Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Wilbur Wright was born April 16, 1867 near Millville, Indiana, the third child of Milton Wright and Susan Koerner. Orville, the next child in the family to survive infancy, was born August 19th, 1871 in the town that the brothers would eventually call their home for the remainder of their adult lives. In which city, later adopting the town motto "The Birthplace of Aviation," did Orville Wright enter this world?
2. Neither Wright brother graduated high school. Wilbur would have graduated, having completed four years of high school in Indiana, but did not receive his diploma due to the family's sudden move. Orville dropped out after his junior year in 1889, in order to start a business with his brother. Three years prior to forming the Wright Cycle Exchange, their famous bicycle repair shop, the Wright brothers took up which of the following media enterprises, based on one of Orville's homemade contraptions?
3. The Wright Cycle Exchange, the bicycle repair shop they founded in 1892, was to the Wright brothers merely a means for funding their growing interest and research in their hobby of aviation. Starting with unpowered gliders, Orville and Wilbur started testing their aerodynamic theories on their self-built aircraft in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, between 1900 and 1903, culminating with the famous "first flight" of the Wright Flyer I with Orville at the stick. On which historic date did the "first flight" occur?
4. After their testing years at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright Brothers moved their testing grounds closer to home, to a cow pasture called Huffman Prairie. Here, they were able to work in relative secrecy, safeguarding their technological secrets from potential copycats. They achieved some important feats at this field. Wilbur piloted Wright Flyer II in the world's first flight circle on September 20, 1904, using the techniques in bank and roll that he had earlier developed. Both brothers achieved flights lasting longer than five minutes in the Flyer II. After their second Flyer crashed, Wilbur piloted the Flyer III in a then record 38 minute flight. Which United States Military base now sits adjacent to Huffman Prairie?
5. At both Kitty Hawk and Huffman Prairie, the Wright brothers worked in relative obscurity and isolation. There were only five witnesses for their "first flight" at Kitty Hawk. Orville and Wilbur often submitted their own press releases to local newspapers, but their reports were often brushed aside and deemed non-newsworthy. With the lack of witnesses, they were often treated with skepticism and criticism in both the United States and Europe. In order to build their business's and their own reputations, as well as to gain customers, the brothers had to take their "show" on the road. Orville stuck to public flight demonstrations in the United States, while Wilbur went to Europe, starting in August of 1908. Known as the home of aviation pioneers such as the Montgolfier brothers, Jean-Marie Le Bris, Louis Bleriot and Clement Ader, in which European nation did Wilbur primarily base his public performances?
6. While Wilbur was gaining fame in Europe, Orville was demonstrating their aircraft back in the USA at Fort Myer, near Washington DC, in hopes of gaining a contract with the United States military. It was during these demonstrations that Orville achieved the first hour long flight, on September 9th, 1908. Sadly, on September 17th, another aviation first was accomplished, but not for the record that one would want notoriety. A few minutes into a demonstration flight along with a passenger, Army lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, the propeller shattered and the plane crashed. Orville sustained a broken leg, four broken ribs, and hipbone displacement and fractures. But Selfridge became the first fatality in the crash of a powered aircraft. In which US state did these flights occur?
7. Between 1910 and 1916, Orville and Wilbur Wright, through the Wright Company, operated the Wright Brothers Flying School. Operating first out of Montgomery Alabama and then from Huffman Prairie, as well as Augusta, Georgia, the academy trained 119 men to fly. One of their most famous students was a man who would become a famous WWII five-star army general. Also the inaugural holder of the five-star rank of General of the Air Force and considered as one of the United States Air Force's founding fathers, who was this famous student of Orville and Wilbur's?
8. Perhaps the most significant contribution to aviation was the techniques that Wilbur Wright developed concerning aircraft control. Unlike maneuvering on road or water, in the air, aerodynamic forces work in three dimensions, with components of pitch, yaw, and roll. Wilbur determined that you can't turn an aircraft with a rudder as you can steer a ship. Instead, by bending one wing more than another, the bent wing would produce more lift, raise itself higher, and move faster, banking at an angle as the plane turns. The rudder acts to maintain stability in this maneuver. The Wright Brothers were awarded a patent in 1906, for their method of aircraft control. However, for almost a decade between 1908 and 1917, the Wright Company fought a bitter patent war against the Curtiss Company, which used Wilbur's methods. Of this patent war, which of the following CANNOT be stated?
9. Sadly, Wilbur Wright died at the young age of 45, May 30, 1912. He was severely ill for several weeks since the previous month, sometimes in and out of consciousness. Some have attributed Wilbur's illness as a consequence of eating contaminated shellfish at a banquet while on a business trip to Boston. Which of the following illnesses stole this aviation pioneer from the world?
10. Fatally succumbing to a heart attack, Orville Wright took his "final one-way flight" on January 30, 1948, at the age of 76. A few years earlier, April 19, 1944, Orville went up in what turned out to be his final ride in an aircraft. Along with Jack Frye, the president of TWA, a Lockheed Constellation was returning from a 7 hour flight between Burbank and Washington, DC, when the pilot made a detour to pay homage to the living legend. Also the inventor of the Spruce Goose, which famous and eccentric pilot was at the controls the final time Orville Wright took to the sky?
Source: Author
mcdubb
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bloomsby before going online.
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