used in WW 2. The Enola Gay brings the war to it's conclusion.
Forty-four years later Yeager flies faster than sound.
Fifty-Four years later Sputnik is launched. The space age begins.
Sixty-six years later Man walks on the moon.
What a legacy the Wright Brothers left. They changed the course of history.
When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface in July 1969, he looked up to see a glowing blue and white jewel in the heavens. A heaven as black as the blackest velvet. He could make out the line that the Atlantic Ocean made when it met the sands of the Carolina Coast. Neil Armstrong had brought a piece of the original linen wing fabric from the Kitty Hawk flyer that flew on Dec. 17, 1903.
June 4, 2015
“Kill Devil Hill” by Harry Combs is a book that lays out many of the ins and outs of the Wright Brothers’ invention of powered and controlled flight. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but it isn’t for everyone. The author, who was a pilot himself, goes into many of the aeronautical problems the Wrights perceived and solved along their way, and he provides diagrams of the problems/solutions so the reader can visualize them. That said, this book is probably not one that would be called a popular version of the Wright story, it leans more toward being an academic account. I found the narrative readable and informative at all times, but others might find the level of detail boring.
For example, in explaining one of the crashes the Wrights’ experienced…”What they did not know is that, because the center of gravity of an aircraft and its center of pressure must coincide within certain limits, the sudden aft movement of the center of pressure put so much lift behind the center of gravity that the machine was forced by its own energy to nose-dive into the ground.” (page 98).
Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough recently released his book “The Wright Brothers” (Simon & Schuster) and it undoubtedly will be considered a more popular characterization of the Wrights. Combs’ book came out in 1979 while McCullough’s has a 2015 publication date. In addition, the Combs’ book was published by a small press…and even might have been self-published, so its marketing reach was smaller. Two of the advantages of the 1979 book are that Combs actually had the opportunity to interview some of the witnesses to the initial adventures in flight, and being a pilot Combs knows of what he speaks.
The highest praise I can give this book is that I feel I now understand the problems the Wright Brothers faced and how they solved them. So much so, I don’t feel the need to read McCullough’s new book. If you are looking to understand the process of flight, Combs’ book is for you. Highly recommended…especially if you can find a copy of it.
For example, in explaining one of the crashes the Wrights’ experienced…”What they did not know is that, because the center of gravity of an aircraft and its center of pressure must coincide within certain limits, the sudden aft movement of the center of pressure put so much lift behind the center of gravity that the machine was forced by its own energy to nose-dive into the ground.” (page 98).
Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough recently released his book “The Wright Brothers” (Simon & Schuster) and it undoubtedly will be considered a more popular characterization of the Wrights. Combs’ book came out in 1979 while McCullough’s has a 2015 publication date. In addition, the Combs’ book was published by a small press…and even might have been self-published, so its marketing reach was smaller. Two of the advantages of the 1979 book are that Combs actually had the opportunity to interview some of the witnesses to the initial adventures in flight, and being a pilot Combs knows of what he speaks.
The highest praise I can give this book is that I feel I now understand the problems the Wright Brothers faced and how they solved them. So much so, I don’t feel the need to read McCullough’s new book. If you are looking to understand the process of flight, Combs’ book is for you. Highly recommended…especially if you can find a copy of it.
April 10, 2010
The most thorough and accurate book about the Wright Brothers ever written. Only a combination of aviation pioneer and aeronautical engineer could have written this book, and Harry Combs is both. Martin Caidin's professionally smooth prose and extensive knowledge of aeronautics help Combs tell the story of what clean living, a good partner,and passion-with-a-goal can accomplish in very few years. How could the relatively uneducated brothers have invented not only the powered airplane, but airplane controls, the wind tunnel, and a propeller whose efficiency is enviable even today? Chapter 5's title - a quote from Wilbur's initial letter to the Smithsonian - tells it all: "I Wish to Avail Myself of All That Is Already Known".
April 19, 2008
Kill Devil Hill was truly a pleasure to read. Anyone who has grown up believing that the Wright brothers stumbled across their unconventional approach to powered flight will be surprised to learn of their methodical and innovative scientific approach. The boys from Dayton refused to accept the conventional 'heavier than air' engineering wisdom of the time, and charted their own course through the maze of theoretical flight dynamics. They helped change the world in the process. The subject matter is fascinating, and the writing is fresh and thought-provoking. This is a book to savour. If you only read one book about the Wright brothers, this should be it.
