How I Learned to Fly (by Orville Wright)

[Mister Mystery Man]

Here's Orville's story in his own words about how he learned to fly. (He didn't know any CFI at the time)

There's some other stuff on the site so you need to scroll down about halfway to get to the article.

http://books.google.com/books?id=hYu1LF9QvlkC&printsec=frontcover&rview=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

MMM

 

[mikea]

Here's Orville's story in his own words about how he learned to fly. (He didn't know any CFI at the time)...

That is no excuse, Mr. Wright. The FAA requires a sign off.

Pancho Barnes never got a PPL, even when her CFI son tried to teach her.

 

[fgcason]

That is no excuse, Mr. Wright. The FAA requires a sign off.

Orville's response to the FAA: "Yea? Really? Well Mr. FAA, I am the one who signed your entire organization's temporary certificate so put that in your spinner and twirl it."

 

[cessna182b]

Orville's response to the FAA: "Yea? Really? Well Mr. FAA, I am the one who signed your entire organization's temporary certificate so put that in your spinner and twirl it."

In that case he must have been talking to himself. IIRC Orville Wright was appointed as the first head of the CAA (predecessor to the FAA) - and personally signed pilot's licenses issued in that era.

Dave

 

[Palmpilot]

Nice article. Also worthwhile is Orville Wright's book, "How We Invented the Airplane." It describes the wind tunnel testing they did to come up with the corrected tables mentioned in the article, and makes it clear that there was considerable math involved.

http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Invent...6626/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317584499&sr=8-1