Reading Reflection No. 3

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

1. What surprised me most about this book about the Wright Brothers was the level of detail that went into detailing their personal lives and who Wilbur and Orville Wright were as people, and not just as inventors. To be honest, I knew virtually nothing about who Wilbur and Orville Wright were as people, and simply knew them as "the men who invented modern flight." The thing that I admired most about the Wright Brothers was that they, when all others doubted them, persevered and successfully became the first men to fly, a feat no one at the time thought was possible. I can't really think of any things that I'd say that I didn't admire about the Wright Brothers, primarily because they had few personal flaws that were mentioned in the book and there was nothing that stuck out to me as "bad." Considering the fact that no man had ever flown before the Wright Brothers invented the airplane, I think it's safe to say that they overcame adversity and did it in a big way because of the gravity of their accomplishments.

2. I noticed that the Wright Brothers were who they were as people because of their attitudes, work ethic, and the way they worked together as brothers to invent new things and accomplish their goals. I don't have a brother, so I don't know what it's like to have the same relationship as the what the Wright Brothers had, but I do know that they cared for each other deeply and each played to the other's personal strengths and weaknesses. Their relationship allowed them to work together to discover manned flight and become the iconic people we remember them as today.

3. The part I found to be the most confusing in the book was when the Wright Brothers, for a time, decided to not be on the planes they invented at the same time. I think that it may have been because of fear of crashing and becoming seriously injured or worse, but I think that it's hard to believe that they never flew together, even though it was *their* invention and should have been able to share in their accomplishment.

4. “What do you think air travel is like in the year 2016?”

I would ask this because I'm curious to see what the Wright Brothers would think about have far airplanes have come technology-wise in the last century. I would also ask this because I think regardless of what their answer may be, the reality in 2016 would blow them away, and it would be all thanks to them.

and

"Do you think that you would've still invented the airplane if you had gone to school for a higher education?

I would ask this because when I found out that the Wright Brothers both decided against going to college for different reasons, but were originally close to going, I wondered if they would've still tried to pursue inventing the airplane. In all likelihood, they probably would not have invented the airplane if they went their separate ways and pursued a college degree.

5. I think that the Wright Brothers greatly valued the concept of hard work, mainly because to invent the airplane, the Wright Brothers needed to work hard to invent a concept and working design of something that, at the time, was thought by the public to be impossible.