Capturing History
The Daniels/Wright Photograph
H.G. Frautschy
The image of that first powered flight by the Wright brothers on December 17, 1903, is indelibly marked in our minds. But the more I look at the photo, the more I realize I haven’t really “seen” it at all. Subtle clues abound in the delicate fine-grain emulsion painted on the 5-by-7-inch glass-plate negative that was loaded in Orville Wright’s Gundlach Korona box camera that cold morning. |
Without that starting point reference, it’s hard to tell just how long their “Junction Railroad” (so dubbed by Wilbur) track extends to the left of the viewer. In fact, it was only 60 feet long, just a little under three times the overall length of the 21.1-foot long Flyer. The rail was made up of four 15-foot sections, each topped with a thin metal strip.
Orville Wright knew exactly how he wanted the shot composed, and he set up the camera precisely where it would show, with just one photograph, the entire vista of what he was pretty sure would be their first flight. By showing the entire launching rail, Orville could ensure that no one could dispute the length of the takeoff run, or claim the Wrights had actually started heading downhill and had simply taken off from a flat section of the rail. By putting the takeoff end of the rail in the center of the frame, he gave plenty of room for the person who would trip the shutter to get the Flyer in mid-air, even if the shutter bulb was squeezed late. |
What has been often named “the photograph of the century” was almost not taken. John T. Daniels, one of the men assigned to the Kill Devil Coast Guard station south of the Wrights’ camp at Kill Devil Hills, had been a fascinated helper of the Wrights during their visits to the Outer Banks. After Orville had placed the camera, he chose Daniels to stand watch and trip the shutter, giving him instructions to squeeze the pneumatic bulb that would actuate the shutter when the Flyer reached the end of the rail. Daniels later said that he was so excited by the vision of the Flyer rising from the rail that he nearly forgot to squeeze the bulb, and wasn’t sure at all that he’d actually taken the photograph! Perhaps he was so excited by the sight he tripped the shutter by accident. In either case, after the flight, Orville checked the camera and saw that the shutter had been tripped. Daniels took a very memorable photograph, but they wouldn’t know what it looked like until the Wrights returned to Dayton and developed all of the negatives in their darkroom. Amazingly, it’s one of the clearest photographs taken during their 1903 stay on the Outer Banks.
What Daniels captured in that moment is fascinating. By virtue of the large glass plate negative coated with a remarkably fine-grain emulsion, we can take a peek at a number of details that at first glance are overlooked. (We’ve chosen to not retouch in any way this first generation scan of the glass plate negative. We did crop a small section of the bottom of the photo off of our reproduction, but have kept the broken corner within the reproduction of the photograph.-Editor)
First, let’s look at the orientation of the photograph. You’re looking with J.T. Daniels towards the northwest, and you can see a few sand dunes in the distance. The brisk, chilly wind that morning was out of the north, with the track laid out into the wind, just about 200 feet to the west/northwest of the Wrights’ two camp buildings. In a pair of photographs (see right) taken earlier in the fall that year, the area where water had collected in a low depression in the sand is plainly visible beyond the sheds. You can also see a couple of the sand dunes that ran along the Albemarle Sound side of the Outer Banks from Kill Devil Hills north to Kitty Hawk. The same hills are the ones visible in the first flight photograph of the Flyer.
On the left side of the photograph, the footprints of the brothers and their helpers are plainly visible around the perimeter of the right wing as the Flyer was prepared for flight. Orville explained the difference in the appearance of the sand around the launch area in the book How We Invented the Airplane, currently in print by Dover Press. “This track was laid in a small depression, which a few days before had been covered by water. We chose this spot because the action of the water had leveled it so nearly flat that little preparation of the ground was necessary in order to lay the track.” |
On the right end of the airplane’s foot-printed outline is a small footstool or bench, with a large C-clamp lying across the center support of the bench. Ken Hyde of the Wright Experience believes they used the clamp to gently secure the wingtip of the machine to the bench, to prevent the Flyer from rocking too much from side to side in the breezy conditions as they prepared it for flight.
To the bench’s right, there is the starting battery, with its kinky, stiff wire sticking out of the wooden box. It was used to start the engine of the Flyer, which was also equipped with a Splitdorf dynamo. A battery was needed to supply enough electricity to generate a spark within the primitive make-or-break ignition system used for the engine. There’s also a shovel and a small can, which, according to The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright edited by Marvin W. McFarland, contained “nails, tacks and a hammer in it, for emergency repairs.” No citation for the source of that description is given.
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There appears to be at least two other small items obscured by the shovel and battery box. Further to the right of the objects on the ground is a small flat object, perhaps a foot square, and an inch or so thick, most likely a board of some sort. Returning to the Flyer, it’s caught in mid-air after just lifting off from the launching rail at the joint of the third and fourth rails. It has perhaps another 90 to 100 feet yet to fly on this first attempt. The bottoms of Orville’s shoes lay over the top of the footrest they provided near the lower wing’s trailing edge, and you can see Orville leaning on his right elbow, with his left arm pushed out to the left. In his left hand, he has the control stick for the elevator (they called it the “front rudder”) fully aft, a control input that was taken out probably within a second or two after the shutter was tripped. He’s just slid his body and the wing-warping control cradle over to the right, in an effort to pick up the left wing, which dipped just slightly at this early stage of the flight. The small cylindrical object mounted on the wing interplane strut to the left of Orville is the gasoline tank. The radiator for the engine is mounted to the next strut over, immediately to the right of the pilot’s position. |
Just barely visible at the bottom of the front crosspiece is the bicycle hub used as a guide for the Flyer as it rolled down the launching rail. Below it you can see the two-wheeled truck with the crosspiece used to hold up the aft end of the Flyer as it rolled down the rail. In the photo, it has just left the rail and impacted the ground, with a little bit of sand flying up in the air.
