Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies Paperback – Illustrated, 21 April 2015

We are living in a world where the air travel seems so obvious; commonplace, we seldom think about the debt we owe to the early fliers who tamed the sky for safe aviation with their blood, toil, tears and sweat.Nobody could have imagined that the two brothers, making bicycles will solve the puzzle of flying by two simple insights: first, to learn to fly one must learn to balance; as riding a bicycle, and second, the way to achieve stability in flight was to make it inherently unstable. Phew! Simple isn’t it? The first insight owe to their bicycle background and second to their meticulous observation of the flight of the birds.While the majority of early flying enthusiast were relying exclusively on the powerful motors to provide required upward thrust towards the sky; the duo betted more on stability and control aspects of “the flying problem” – Wilbur Wright maintained that it was possible to fly without motors but not without knowledge and skill.Among all other competitors, Mr. Glen Curtiss gave the Wright Brothers a real run for their money in every domain. I think, the author has done injustice to the portrayal of Glen Curtiss – who deserved equal glory as a hero, as the Wright Brothers got in the book. The Wright brothers accused Mr. Curtiss of ripping off their “secret flying formula’’ by deceit. The book leaves this accusation undisturbed, perpetuating the conspiracy theorists claims and counterclaims as to whether the Wright Brothers were right or wrong?The reader also get a glimpse of some of the glaring shortcomings of the Wright brothers. Despite their vast technological advance neither Wilbur nor Orville had grasped that no lead is insurmountable if you stop running before you’ve reached the finish line— moral of the TORTISE and RABBIT story. Instead of piling on their invention, they started fighting for fame and profit. Interestingly, despite their bicycle background they never considered wheels for their flier, they used skids instead, during the take offs. Glen Curtiss used the wheels. The author laments on the obsessive focus of the Wright Brother’s on “fame and monopoly” which blunted the technological edge of the Americans; the country lost a decade of innovation.The exciting details of air exhibitions which caught the fancy of the people across the Atlantic and murky patent battles are two other fascinating themes of the book. As modern avatars of roman gladiators, the early pilots entertained the crowds with their gravity defying aerial acrobatics, often dying in pursuit of the records for speed, endurance, and altitude. The master pilot Lincoln Beachy – who could perform any aerial stunt worth its name— instinctively knew the psychology of the masses. “They all come to see me die,’’ he said to one reporter.As soon as the patent details kick in the narration, the reader gets tossed from the exciting world of birdmen to that filled with louche lawyers and clueless judges. For that matter, the patent laws remain as difficult to understand and administer today, as it was in the time of Glen Curtiss and the Wright brothers. Without the patent protection there will be no monetary incentive for the research and in the absence of a reasonable access to the patented knowledge the societies’ progress gets stifled.After a long and bitter battle, the Smithsonian Institution restored the honour of the first powered flight to the Wright brother, but for many it is not a final word yet. The list is long and growing day by day, there are many who are vying for the honour: Brazilian, Alberto Santos-Dumont; New Zealander, Richard Pearse; Frenchman,F.T. Croix; Russian, Alexander Mozhayskiy ; German, Karl Jatho; and, many Americans —Gustave Whitehead & Samuel P. Langley Herring and so on.With a little stretch of imagination on can see many parallels between the present day Silicon Valley culture and that of early aviation.

