Released Today Wright Brothers Wrong Story

Controversial Book 'Wright Brothers, Wrong Story' Declares One Brother Flew

Just Released Book (Dec 4) Wright Brothers Wrong Story points to Wilbur Wright as the Man who Invented Flight with his brother Orville changing history to claim credit. Smithsonian brings new thesis on Wright Brothers Historic Flight to light.

A new book has turned aviation upside down with amazing reviews https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/william-hazelgrove/wright-brothers-wrong-story and a full write-up in the Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/why-wilbur-wright-deserves-bulk-credit-first-flight-180970714 with the assertion that Wilbur Wright was the man responsible for inventing the first plane capable of powered flight.

Bestselling Author William Hazelgrove's http://williamhazelgrove.com new book "Wright Brothers, Wrong Story" has set the assumed belief that the brothers worked in tandem on its head by delving into the papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright and emerging with a very different story than the standard team story of two men who banded together to produce the worlds first airplane. As pointed out in the Daily Mail, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6411537/New-book-claims-Orville-Wright-exaggerated-role-invention-flight.html the book explores the family life of the brothers as well and the strange proclivities of the insular Wright children who never left home. 

By far the best published work on the Wright brothers' personal and professional lives. Thought-provoking and controversial in highlighting Wilbur's brilliance in aeronautics and showing how he clearly overshadowed his brother's contribution to manned flight.Alan C. Carey, Author of "We Flew Alone: Men and Missions of the United States Navy's B-24 Liberator Squadrons"

"I wanted to demythologize the Wright Brothers and find out who these two men were who dropped out of high school, never married, and never left home," Hazelgrove said in a recent interview. The book has been making waves in the aviation community that has stuck to the view that both brothers equally created the worlds first plane. "What people don't understand is this was Wilbur's dream and that he solved the head-cracking physics of flight and he went down to Kitty Hawk alone initially... it was his plane first and last."

• The book claims Orville Wright exaggerated his role in the invention and rewrote history in a one-sided biography of himself 
• "In Wright Brothers, Wrong Story," author William Hazelgrove reveals the real genius was older brother Wilbur, who died nine years after the first flight in 1912
• Orville, who died in 1948, claimed to have come up with wing warping - Wilbur's big breakthrough and was also photographed in the famous flying photo 
• Wilbur's letters to his friend and fellow inventor Octave Chanute show Orville was not involved in any of his plans 
• It was only when Wilbur arrived in Kitty Hawk, NC to test his flight in 1900 -  the boys' father Milton sent Orville to help him
• The book reveals Orville and Wilbur showed no interest in the opposite sex and were raised to stay at home and believe only "family could be trusted"

The book is released by Prometheus Books and available everywhere. 

The Wright Brothers Controversy

Once upon a time there were two brothers. Everyone said they were the same but in fact they were not. The reason people saw them as the same is their father willed it be so. The Bishop was adamant that to the world they must provide a United Front. Their father believed the world to be evil and he wanted his children to stay home and provide him with a home when he returned from his travels. So Wilbur Katherine and Orville did just that. They stayed home their entire adult lives  and kept the Bishop company and presented an equal united front to the world.

But Wilbur was different. He was smashed in the mouth with a hockey stick by a future mass murderer and went into a three year depression. By the end he wanted to fly. His brother had no real interest in flight and was happy to continue making bicycles. But Wilbur read everything and then contacted the Smithsonian and then the weather bureau to find out where the winds blew constantly. He then built his own kite flyer and flew outside of Dayton. He knew then that he was onto something and went down to Kitty Hawk North Carolina with a gilder he built. He went alone.

But Orville would join him and watch Wilbur fly his gliders for two years. By 1902 Orville tried the gliders and crashed  but to the world they were now the Wright Brothers and nothing would change this. Even when Wilbur presented his findings to engineers in Chicago and had a five hundred letter correspondence with Octave Chanute where he worked out the physics of flight. Orville was not part of any of this but a photo on Dec 17 1903 showed him flying and not Wilbur. From then on it was assumed they both invented the first plane. All the books said so...

