The Airplane - Jay Spenser [7]
Beginning in 1843, artwork of the Henson Aerial Steam Carriage showed the world what the airplane would someday be.
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Marriott and Henson together also promoted the Aerial Steam Carriage in words. The former’s polish and latter’s fervor are evident in this statement, read aloud in Parliament to secure the company’s incorporation:
This work, the result of years of labour and study, presents a wonderful instance of the adaptation of laws long since proved to the scientific world combined with established principles so judiciously and carefully arranged, as to produce a discovery perfect in all its parts and alike in harmony with the laws of Nature and of science.
The Invention has been subjected to several tests and examinations and the results are most satisfactory, so much so that nothing but the completion of the undertaking is required to determine its practical operation, which being once established, its utility is undoubted as it would be a necessary possession of every empire and, it were hardly too much to say, of every individual of competent means in the civilised world.8
Ignoring the inevitable laughter and derision, they set to work to show the world. Unfortunately, however, reality soon intruded on their unbridled enthusiasm. A small model of the Aerial Steam Carriage briefly hopped in 1844, but two larger models—the second with a wingspan of 20 feet (6 meters)—showed no signs whatsoever of flying. By then the press and public were actively questioning Henson’s sincerity. Amid the growing hue and cry, Henson found his company denounced as a hoax to defraud investors.
By 1848, a heartsick William Henson saw that it was pointless to persevere. Abandoning his dreams, he dissolved the company and immigrated with his wife to the United States the following year. Starting over as a machinist and civil engineer in New Jersey, he raised a family and lived four more decades, never again to indulge his passion for flight. Frederick Marriott likewise relocated to America, settling in California to become a respected newspaper publisher. Stringfellow remained in England and found limited success dabbling with steam-powered models.
Over the succeeding decades, all three men saw frequent reminders of their dashed hopes, particularly after 1880, when the invention of halftone reproduction made photographs and other illustrations commonplace in newspapers, magazines, and books. For more than a half century Marriott’s evocative lithographs were the staple of publishers needing to illustrate anything with a futuristic theme.
Although the Henson Aerial Steam Carriage was just “such stuff as dreams are made on,” its cultural impact was astonishing because it crystallized in people’s minds the idea of the airplane. All the proper elements—wings, fuselage, tail, landing gear, and propulsion—were there in more or less the right place thanks to Henson’s imaginative elaboration of Cayley’s scientific insights.
Now all that remained was to invent the real thing.
2 BIRTH
WILBUR, ORVILLE, AND THE WORLD
Learning the secret of flight from a bird was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician. After you once know the trick and know what to look for, you see things that you did not notice when you did not know exactly what to look for.
—ORVILLE WRIGHT (1871–1948)1
The morning dawned raw and cold on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Gulls wheeling high in the sky cried a timeless greeting to the surf. Nothing ever changed, and yet everything was about to. It was December 17, 1903.
A stiff wind redolent with salt and sea grass scoured a landscape hewn by the elements. Wintry sunshine caught round-shouldered sand dunes, bathing them in its glow and glinting where puddled rainwater had frozen solid during the previous night’s frost.
Seven figures and an odd contraption shared a vast open area between the dunes