Why the Media Ignored the Wright Brothers Flight

NC – We’ve all seen the license plates and know North Carolina was the first in flight. In December of 1903, the Wright Brothers’ accomplishment that is justly celebrated as one of the greatest of all time, the initial powered flight. Despite their efforts to inform the press of their North Carolina aviation success, the Wright Brothers’ triumph was disregarded for almost 5 years due to the numerous failed attempts of the past, which had caused the press and public to believe that it was an impossibility. The saga prompts one to ponder what other seemingly impossible aviation technology could be just around the corner. After four years of hard work and decades of struggles by other inventors, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the original powered airplane, controlling their Wright Flyer for approximately one minute over 800 feet in the Tar Heel State. The two siblings from Dayton, Ohio, took a relatively short flight, but it was a monumental step forward for humanity. Over a hundred years later, airplanes have enabled us to travel around the world, connecting people in ways that no other invention has. This remarkable deed was not fully appreciated at the time.

The Wright Brothers’ famous flight is now recognized as a major milestone, but when it first occurred, it was largely overlooked. Even their local newspaper, the Dayton Journal, failed to report their achievement, claiming the flight was too brief to be noteworthy.

The brothers stayed away from the press for the rest of 1904 and most of 1905, instead concentrating on achieving a powered flight that could not be mistaken for a mere “hop.” At Huffman Prairie near Dayton, Ohio, they made steady progress until, by the autumn of 1905, they were able to stay in the air for 20 minutes or more.

Amos Root, a beekeeper from the area who wrote for his own beekeeping magazine, attempted to share news of the flights to Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the US but was rejected.

In August 1908, Wilbur Wright astounded observers in France by completing figure-eight maneuvers during two-minute flights, thus demonstrating to a doubtful press and public that the Wright brothers had indeed achieved mastery of air travel. Orville solidified the brothers’ overdue recognition a month later with an hour-long flight during demonstrations for the US Army in Virginia.

The 5-year delay in recognizing the Wright Brothers’ act is one of the most remarkable oversights in history. Understandably, journalists and the public were skeptical due to the magnitude of the feat. Despite the numerous attempts from well-known inventors, such as Clément Ader, Hiram Maxim, and Samuel Langley, all were well-funded, yet ended in failure; it was difficult to accept that two brothers in their 30s from Dayton, Ohio, with only a high school education and limited resources had managed to defy gravity.