History is not
especially kind to the Wright brothers where the airplane business is
concerned. It certainly seems they had little to crow about. Their
aircraft company did not prosper; it struggled along for six hard years
until it was finally sold. During that time, it lost it's technological
lead and Wright airplanes became hopelessly obsolete. The brothers
alienated much of the aviation community with their patent law suits.
Then, when they won those suits, Orville alienated the investors in the
Wright Company by refusing to take advantage of their legal position.
Consequently, many historians judge Wilbur and Orville Wright to be as
inept in business as they were brilliant in engineering.
But this is simply not true. It's akin to "Monday-morning
quarterbacking." It's very easy to look back and make pronouncements
about what action might have saved the day once the game is played out.
But things look very different when you're on the playing field, the clock
is running, and you have no idea what fate is going to throw at you next..
Our understanding of their business problems is colored by a century of
aviation history. Today the aerospace industry is the largest sector of
the world economy. Much of our culture revolves around flight; we cannot
imagine functioning without airplanes. We forget that it wasn't that way
when the Wright brothers started making flying machines. In 1909, there
was no market for airplanes and most of the world could do very nicely
without those noisy contraptions, thank you very much.
No one was more surprised to find this out than the Wright brothers.
But when the world did not beat a path to their door, they did what they
had always done -- they put their shoulder to the work at hand. They had
invented the airplane; now it was time to help invent the airplane
business.
