User:ErrantX/Sandbox/Orville Wright

Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) was an American print, bicycle manufacturer and experimenter who, along with his brother Wilbur, is generally credited with the invention of successful fixed-wing flight. The Wright brothers made the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903.

Wright's first interest was in printing and publishing. Between 1886 and 1892 he ran various printing businesses with his brother and a school friend, Ed Sines.

Childhood
The fourth child of Milton and Susan Wright, Orville was born on August 19, 1871 at 7 Hawthorn street, Dayton, Ohio. During his childhood the family moved several times, in 1877 to Cedar Rapids and in 1881 to Richmond, Indiana, before returning to Dayton in 1884 (and to the Hawthorn street house in 1885). Back in Dayton, Wright's first major interest was in printing. In 1886 he was given a small press by his family and, along with school friend Ed Sines, started a business printing small pamphlets for local businesses. Aged 18 he worked for a local printer, becoming a typesetter, and (with the help of Wilbur) was constructing his own presses. In 1889 Wright, along with Sines, founded a small print shop and launched a weekly paper "West Side News".

In 1890 Orville went into business with Wilbur as "Wright and Wright, Job Printers" where Orville acted as publisher and Wilbur in the role of editor. They printed, among other things, publications for their father's United Brethren Church and some early works of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Orville Wright
Orville succeeded to the presidency of the Wright company upon Wilbur's death. Sharing Wilbur's distaste for business but not his brother's executive skills, Orville sold the company in 1915. He, Katharine and their father Milton moved to a mansion, Hawthorn Hill, Oakwood, Ohio, which the newly wealthy family built. Milton died in his sleep in 1917. Orville made his last flight as a pilot in 1918 in a 1911 Model B. He retired from business and became an elder statesman of aviation, serving on various official boards and committees, including the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), predecessor agency to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce (ACCA), predecessor to the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). Katharine married Henry Haskell of Kansas City, a former Oberlin classmate, in 1926, which greatly upset Orville. He refused to attend the wedding or even communicate with her. He finally agreed to see her, apparently at Lorin's insistence, just before she died of pneumonia in 1929.

Orville Wright served NACA for 28 years. In 1930, he received the first Daniel Guggenheim Medal established in 1928 by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. In 1936, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

On April 19, 1944, the second production Lockheed Constellation, piloted by Howard Hughes and TWA president Jack Frye, flew from Burbank, California to Washington, D.C. in 6 hours and 57 minutes (2300 mi - 330.9 mph). On the return trip, the aircraft stopped at Wright Field to give Orville Wright his last airplane flight, more than 40 years after his historic first flight. He may even have briefly handled the controls. He commented that the wingspan of the Constellation was longer than the distance of his first flight. Perhaps the last major highlight of Orville's life was supervising the reclamation and preservation of the 1905 Wright Flyer III, an aircraft that stands equally in importance with the 1903 Flyer.

Orville died on January 30, 1948 after his second heart attack, having lived from the horse-and-buggy age to the dawn of supersonic flight. He was followed a day later by John T. Daniels, the Coast Guardsman who took their famous first flight photo. Both brothers are buried at the family plot at Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio.