I wrote about the “portal of the folded wings” almost a month ago and in it I mentioned Charlie Taylor who is buried there amongst other aviation pioneers.
Charlie Taylor built the first aircraft engine in the world for the Wright Brothers. And it didn’t take him that long either – 6 weeks from concept to first flight.
Not bad for a bicycle mechanic.
Charlie was in charge of running the bicycle business while the brothers were flying their gliders. Then he was ask to build a wind tunnel for the project, which served to test the first concepts of the Wright Flyer.
in 1902, the brothers felt that they were ready to attach an engine to their glider and could not find anything suitable in the existing market. They asked Charlie if he can do it.
Here’s Charlie’s recollection of what happened:
We didn’t make any drawings. One of us would sketch out the part we were talking about on a piece of scratch paper, and I’d spike the sketch over my bench. It took me six weeks to make that engine. The only metal working machines we had were a lathe and a drill press, run by belts from a stationary gas engine. The crankshaft was made out of a block of machine steel 6" by 31" by 1 5/8" thick. I traced the outline on the slab and then drilled through with the drill press until I could knock out the surplus pieces with a hammer and chisel. Then I put it is [sic] the lathe and turned it down to size and smoothness. While I was doing all this work on the engine, Will and Orv were busy upstairs working on the airframe. They asked me to make the metal parts, such as the small fittings where the wooden struts joined the spars and the truss wires were attached. There weren’t any turnbuckles in the truss wires, so the fit had to be just so. It was so tight we had to force the struts into position."
This started an industry that today makes over $130 Billion a year.
Once the engine was ready, Charlie says:
"We block-tested the motor (then) got everything crated and on the train. There was no ceremony about it, even among ourselves. The boys had been making these trips for four years, and this was the third time I had been left to run the shop. If there was any worry about the flying machine not working, they never showed it and I never felt it. Even when they got home (after the first successful flight) there was no special celebration in the shop. They were always thinking of the next thing to do; they didn’t waste much time worrying about the past."
Charlie came to California as a mechanic for aviation pioneer Calbraith Perry Rodgers in 1911. Rodgers acquired a new Wright machine and offered Charles $10 a day plus expenses to be his mechanic on a trip from Long Island to California. Charlie traveled by special train to repair the plane every night and after any mishap.
This was the first coast-to-coast airplane crossing of the continental United States took off on September 17th 1911 from Sheepshead Bay, NY and Landed in Pasadena, CA 47 days later of November 5th, with 83 flying hours and 68 stopovers.
It is amazing how dedicated and unassuming those early aviation pioneers were and how much we owe to such as small group of innovators. If you get a chance, go visit the Portal of The Folded Wings, or just take a flight from nearby Burbank airport, either way you’ll be paying a tribute to Charlie’s work – whether you know it or not.
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