An interesting and well written history of the developing years of Aviation and the complex relationships between the pioneers of flight. Highly recommended for someone interested in the developmental years of aviation.Includes a reasonable amount of technical information without being overwhelming. Initially, I thought it could have contained more technical details, but after few google searches and U Tube lectures on topics such as: Aspect Ratio, Truss Designs, the Tetrahedral wing championed by Alexander Bell and the AEA, Dihedral versus Anhedral wing angles, Center of Gravity and much more, I was quickly convinced that, much more technology would have become overwhelming for the arm chair historian. And, that is what Google and U Tube is good at.The Wright brothers showed incredible technical innovation to produce their first few airplanes. They developed the idea of twisting the wing surface for lateral control. They created wind tunnels and through testing determined the proper aspect ratio, power requirements and wing shape. They constructed laminated spruce propellors when there was still doubt by some on the best method of transferring engine power to air. They knew any 8 to 9 horsepower engine weighing less that 160 pounds would work. The first engine was water cooled and had no carburetor. Gasoline dripped into the cylinders from a tank mounted/ above the motor, then vaporized and mixed with air due to engine heat. Then, they stopped being innovators and engineers and became businessmen. They obtained a patent on their design and the idea of lateral control. They focused their attention on sales and used legal action to harass every aviation innovation, airplane improvement, air show or any thing pertaining to flight, both in Europe and the states. Their goal was a monopoly on flight. Wilbur's seemingly obsessive compulsive personality reminds me of a greedy Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory) on steroids. To be fair, they deserved to have profited from their incredible technical break through, but like a dam breaking, it was impossible to stop the run away advancements made by others.The book covers many engineers and pilots associated with the evolution of early flight and is more than just another book on the Wrights and Glenn Curtiss. Because the Wrights focused much of their ire on Glenn Curtiss, their legal battles become a major part of the American history of flight and one of the reasons that by World War I, Europe had jumped ahead of us in aviation. While the Wrights focused on business issues, Curtiss continued to seek fresh applications for existing technology in order to create new products. "The list of his inventions and achievements is immense and includes the seaplane, retractable landing gear, twist-grip throttles for motorcycles, dual controls, the enclosed cockpit, tricycle landing gear, the step pontoon, the watertight compartment, the airboat, and a number of machines to manufacture airplane components. He created the first civilian flying school and the first military flying school, conducted both the first simulated bombing run and first use of firearms from an aircraft, and delivered the first radio communication from the skies. Just a very interesting book.

Ever since Daedalus and Icarus, man (and woman) has yearned to fly. First came balloons (documented by Richard Holmes in "Falling Upwards"), then heavier-than-air machines. This book traces the evolution of those machines, from Kitty Hawk to WW1.When Wilbur and Orville Wright made their historic flight in 1903, little notice was taken of it. One newspaper editor, commenting on the fifty-seven-second flight, stated, "If it had been fifty-seven minutes, then it might have been a news item." However, from the start, Wilbur Wright was determined to sustain a monopoly over the aeroplane, obtaining patents over not just present, but future modifications, forcing other manufacturers to pay him a royalty and pilots to pay him a licensing fee.Glenn Hammond Curtiss was a designer of engines, beginning with motorcycles, but soon he turned his attention to airplanes, building and flying them with little or no regard to Wright`s patents. Wilbur, rather than devote full time to his invention, spent it in litigation with manufacturers and fliers on both sides of the Atlantic, but his principal antagonist was Curtiss. After Wilbur`s death from typhoid in 1912, Orville didn`t have the zeal to carry on with the lawsuits. He sold the Wright Company in 1915, and ironically, in 1929 the Wright Aeronautical Company merged with the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company to form Curtiss-Wright, which is very much alive today.Meanwhile, the evolution of the airplane and the pilots that flew them continued at a rapid pace, becoming a major source of entertainment. Contests were held for fastest, highest and longest duration flights, with prize money in the thousands of dollars. Air shows attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators, who paid to see daredevil pilots perform amazing stunts in machines that appeared to be held together with little more than bailing wire. (Originally pilots were not strapped in. At one event the plane suddenly pitched forward, ejecting the female pilot and her passenger. Both died after falling fifteen hundred feet. The plane carried on.) By 1912, 146 aviators had been killed.The book becomes technical in places where it describes details of the patent infringement cases, causing some reviewers to label it boring. But it is really a well written, documented history of a period in which it seemed that everyone was caught up in the excitement and entertainment of flight.

Very interesting and detailed story of the aviation at its early days. Also the patent disputes on the invention of Wright brothers is an example on how patents alone are useless if not supported by a correct vision of the business.

I bought this for my Father, a fanatical glider pilot and all things airborne for many years, he literally devoured it...loved it...would recommend to anyone with flying in their blood..

An accurate and well written overview of the early years of aviation. In particular, the major contributions of Glenn Curtiss and the Aerial Experiment Association (A. G. Bell, D. G. McCurdy, Casey Baldwin, Lt. T. E. Selfridge and Glenn Curtiss) are well detailed.The patent struggles and the Wrights unrealistic expectations that they would control all future aircraft building through patent payments is well detailed. Throughout it all, the drama and daring of the early aviators comes through to the reader. The book is written in an engaging style.