Until now.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

The Odd Couple of Wilbur and Orville Wright

Orville always made sure his socks matched. He made sure they had a bit of color. His mustache was trimmed perfectly. His hands were immaculate. His collar snapped, his eyes clear as water. He inspected his shoes carefully after they were shined. His derby was top of the line and fitted just so. Orville would work on greasy engines and the flyer in a smock and never smudge his starched white shirt. The world was at attention when Orville walked in the room. Unlike his brother.

Wilburs skin was rough from sun and wind burnt. His clothes tended to hang on his lanky frame. His eyes bore right through a person. Some said he had the gaze of a hawk and was always intent on the next thing. He did get dirty from working on the plane. He didn't bother to wash his hands and his nails would get grease stained. His shoes were smudged. His socks matched but they were black. He was more rugged than his brother.

When they returned from Kitty Hawk Orville would bleach his faced with lemon juice to reduce the tan. Within a week he was back to his normal pallor. Wilbur remained dark and tan and could have cared less. He was trying to figure out how to make a plane fly.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

Amazing Kirkus Review of Wright Brothers Wrong Story

The idea that Orville and Wilbur Wright were equals in ushering in the era of manned flight is a myth, posits Hazelgrove (Al Capone and the 1933 World’s Fair) in this intriguing recasting of the brothers’ now-legendary story. “The truth was,” he declares, “that Wilbur was the primary inventor and pilot”; Orville was “a glorified mechanic assisting his older, smarter, genius brother.” This fact was buried due primarily to two factors: the famous photo of the 1903 flight at Kitty Hawk, which immortalized Orville’s turn in the plane and thereby eclipsed Wilbur’s subsequent longer ride, and Wilbur’s early death from typhoid fever in 1912, which gave his brother 36 years to shape their story. Hazelgrove makes a strong case, citing numerous primary sources, notably Wilbur’s correspondence with engineer and aviation researcher Octave Chanute… Hazelgrove’s original take on two of the pioneers of human flight will greatly interest flight buffs and popular-history aficionados — Publishers Weekly

For more than a century, Wilbur and Orville Wright have been touted as equal partners in the invention of the flying machine and of the concept of manned flight. Yet in this intriguing, well-researched treatise, Hazelgrove (Shots Fired in Terminal 2: A Witness to the Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting Reflects on America’s Mass Shooting Epidemic, 2017, etc.) rejects that notion in favor of a more logical one: Wilbur was the genius behind the theory of putting a man in a machine that could soar like a bird, and Orville followed his brother’s instructions, assisting in the mechanical aspects of building the first airplane. The author also points out that it was just by chance that it was Orville’s turn to test the plane when the first photograph was taken. This coincidence made many assume that the brothers were operating on the same level, but as Hazelgrove demonstrates convincingly, they were far from it. Not only does he discuss the events at Kitty Hawk; the author delves into the Wright family dynamics: of the father who knew Wilbur was the brighter of the two boys; of how they remained at home their whole lives along with their sister, who only married late in life; and of the impact the death of their mother had on the children. Hazelgrove also ponders the sexualities of the three siblings and Wilbur’s grave illness, which may have given him the time in bed necessary to dream of flying. For anyone curious about the details behind the invention of the flying machine, this engaging book will inform and entertain as it turns an assumed piece of aviation history upside down.

Aviation history does a loop-the-loop as the author shares new and exciting insight into the history of the Wright brothers.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

How Wilbur Wright Almost Died Going to Kitty Hawk

In 1900 Wilbur Wright wanted to go somewhere to test his new glider. He had been working on it above the bike shop and now he had found a perfect place where wind was constant and sand abundant for soft landings. The problem was it the Outer Banks of Kitty Hawk North Carolina, a desolate fishing village of castaways and nerdowells that was  almost impossible to get to. After taking a train to Elizabeth City Wilbur had to get a across Alebmarle Sound. Kitty Hawk was on a spit of land that kept the Atlantic Ocean at bay and was the home of many shipwrecks.