January 19, 2015
I recently read a short middle-school-level book about the Wright Brothers, and was not enthusiastic to see this 400-page book show up. But then I read the first page of the prologue and I was hooked. I love the writing. The author writes beautifully about Orville and Wilbur (and Katharine) Wright as individuals and as a team, about their "journey" into powered, controlled flight, and about many technical aspects of flight. It is a beautiful read, though perhaps a slow read.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in flight, or the early 20th century, or history in general...
Highly recommended for anyone interested in flight, or the early 20th century, or history in general...
January 30, 2013
This should be required reading by all high school students. The brilliance is these men cannot be overstated.
March 24, 2016
An amazing true story about creation, persistence, mutual support and respect, well told. I cried when Wilbur Wright had flown for the first time.
March 11, 2021
At times this study of the Wright brothers is way too technical. For two men without finishing high school nor attending a university, they had the innate intelligence to do just about anything. They built bicycles, repaired theirs and others and even could work on the primitive autos of the times. But they caught the flying bug.
And here is where the story starts to bog down. They would overthink every aspect of gliding, building a plane and the way to power a plane to fly. They were not satisfied with their own research even when they were correct. This delayed the development of a powered plane and also caused them to fall behind others as they tinkered with their creation even when it worked. This development of the best research techniques would later aid many others in various fields but led the Wrights to sometimes take shortcuts to stay ahead of the competition. In the end their hard work paid off but was stolen by everyone and they were often denied the credit they deserved.
The personal history of the brothers and the support of their family is well covered and helped to balance the pages of technical data that was presented to show how they learned to build and fly aircraft. Their story is a long struggle of success, mishaps and eventual achievement. One brother lived to see too much warfare with his planes but also the first steps to the moon.
And here is where the story starts to bog down. They would overthink every aspect of gliding, building a plane and the way to power a plane to fly. They were not satisfied with their own research even when they were correct. This delayed the development of a powered plane and also caused them to fall behind others as they tinkered with their creation even when it worked. This development of the best research techniques would later aid many others in various fields but led the Wrights to sometimes take shortcuts to stay ahead of the competition. In the end their hard work paid off but was stolen by everyone and they were often denied the credit they deserved.
The personal history of the brothers and the support of their family is well covered and helped to balance the pages of technical data that was presented to show how they learned to build and fly aircraft. Their story is a long struggle of success, mishaps and eventual achievement. One brother lived to see too much warfare with his planes but also the first steps to the moon.
September 11, 2020
I read this book years ago and lost in one of my many moves. I recently found a used copy so that I'll always have it.
Anyone, especially pilots interested in the technical aspects of the Wright Brothers experiments in building an airplane and then teaching themselves how to fly will be fascinated by this book. As a pilot I found it much more interesting than The Wright Brothers by David McCullough.
Anyone, especially pilots interested in the technical aspects of the Wright Brothers experiments in building an airplane and then teaching themselves how to fly will be fascinated by this book. As a pilot I found it much more interesting than The Wright Brothers by David McCullough.
April 4, 2023
Maybe it was the engineering details, but this book blew away McCullough's book on the Wright brothers. I came away from this one knowing that they were scientists, not just lucky bike mechanics. Fascinating.
September 9, 2015
Everyone knows OF Wilbur and Orville Wright, but few know much ABOUT them and the true genius of their accomplishments. In the late 1970s, accomplished pilot Harry Combs realized that the general view of the Wright brothers was that they were "tinkerers" who ran a bicycle shop and barely stumbled into the air ahead of their competitors. Unfortunately, 30 years later, that view probably hasn't changed much. In this book he set out to set the record straight and explain why theirs was a rare genius equaled by very few others in history. The Wrights, who came from a close-knit and supportive family, were intrigued by stories from Europe of Lillenthal and others who were attempting "heavier than air" flight (and often dying in the attempts). Wilbur began contemplating the possibilities and together the brothers commenced experimenting and testing the various conclusions and principles others had "discovered." Unfortunately, and here is one example of their incredible intelligence, the Wrights learned that the generally accepted ideas of flight were usually wrong and they had to discover the true scientific principles of aerodynamics for themselves. Possessed of an amazing talent for mechanics and inventing they built from scratch their entire machine, including an engine to run it after their glider tests had proven successful. And in December 1903 on the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, NC, after three years of experimenting, they were the first in history to achieve true flight (sustained, powered, and controlled), and later improved upon their designs to usher in the modern age of flying.
Mr. Combs does a wonderful job telling the story of the Wright brothers with detail. But most of all he points out the many traits and talents they possessed that made them uniquely suited to achieve such a lofty goal. They came from a humble and hard-working background and had an amazing sense of determination. Despite their limited education, they instinctively understood many complex scientific and engineering concepts, and when something wasn't available they were able to invent it themselves. But they didn't simply learn by trial and error, as many others tried to do. They would reason the challenges out between them, and their arguments with each other often ended with each arguing the other's initial point of view. But overall, they were men of the highest character.
