Email Interview Transcript Interviewer: Mr.

Jakab, if it is convinent for you, will you allow me to interview you for my National History Day project? My name is Maggie Yan and I'm a seventh grader at Sierra Vista Middle School. My History Day project is on the Wright brothers. Please reply ASAP. Thank you. Mr. Jakab: You may interview me. Send me your questions. Interviewer: How close were Wilbur and Orville Wright? How did the wind tunnel (the one they created for collecting data) work? Was Katherine Wright very close to the brothers? Just these for now, maybe more later. Mr. Jakab: Wilbur and Orville Wright were extremely close when they were adults. As youngsters less so because of their age difference. Wilbur was four years older and associated more with his two older brothers, Reuchlin and Lorin, and their friends. Orville as a boy was closer with his younger sister, Katherine, and her friends. By the early 1890s, Wilbur and Orville grew closer for several reasons. The two oldest brothers moved away and started families of their own. Wilbur was ill for a long period from complications from an accident, and was largely housebound. During this period, Orville grew up and caught up to Wilbur. In 1892 they opened their first bicycle repair shop together. After that they became extremely close and that was a significant factor in their success at inventing the airplane. The Wright brothers did not invent the wind tunnel, but they were the first to use one to get specific data to design an airplane. The key component of the Wrights wind tunnel was the instruments they put inside to gather measurements on specific wing shapes. They were looking for something called the coefficient of lift and the coefficient of drag. These numbers are different for varying wing curvatures and varying angles of the wing to the oncoming flow of air. The Wrights designed these instruments to give them these coefficients when testing small model wings in their wind tunnel. With this method they could test many different wing curvatures and shapes before deciding which was the best to use to build their aircraft. When calculating the size and performance of their aircraft, there were several factors in the equation they could measure directlythe weight of the aircraft, the size of the wing area, the speed of the wind going over the wing. The coefficients of lift and drag were the unknowns and was different for every shape of wing. They designed the wind tunnel instruments to get this specific information. This is what made the Wrights wind tunnel so important and critical to their success. The Wrights sister, Katharine, was very close to both Wilbur and Orville. As I mentioned above, Katharine and Orville were close as children. When they were growing up their mother died and Katharine took over her mothers role of running the family house. The two older brothers, Reuchlin and Lorin, moved out and started families of their own. This left Katharine, Orville, Wilbur, and their father in the house as adults. Neither Wilbur or Orville ever married, and Katharine did not marry until very late in life (age 52). So during the period when the brothers were working on the airplane, they were all living together and were extremely close. I hope this satisfactorily answers your questions. Good luck with your project.

Interviewer: Thanks! Also, did their family support them (financially and/or emotionally)? And if so, how?

Mr. Jakab: They supported themselves financially and all their aeronautical experiments from the proceeds of their bicycle shop. Emotionally, they received a great deal of support from their sister and father. The four of them lived together and were a very close family unit. None of them had children. They saw themselves as a family fortress to protect themselves from what they saw as a treacherous outside world.