Introduction

Imagine yourself in 1903.There are no airplanes, no Internet, no smartphones.How could two brothers, two bicycle builders, who are sons of a Christian bishop, achieve what no one else has managed to do since the beginning of time? How did the Wright Brothers build and fly an airplane on that fateful day of December 17, 1903?How did they achieve flight?In this book, you will learn about the Wright Brothers.You will know how they crewed the first-ever flight in history. What was their secret? How did they succeed? What made them extraordinary?

You will learn7 problem-solving principles that the Wright Brothers applied in their endeavor.These principles will be useful for addressing any problem you might face, whether in your personal life, work, school, or business.The Wright Brothers were just small-town folk; they didn’t graduate high school. But they achieved one of the most important milestones in human history.The Wright Brothers did it with these 7 principles. It’s time you learn them, too.

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The Event of the Century

On December 8, 1903, the New York Times printed an editorial of a man-carrying airplane.However, they wrote that this machine would only be built after engineers had worked on it for the next ten million years.Several days later, two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, actually built it.They flew their airplane on Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.The older brother flew the plane while the younger brother monitored everything from the runway.It was December 17, 1903.The Wright Brothers tried to fly their airplane four times that morning successfully but failed.

An odd ground crew assisted them: two witnesses to the first-ever flight were a lumber dealer, three surfers, and a 17-year-old boy.They were curious to see what the Wright Brothers were doing. On the fifth attempt, Wilbur and Orville finally succeeded.John Daniels, one of the surfers, was asked by Orville to take a photograph. It remains the only picture of that historic event.Afterward, they all walked back to camp.The men could not believe what they had seen.They ran over the hills to spread the news. John Daniels worried whether or not he had pushed the shutter button in time. Apparently, he did.It became one of the most important pictures in history.

Back at camp, Wilbur and Orville warmed themselves, and the hungry brothers ate a hearty meal. It seemed that their ground crew was more excited than they were. Later on, in an interview, Wilbur Wright said that he and Orville had flown on their airplane many times in their minds. When it finally happened in reality, for them, it was just another flight.

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Forging

The Principle of Constructive Conflict

Forging is the process by which a blacksmith creates a sword.He puts the metal on fire, hammers it, and folds the steel repeatedly.This is what makes the sword strong. Likewise, when an idea is debated or put into the fire if it is hammered down and continuously challenged, it becomes stronger. It becomes closer to the truth.This is what the Wright Brothers did to their ideas.Each time they debated, they became closer to the answer. “Constructive Conflict” is another term for debate.The Wright Brothers may have seemed like they were fighting when discussing an idea, but that is how they solved problems.

It was the summer of 1900.The Wright Brothers were in their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio.They opened all the doors and windows to let the breeze come in. Any passerby would have gotten startled because the Wright Brothers were shouting at one another.At first look, anyone would think that they were very angry and violent. The passerby might have even attempted to mediate in between the two to calm them down.But the truth is that the Wright Brothers were just having a debate.They were just discussing an idea on which they had different views.Their neighbors became used to hearing their loud voices. They would just wave it off and say,

“The boys are doing it again”.If they had not arrived at an agreement or a common answer, the Wright Brothers would continue to argue into the evening.They would sit in the living room after dinner;Orville in the hard wooden chair, sitting straight with his arms folded on his lap, while Wilbur would sit on the stuffed chair and clasped his hands behind his head with his legs stretched out before him.After a while, Orville would blurt out an idea that he was saying earlier and Wilbur would disagree, and the debate would be back.Their voices would grow so loud that it would alarm their housekeeper.The old lady would look into the room to check if they are about to punch each other.But of course, they were not.They were just having a constructive conflict and wanted to arrive at the correct answer.

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Tackle the Tyrant
The Principle of Worst Things First

“Tackle the Tyrant” means to solve the biggest problem first, before anything else.Take for example, a business project.The team may solve the easy problems first and get the final details in place. But as they are about to complete the project, they find that they cannot proceed because they neglected the biggest problem.They forgot to perfect the most important detail, and perhaps the team fails in the project.If you tackle the “tyrant” first, that is, if you deal with the biggest problem initially, then everything else will be easier.It will give you assurance that the project will be a success.This is one of the principles that the Wright Brothers applied in creating the world’s first successfully-manned flight.

There is a children’s story called “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”. Once upon a time, there were three goats that wanted to get to the other side of the river. They were excited to cross to the other side of the river because of the abundant green grass on the other side.However, the only way to get there was over an old wooden bridge. The water rushed fast and strong under the bridge.Under the bridge, there actually lived a big, ugly, one-eyed troll who wanted to eat anything or anyone that crossed the bridge. A little girl who was listening to this story asked her grandmother. “Why didn’t the goats just find another way?” The grandmother replied: “Maybe they did.

But sooner or later, they still had to face the troll.” They still had to tackle the tyrant.In 1901, Wilbur Wright was invited by his mentor, Octave Chanute, to speak before the Western Society of Engineers in Chicago. When Chanute introduced Wilbur, the mentor first made a comment about the problems of heavier-than-air-flight. Chanute said that the biggest problem is “the suitable power plant”, or the motor of the airplane. He said that the next speaker, Wilbur Wright, agreed with him.This was a surprise for Wilbur – he did not think that the motor was the biggest problem, or the ‘tyrant’.

However, he didn’t want to embarrass his mentor. So, Wilbur stood up and carefully explained himself. For the Wright Brothers, power and propulsion was not the big problem for achieving flight. Instead, it was balance and control. He explained this concern before the Society. “Compared to balance and control, all the other problems are of little significance. If we have solved balance and control, we will finally have the first manned flight.” This is indeed what the Wright Brothers tackled during those days in Kill Devil Hills.They tackled the tyrant and later on succeeded.

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Fiddling
The Principle of Inveterate Tinkering

Fiddling or Tinkering is like playing with Lego blocks.You assemble and break the pieces apart until you create the structure you want.This was one of the important traits of the Wright Brothers, they would open up machines and fiddle with the parts to see how something worked.They tinkered with it and upgraded it into a better machine.Wilbur and Orville’s father was Bishop Milton Wright.He was often assigned to distant places and because of that he was often away.Even if the Bishop only had a small salary, he made a point to buy presents for his children every time he came home.

Bishop Milton liked to give them toys which would raise their curiosity and test their knowledge.There was one day when Wilbur was eleven and Orville was seven years old. Bishop Milton came home with a gift behind his back.The boys rushed to him and greeted him at the door.Before they could grab the gift, Bishop Milton released it into the air. It didn’t crash to the floor; it flew around the ceiling for a while before it settled slowly to the ground.The gift was a toy airplane. It was designed by a talented Frenchman known as Alphonse Penaud. Toy airplanes had been around for a century. But the creations of Penaud were different.

They were masterful and truly amazing.Other models ran with a bow and string, but Penaud’s creations had two propellers and a rubber band to keep them flying smoothly in the air.The Wright Brothers were very excited.They tinkered with the machine to see how it worked.They tried to make it better.They also designed bigger versions of the toy airplane, but they were not able to make them fly.It was years later that they would understand the relationship between power and size.The Wright Brothers learned that if you created a machine two times bigger than the original, you needed to increase its power source by eight times.The larger the machine, the more power it should have.That is how something heavier than air will fly.

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