My only criticism is that the book is often heavy on technical details that won't mean much to those who don't pilot airplanes. But the history of their struggles and disappointments and triumphs is truly inspiring. In addition there are a good number of historical photos included.
Mr. Combs does a wonderful job telling the story of the Wright brothers with detail. But most of all he points out the many traits and talents they possessed that made them uniquely suited to achieve such a lofty goal. They came from a humble and hard-working background and had an amazing sense of determination. Despite their limited education, they instinctively understood many complex scientific and engineering concepts, and when something wasn't available they were able to invent it themselves. But they didn't simply learn by trial and error, as many others tried to do. They would reason the challenges out between them, and their arguments with each other often ended with each arguing the other's initial point of view. But overall, they were men of the highest character.
My only criticism is that the book is often heavy on technical details that won't mean much to those who don't pilot airplanes. But the history of their struggles and disappointments and triumphs is truly inspiring. In addition there are a good number of historical photos included.
September 13, 2015
Outstanding book. Very interesting with loads of good info for aviation enthusiasts and mechanically minded people. Another really great thing about this book is that one does not have to own the latter characteristics noted in order to enjoy it. History buffs will enjoy, as well as people who are interested in how people interacted in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th century. The author did an excellent job of researching the facts. Something I found most interesting is the frequent use of letters for communication, and a good portion of the book describes events using actual letters between family members and others. I wonder how much information would have never been discovered if most of the communication had been through text, email, and phones... Wilbur and Orville, actually most of the Wright family, are of high moral character and are a great study for those interested in highly principled and disciplined lifestyles. The perseverance and intelligence of these two brothers are intriguing and inspiring. Pushing forth regardless of how many barriers are encountered, these gentlemen were awesome individuals. This is no exaggeration; these men typically accomplished more in a month than what most people accomplish in a year. As mentioned in my opening, there is a lot of technical detail in the book as well, and being an aviator, I was very interested in that, but if you decide to read this book and you don't want all that detail, you can skim over that and you will find that there is still more to this book that will likely interest you.
March 12, 2016
If you are interested in the history of the invention of the airplane, read this book. You will get a historical review of the events that occurred, the people involved and the places they worked. You can also get this from the other books that have been written about the Wright Brothers.
However, this book is more than a history lesson. You will be introduced to the higher level process of invention as the result of the interaction of two minds. You will want to read this book if you want to see how two or more minds are greater one. Combs takes the time to describe the interactions of the two brothers in their efforts to understand the issue and to create a solution to resolve the issues. You will see their decision points to dismiss information that is incorrect initially with some reluctance and then building confidence to generate their own theories and generate data to support them.
However, this book is more than a history lesson. You will be introduced to the higher level process of invention as the result of the interaction of two minds. You will want to read this book if you want to see how two or more minds are greater one. Combs takes the time to describe the interactions of the two brothers in their efforts to understand the issue and to create a solution to resolve the issues. You will see their decision points to dismiss information that is incorrect initially with some reluctance and then building confidence to generate their own theories and generate data to support them.
April 2, 2008
This book is hands down, without a doubt, the best book about the Wright Brothers I have ever read. I actually did enjoy it - It was pretty interesting reading about their progress over the years. It was also interesting learning just how far advanced they were compared to everyone else who was interested in human flight at the time. On the other hand, it was a little too technical to be an easy read, but it didn't exactly explain things in the best way. So there are points in the book I had to gloss over since I don't have much of an engineering background. The last thing I'll say about this book is that the author really loves the Wright Brothers - that was pretty enjoyable at times.
December 8, 2015
Just a great, fascinating book. I'd never realized before just what bonafide geniuses the Wright brothers were. Two guys with not even high school education who basically figured out the dynamics of powered human flight from scratch and in their free time. The physics alone that they taught themselves is just mind-boggling. The book is mostly history, with just enough aeronautical engineering to be interesting, explain the basic concepts, and show how impressive the brothers were. Good stuff.
September 1, 2021
There are never enough pages or light that can be thrown on the incredible feat of the Brothers Wright. Although this is the sixth or seventh book I have read about them, yet there are still more new facts here! There is also more technical information than Tobin’s To Conquer the Air and naturally more than McCullough’s more recent book on the Wrights.
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December 29, 2008JREf4
July 15, 2023
How determination, genius, and pure grit took men to the skies.
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