Reading Reflection No. 3

For this assignment, I read The Wright Brothers by David McCullough.

 

1.     The thing that surprised me the most was that the first publication that reported on the Wright brothers’ advancements in flight was a trade journal for bee keepers. I was surprised that the greater scientific community chose to overlook the brothers’ innovations, despite photographic evidence and witness accounts of their success. Something I admired about the brothers was how positively they responded to failure and adversity. Every time they encountered adversity, they picked themselves up by their bootstraps and kept working. They failed many times and were constantly having to adapt and make adjustments as they continued to learn. They built multiple Flyer prototypes, and even had to run wind tunnel experiments after they realized that the prevailing scientific data was inaccurate. While I admired this tenacity, I did not admire the brothers’ obsession with their experiments. I personally would struggle with the non-existent work-life balance they had, but it helped them succeed where many others had failed.

2.     The Wright brothers exhibited many competencies. They were very tenacious and hard-working. They also were very good at collaboration, as they were able to work together to solve problems until Wilbur’s death. The brothers also had an incredible amount of intellectual curiosity and were always eager to learn. They responded to failure and adversity with perseverance and persistence, and they refused to let critics and doubters undermine their confidence in their innovation.

3.     While reading, I found some of the scientific explanations to be a little bit confusing. I sometimes struggled to follow the physics behind the detailed explanations of how the ratios of drift to lift and the efficiency of screws impacted the power consumed by a machine.

4.     My first question I would ask the Wright brothers would be if they ever seriously considered giving up. They seemingly never contemplated giving up on the idea of flight, but I wonder if they ever privately doubted the viability of human flight. My second question I would ask would be what they would have done next if Wilbur had not died. Wilbur Wright died less than ten years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk. He ended up spending his last few years fighting lawsuits over patent infringement rather than continuing to innovate. I wonder what the brothers would have dreamed up next if his life had not been cut short by typhoid fever.

5.     The Wright brothers believed in the power of hard work. They never hesitated to undertake anything due to difficulty, and they put countless hours into their work from initial research to testing attempts to public displays. The brothers were widely respected for their hardworking, grounded natures, which helped them persevere to eventually take flight.