Orville and Wilbur Wright are widely regarded as the inventors of what is now known as the airplane. Their rise to fame and subsequent activity in the public eye coincided with a stark rise in industry as a result of their invention, despite the numerous lawsuits they made against rival inventors. Other aircraft inventors tried to work around the Wright brothers’ patent, entangling themselves in a drawn-out legal battle that hurt the brothers’ reputation more than their rival’s ability to continue manufacturing. The brothers’ patents were invalidated in some circumstances and outweighed by legal maneuvering in others, and so the production of aircraft spread across the globe. In fact, because of the brothers’ preoccupation with these legal issues, foreign aircraft manufacturing quickly surpassed American aircraft manufacturing. Their obsession with the legal rights to airplane manufacturing only harmed the brothers’ progress and proved to be fairly unsuccessful in the long run. Despite the brilliance of their invention and its importance, the Wrights saw little success, epitomizing the idea that marketing and business sense are the driving forces of technology and industry. Their inability to discuss issues with competitors led to their ultimate demise.
The initial problems for the Wrights began when they started to see commercial success, which spurred the ambition of their rivals. As industry became more lucrative, the Wrights struggled to compete. The Wright brothers originally began working on airplanes solely for the purpose of sport, with little expectations of recovering the time and money they invested into their inventions (“The Wright Brothers’ Aeroplane”, 9). However, as they delved deeper and deeper into the technical side of it, they began to see real success. Unfortunately for them, with success comes competition. Orville and Wilbur’s main rival was Glenn Curtiss, another inventor who had devised a different mechanism with which to control his flying machines. The Wrights argued that he had stolen their idea and pursued Curtiss and his company in court for violating their patent and refusing to pay licensing fees. The first lawsuit in the long battle was filed in 1909. Soon after, the lawsuits piled up and took over the Wrights’ focus, shifting them from the forefront of technology to the courtroom. These legal troubles demanded “constant attention to business” and prevented them from making much real progress (“The Wright Brothers’ Aeroplane”, 15). Had they simply worked on their own or allowed other competitors to work on their own projects and pay royalties, the Wrights wouldn’t have suffered such great losses. However, they refused to be passive. Other aviators who flew at exhibitions were sued as well, portraying the Wrights as greedy individuals who cared less about the advancement of aeronautics and more about money. As a result, their public image was tarnished. The Wright brothers were merely attempting to gain adequate compensation for their life’s work but instead found themselves in the middle of large, international businesses, the likes of which they couldn’t compete with.
To fight this, the two brothers agreed on establishing the Wright Company in 1909, working with prominent industrialists of the time. At this point, lawsuits and patent disputes were taking up the majority of their time and money, so they were forced to seek investors. The Wrights gained a large amount of stock options, money from selling their patents to the company, and the company’s businessmen handled the competition. Around the same time, the Wright brothers sold their first plane to the United States Army. It was the first airplane purchased by any military group (Warnock, 50). With World War I on the immediate horizon, this sale changed warfare forever. Military production of aircrafts and aircraft technology skyrocketed as planes begun to be weaponized, with the first machine guns being mounted to planes and the first live bombs being dropped from them in 1911. The Wrights should have taken the next steps to ensure themselves as the country’s top plane supplier and established themselves as the go-to manufacturer, but, again, their poor business practices demanded too much time and effort. As Wilbur became increasingly ill and Orville occupied himself with his growing company, the advancements in United States flyer technology began to slow. Wilbur took on the responsibility of the ongoing legal battles and traveled continuously until his death of typhoid fever in 1912. Orville claimed that Wilbur’s preoccupation with the legal battles and the resulting stress contributed to his death, the first real negative effect in a series of domino-like problems had by the brothers as a result of their foolish legal battles. The companies overseas in Europe began to take the reigns in the aeronautics industry, investing exponentially more money into research and development than the U.S. (“The Airplane Business”). The Wrights, in their naive business practices, lost their patents in various countries due to explaining their mechanisms before they filed their patents. Their popularity was beginning to fade as quickly as it started.
It wasn’t until 1914 that Orville gave up on his idea of a patent monopoly and began asking for royalties from airplane manufacturers instead, undoubtedly saving him the last of his reputation. Combatting rival manufacturers and supposed-patent-violators served only to harm the Wrights’ reputation, mental health, and physical well-being, as evidenced by the death of Wilbur. While the Wright company was upset over the lack of proper payment for their investments, they were happy the legal trouble had mostly ended. Curtiss was the one exception. Orville refused to make any deals with them, resulting in Curtiss remaking the wreckage of an old plane that was a precursor to the Wrights’ first flyers. They got it to fly and had the Smithsonian label it as the first airplane capable of flight, specifically to enrage Orville and punish him for refusing to make a deal. This angered Orville to no end, likely causing his inevitable departure from the aeronautics industry. In Fall of 1915, Orville sold his patents and Wright Company stock to a group of New York investors, quitting the airplane business for good. Ironically, in 1929 the Wright company merged with many other companies, including Curtiss Flying Service, to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation (Banner, 172). This shows that the tenacious yet hardheaded business tactics of Orville and Wilbur prevented them from becoming a more successful duo. Had they paired with another manufacturer earlier, they would have seen a great deal more profit and fame. Instead, they chose a grief-stricken, arduous battle over patent rights.
The Wrights made an incredible invention and its impact on the world cannot be overstated. However, even though they have a legacy as the inventors of the airplane, their shoddy business sense and bull-headed tactics destroyed what could have been an empire. This set the precedent for the industrial age that followed, in which vicious and largely unforgiving business strategies were a must. It was no longer enough to simply have a brilliant idea. Investing began to reach its height before the crash of 1929 and capitalists were able to make a fortune by finding ideas and small business to support. As such, the creators of these ideas were bought out and replaced by business moguls. It happened in many other industries, such as railroad, water transport, oil, and steel, in which infamous robber barons engaged in monopolizing their fields, to varying degrees of success. The airplane business was no different. Though the Wrights were the first to create and popularize a machine that actually flew, they didn’t benefit from their invention as much as their investors and the tycoons like Curtiss, who began to dominate the industry. Because of this, they left a two-sided legacy as brilliant inventors but foolish businessmen.
Works Cited
Banner, Stuart. Who Owns the Sky? : The Struggle to Control Airspace from the Wright Brothers On. New York: Harvard University Press, 2008. Print.
Warnock, A. Timothy. “From Infant Technology To Obsolescence: The Wright Brothers’ Airplane In The U.S. Army Signal Corps, 1905 - 1915.” Air Power History 16 Dec. 2015: 46-57. Print.
Wright, Orville and Wilbur. “The Wright Brothers’ Aeroplane.” The Century Magazine 5 (1908). Print.
"The Wright Story/The Airplane Business." The Airplane Business. The Wright Brothers Airplane Co., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. <http://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/Wright_Story/Airplane_Business/Airplane_Business_Intro.htm>.
Warnock, A. Timothy. “From Infant Technology To Obsolescence: The Wright Brothers’ Airplane In The U.S. Army Signal Corps, 1905 - 1915.” Air Power History 16 Dec. 2015: 46-57. Print.
Wright, Orville and Wilbur. “The Wright Brothers’ Aeroplane.” The Century Magazine 5 (1908). Print.
"The Wright Story/The Airplane Business." The Airplane Business. The Wright Brothers Airplane Co., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2015. <http://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/Wright_Story/Airplane_Business/Airplane_Business_Intro.htm>.