The Wright brothers and Langley

In 1903, two very different efforts were racing to build the first working aeroplane. On one side was Samuel Langley, a distinguished scientist with money from the government, the Smithsonian behind him, a long scientific reputation, and the confidence of the establishment. On the other were Wilbur and Orville Wright, two brothers who ran a bicycle shop in Ohio, with little money, no advanced degrees, and no institutional backing. Langley's grand machine was launched twice that year, and both times it crashed straight into the Potomac River. Just days after his second failure, the Wright brothers flew. The difference was method rather than pedigree. The Wrights tested relentlessly, built their own wind tunnel, put their own lives on the line in the aircraft, and learned from hundreds of small failures. Langley had everything on paper. The bicycle mechanics had the right process.

Pedigree tells you how someone was selected in the past, not how they will perform on the problem in front of you. Langley had standing, money and institutional backing, and his machine went into the river. The Wrights had none of them and solved the problem, because they had the thing that actually mattered: a way of testing, failing cheaply, and learning fast. When you evaluate people, the temptation is to trust the impressive CV over the unremarkable one, but the CV is a record of past selection, not future capability. Ask how someone actually works and learns, because that, not their pedigree, is what will meet the real problem.

Source: Documented aviation history, 1903. A full account: David McCullough, The Wright Brothers, 2015.

The Wright Brothers

David McCullough, 2015

How two outsiders with the right method beat the establishment favourite to flight.