What if ...?

Flight Journal, Dec 2003 by Boyne, Walter J

IT IS FITTING that the Wrights have at last been given the recognition that they truly deserve in the many celebrations around the world on the 100th anniversary of their first flight. They were unquestioned aviation geniuses whose important contributions have only belatedly been recognized.

In the United States, the importance of their achievement is reflected in many things: our nation's immense wealth, our national security and the freedom of air travel. But oddly enough, their achievements have even greater luster if we stop to consider what might have happened had the Wright Brothers failed.

It is not implausible that a gust of wind could have caught the Flyer on Wilbur Wright's first attempt on December 14, 1903, and wrapped it into a mass of tangled wires-just as it did after their fourth flight on December 17. Wilbur might have been seriously injured, and the Wright boys, tired from four years of ceaseless effort, could have decided to bag the whole concept of flying and return to the bicycle business they knew so well.

Had they done so, the entire course of not only aviation history-but also world history-would have been changed. To understand the magnitude of the differences in the world had there been a hypothetical mishap on December 14, a quick review of the sweeping changes in the world after the successful December 17 flight is necessary.

At the time of the epic flights in 1903, the Wrights estimated that they were 10 years ahead of all competition, and this was probably conservative. There was literally no one else in the field at that time who was pursuing a viable alternative. Otto Lilienthal was dead; Samuel Pierpont Langley's great Aerodrome had crashed twice; Octave Chanute and Augustus Herring were pursuing hang-gliding, and it was the same dead end as had killed Lilienthal. Clement Ader's machines were uncontrollable; Augustus Whitehead hadn't yet made his difficult-to-confirm claims, and John Montgomery's gliders were demonstrated deathtraps. There were others, but they weren't genuine contenders who were building an aircraft that could be developed into a practical machine.

The Wrights' success rekindled an interest in aviation. Imitators seized on the obvious features of the Wrights' success (a biplane with control surfaces fore and aft) without understanding the real secret: control about the three axes of flight. Nonetheless, by 1907, real progress had been made by others; the Wrights were forced to abandon their short-sighted policy of secrecy, and they demonstrated their aircraft in public. Although their ongoing patent fights had stunted aviation's growth in the United States, their stunning successes in 1908 and 1909 spurred aviation progress in Europe, so that by the time WW I began in 1914, all of the great nations had air forces of one type or another. France had 140 aircraft, Germany about 250 and Britain about 180; all were largely derived from civilian practice, and when compared with our modern aircraft, the planes were flimsy, difficult to fly, short-ranged and slow.

Even with those limitations, aircraft were absolutely crucial in influencing the outcome of WW I. On August 22, 1914, two British aircraft returned to their base with news of a huge column of the German First Army passing through Gramont. The first airman to be wounded in air combat, Sgt. Maj. D.S. Jillings of No. 2 Squadron, was in the second aircraft that landed that day. The German movement was the beginning of a turn to the east by Gen. Alexander von Kluck; it was part of the famous Schlieffen plan to envelop the British and French armies as Paris was bypassed to the north.

Incredibly, British headquarters believed the airborne-gathered information, and the long-suffering Tommies held their ground long enough for the French to escape. Then, on August 31, additional Royal Flying Corps aircraft saw von Kluck turn to the southeast in an apparent move to envelop Paris. Armed with-and believing-this knowledge, the British and French commanders positioned their armies to take advantage of this error on the Germans' part. The resulting battle of the Marne stopped the German advance, and the course of the war was reversed. Kaiser Wilhelm's dreams of defeating France in six weeks and then turning to defeat Russia were over. Germany was caught up in a fatal war on two fronts. Thus, in the first month of the war, aircraft-primitive as they were-made a decisive contribution to its outcome.

Let's skip now to the "What if?" scenario. Imagine that the first (December 14) attempt at flight by Wilbur had failed and that the two brothers had quit. What would have been the effect on history? At that crucial point, the Wrights' 10-year advantage would have been sacrificed. Without the Wrights to inspire other aviators, it is likely that no one else would have flown until 1913. This means that none of the WW I armies would have had an air force. Everything else, however, would have been much the same, and the guns of August would have bellowed in 1914. This time, however, there would have been no airmen to observe the German army's march on Paris. Without those observations, the Schlieffen plan would have probably succeeded. Paris would have fallen, France would have surrendered, and Germany almost certainly would have won WW I, probably by the summer of 1915.