The man in the derby from Dayton Ohio found one Israel Perry to take him across the sound. They set out in a small skiff to get to his boat moored offshore. This was his first inclination there might be a problem. The boat immediately took on water. Wilbur and Perrys son began to bail like mad and when he asked the condition of the sailing schooner Perry told him the skiff was in better shape than the sailboat. They reached the boat and Wilbur found out this was true. They headed across intro the teeth of a lingering hurricane.

Wilbur now was bailing for his life.  When the main sail blew down he had to to out on the top of the boat to retrieve it. The weather turned so bad that Perry headed for a sand bar with only the jib acting as a kite. The boat was in danger of being swamped and Wilbur bailed with Perrys son to keep from gong to the bottom. When they finally reached the other side of the bay in the morning, Wilbur fell asleep on the dock waking to the sleepy isolated community of Kitty Hawk. He had survived. In three years he would look down upon the Albermarle Sound...from the sky.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

How the Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer was Nearly Destroyed in a Flood

In 1914 a monstrous flood hit Dayton Ohio. The streets became rivers with people being rescued with canoes or anything that would float. A levee just outside of town collapsed sending a torrent of water toward the town and the old Wright Cycle Shop. Behind the the shop was a shed and in that shed were the glass plates of the famous 1903 flight in Kitty Hawk North Carolina. Also in the shed were wooden crates. In those wooden crates was the 1903 Flyer itself.

The Wright Brothers had crated it up after the flight and thought nothing of putting the most famous airplane in the world in a storage shed behind their bicycle business. The shed could have been opened by anyone in the eleven years since Orville took to the air for twelve seconds on December 17 1903. Someone could have easily stolen the airplane. It was not even locked. But now it was in danger of being destroyed by the water rushing through the streets of Dayton.

Wilbur Wright had died in 1912. Orville was frantically trying to rescue his father who had been stranded in the family home. After putting his father in a canoe and getting him to safety he had to wait for the flood waters to recede. Hundreds died and the city of Dayton was devastated .Orville reached the shed the next day and opened the door. The glass plates had been submerged but the most famous photo of all taken on December 17 1903 of the First Twelve Seconds of flight had survived. The crates were water logged and he realized they had been under water from the layer of mud over the top.

When he finally opened the first crate he found the 1903 Flyer wet but undamaged. The mud had acted as an insulator and kept the water from pouring in. The most famous airplane in the world had survived and would eventually be given to the Smithsonian for safekeeping.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

Wright Brothers Wrong Story

When I was a kid living in Virginia my parents go to vacation was Kitty Hawk North Carolina. It provided for my parents that sense of getting away from it all in a rustic cottage along the eastern seaboard. For me it was hell. Isolation. Sand dunes. I spent many days mooning about the beach wondering when I could return to my all important life in Richmond and then Baltimore. But one of the offshoots or rituals of our trip was a sojourn to see the Wright Brother Memorial in Kill Devil Hills.

We would drive up the hill and look at the monolith that is the Wright Memorial and then at the manikins they had in some sheds and then a replica of the 1903 Flyer and then we would trek down to the all important track marked where each of the three flights occurred that day Dec 17 1903. I would like to say I was lit on fire with what had occurred on those cold December days but it was another trip to another hot place that I had to endure. Still, there was a glimmer of curiosity. Something about those markers under the hot Carolina sun...the absolute isolation...who would come here to fly? And really, who were these two guys in ties and vests from Dayton Ohio.

Many years later I returned to research my book Wright Brothers Wrong Story with the same question. Who were the two high school drops outs who ran a bike shop and had cracked the rubicon of flight. I had read McCullough's book and it left me flat. I still didn't know who they were. They were still historical stick figures leaking sawdust from every pore. Who were they as human beings...that started me on the road that led me back to Kitty Hawk NC and it was here I realized the wrong story had been told ever since 1903.

I would attempt to tell the Wright Story.

Wright Brothers Wrong Story