This is a small fabric segment from the wing of the 1903 Wright Flyer – the first manned heavier-than-air powered aircraft to achieve sustained flight, on the 17th of December 1903.
The Wright Flyer was a remarkably simple machine, using spruce wood for straight sections of the airframe and ash wood for curved components like wing ribs. The wooden wings were covered with a type of 100% cotton muslin cloth named “Pride of the West.” This was a material most typically used for making women’s underwear.
Above Video: This short vintage newsreel footage shows one of the first flights of the 1903 Wright Flyer.
Orville and Wilbur Wright couldn’t find a suitable engine for the aircraft, it needed to be both very lightweight and have a respectable power output, so they assigned the task of designing a new gasoline engine to their employee Charlie Taylor.
Once the 1903 Wright Flyer was complete, Orville and Wilbur tossed a coin to decide who would be the first to fly it. Wilbur won, but almost immediately crashed the plane. Fortunately it sustained only minor damage and after some repairs the men took it in turns to fly it a total of four times. The longest flight was 852 feet (260 meters) in 59 seconds.
Although not far by today’s standards it was the equivalent to landing on the Moon by the standards of the time. Aircraft development would be astonishingly quick after this, helped along by two World Wars and the Cold War.
The small fabric segment you see here has a fascinating history, of course its history-making first flight in 1903 will be forever remembered – the original unbleached muslin cloth was removed from the plane by Orville Wright himself.
Orville gave it to aviation expert Lester Gardner and from there it made its way into the hands of renowned aviation history collector Otto Kallir. It was then used to cover the wings of an exact 1:42 scale model of the 1903 Wright Flyer.
First successful flight of the Wright Flyer, by the Wright brothers. The machine traveled 120 ft in 12 seconds at 10-35am at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.Sadly, this model was irrevocably damaged during shipping. It was then decided to carefully remove the wing fabric and cut it into small sections, allowing many collectors to own a piece of what was arguably the most important plane in history, and one of the most important human inventions of all time.
The section of cloth you see here is one of these pieces, it’s now being offered for sale by Heritage Auctions and bidding begins in November. If you would like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