In other photographs of the Flyer taken that December, the wheeled truck is seen as it was used to transport the Flyer out of the hangar shed, which was constructed after the Wrights’ arrival in late September of 1903.
The propped-up doors of the shed (the building had swing-up doors on each end) would not allow the airplane to be slid out with its wings in what years later would become a traditional method of airplane storage. Instead, it came out wingtip first, with the wheeled truck under the Flyer, parallel with the wings. The brothers and their helpers would then wheel it out of the hangar shed, moving it outside on a couple of sections of the 15-foot section of rail.
Given the cold, nasty weather conditions on December 17, 1903, it’s no surprise they only moved the airplane about 200 feet to the west of their hangar shed.
Besides the obvious fact that this photograph has captured such a momentous event, it really is a very well composed photograph. The Wrights’ flying machine is certainly fascinating. You can clearly see the engine’s large flywheel turning 1,000 rpm, and the chains driving the propellers at just a little more than 350 rpm as the engine strains to produce 12 hp and propel the 675-pound biplane forward against a gusty 24-26 mph blast of frigid air. That cold, dense air certainly contributed to the success of the Flyer that morning. A strong high pressure ridge was building from the west, and coupled with the camp’s elevation of only 11 feet above sea level, and a temperature of about 35 degrees, the density altitude that morning would have been very conducive to getting the maximum performance possible from the Flyer and its propulsion system. |
The addition of Wilbur on the right side of the photograph adds a perfect human element to it, and his pose is memorable. The wind they were bucking is billowing out Wilbur’s suit, his pant legs being filled with air, as is his jacket. His cap is pulled firmly down nearly to his ears, and his celluloid collar is clearly visible above the collar of his suit jacket. He must have been rather cold, as was his brother, since the temperature was just barely above freezing. It was 33 degrees at 8 o’clock that morning, with a high of 37 later in the day, and the wind was howling out of the north/northeast, according to the logs of Weather Bureau observer J.J. Dosher at his station in Kitty Hawk.
One of the most interesting aspects of Wilbur’s presence in the photograph are his footsteps, which can be clearly followed from the right wingtip to the point where he’s nearly stopped and at the end of his run alongside the Flyer.
“Nearly stopped,” you ask?
Sure! Look closely at the footprints, and you’ll see they’re close together at the beginning, as the machine gains momentum. Then, at a point just above the battery box, you can see an abrupt change in the path and pacing of his footsteps. He turns to the right, and the length in the gap of Wilbur’s footsteps increases. He’s slowing down his short run, lengthening his stride to “brake himself” to a stop in the firm, wet sand. You can even see the ridges of his footsteps are to the right of each step as he slows, indicating his applying pressure to the right to slow himself, instead of to the left, which would be the case if he were trying to accelerate.
It’s similar to that moment in time when a parent lets go of the back of his or her child’s bicycle seat and witnesses the child successfully wobble down the sidewalk alone for the first time. As soon as the child’s off, you stop, transfixed by the reality of his or her accomplishment.
In the Daniels/Wright photograph, Wilbur has unconsciously slowed to a stop and now looks intently at his brother, airborne on their Flyer, gratified and no doubt a little amazed by what he sees.
A century later, many of us are still just as amazed and gratified.
Acknowledgements:
The Wright State University archives contributed the photograph of the 1902 glider, and the Library of Congress supplied the scans of the Daniels/Wright photo as well as the shot of the camp with the Flyer resting outside of the hangar/shed.
My thanks as well to the authors of many of the books written about the Wrights and their accomplishments, especially Harry Combs and the late Martin Caidin for their book Kill Devil Hills and Dr. Tom Crouch and his book The Bishop’s Boys as well as Orville Wright (with Fred C. Kelly) and his book How We Invented the Airplane.
Finally, I can’t express deeply enough my thanks to Ken and Beverly Hyde and the team at the Wright Experience for their time given to answer my questions, and to those who created their outstanding website at www.wrightexperience.com. This is truly the Internet at its finest, with in-depth explanations of various aspects of the Wright brothers’ work, and of the aviation archaeology that has gone into creating the exact reproduction of the 1903 Flyer and the kites and gliders that preceded it.
Our thanks as well to Ken for supplying a copy of the Library of Congress’ high-resolution scan of the original glass plate negative of the Daniels/Wright photograph, and for lending his historical knowledge in the composition of this article. To download a digital image file of the Daniels/Wright photograph, visit www.loc.gov and click on Search. Enter Wright Papers, and you’ll see the listing for this and many other interesting Wright photographs.