A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875-1905

by Tom D. Crouch

Book Overview

When Orville and Wilbur Wright soared over Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina's outer banks and solved the problem of aerial navigation, they wrote the last chapter in a long story. For decades prior, a small community of engineers, scientists, and dreamers--men named Chanute and Langley and Herring--had tried to make the ascent in every conceivable craft, from kites and gliders to an assortment of powered flying models. This fascinating assortment...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393013855
• ISBN13: 9780393013856
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 349 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Wright brothers taught the world to fly--without question--but who taught the Wrights?

Tom Crouch has been a friend and colleague of mine for some fifteen years, so I am not necessarily unbiased in my assessment of his work, but I think you will find that "A Dream of Wings" is the best description and analysis of the pre-history of flight in America up to the time of the Wright brothers that has ever been written. Crouch concentrates on Octave Chanute, Samuel P. Langley, Otto Lilienthal, and others in the pre-Wright era who steadily moved toward the objective of controlled, powered, sustained, heaver-than-air flight. Most important, Crouch shows that the Wright brothers did not work in a vacuum. They were part of a cadre of serious investigators who worked diligently to solve the practical problems of flight. He rightly notes that "a cooperative, well-directed flight research program involving many men with broad technical experience" made possible the success of the Wrights at Kitty Hawk (p. 29). Rescuing this community of researchers from obscurity is the most important contribution of "A Dream of Wings." The hero of "A Dream of Wings" is Octave Chanute, a French-born, Chicago-based engineer who explored the challenge of flight in Gilded Age America. His personal investigations into the problems of flight measurably advanced knowledge about powered flight in the 1890s, and he shared that knowledge with the Wrights as they undertook the research that led to their successful 1903 test flights. The brothers corresponded with Chanute throughout their preliminary research, seeking his counsel and incorporating his ideas into their designs for an airplane. Once successful, Chanute even visited the Wrights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, while they were testing their planes. Not until 1886, at age 54, did Chanute begin a second career by devoting himself to solving the problems of flight. In typical engineering fashion of step-by-step investigation, Chanute assembled all known data on the science into a single synthesis and catalogued its problems. Very early he began building a community of researchers, organized symposia, and served as the central clearing house for information on the subject. Crouch tells this story exceptionally well in this book, and he holds up Chanute's approach as a model in collegial engineering, as opposed to the proprietary approach taken by most corporations. Chanute deeply believed that the advancement of flight science must be the work of many. He corresponded internationally, and encouraged the pioneers, including the Wright brothers of whom he was a special friend and mentor. He sought no patents on his inventions and gave his findings openly to all. The Wright brothers used his research when they designed their aircraft. Chanute, for instance, advised Wilbur Wright to find a sandy place, with strong prevailing winds, to lessen the problem of landing and of moving the vehicles from the point of landing back to the point of takeoff. This sparked the brothers' decision to journey from their native Dayton