The Wheel Thing

You would think that the Wright Brothers, who were in the bicycle business, would have adopted wheels from the outset, but their first aircraft used skids and rails on the ground. The design stayed that way for years – even the first Wright Military Flyer, delivered to the United States Army in 1909, had no wheels.

In 1910, wheels were fitted to most Wright Flyer aircraft, largely because of the logistical inconvenience posed by the skids that were needed for every flight. By then, these early machines had become reliable enough to be used in a range of situations, although there were still plenty of crashes. Needing a ground crew to set up rails and a catapult at every location had become too hard. Wheeled landing gear made it possible for the aircraft to be launched by pilots, and with it came awareness of the fundamental importance of landing gear to aircraft design. Indeed, by the following year, wheels had become standard among Wright Flyers and the brothers needed to put skids back on the aeroplane they donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

At around the same time, interest was building in an aeroplane that could operate from both land and water. By then, Glenn Curtiss had developed a viable amphibious design from a series of experiments, which had great military appeal. Of course, the aircraft, known as the , couldn’t land