At the time of Wilbur and Orville Wright’s first flight, there was an illustrious newsletter known as Fly the Wright Way. It was rumored to have some famous anonymous authors who owned a bicycle shop.
Fly the Wright Way delivered different paper airplane designs each month. Yes, the newsletter traveled by mail and cost $2.00 a year for ten airplanes.
The paper airplane designs were the best of their day, and hobbyists from across the country soon signed up and built these elaborate designs. Soon, enthusiastic paper plane flyers filled parks around the country. Of course, no paper airplane could match the Wright brother’s plane that flew in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, at the end of 1903.
1903 was also when the trouble began for the newsletter. By the end of the year, only four of the promised ten airplanes arrived. Subscribers were either angry about missing planes or worried that the newsletter’s authors had fallen ill. The subscribers did not know about the authors’ endeavors.
Then the first edition of the 1904 newsletter arrived.
It read as follows:
“I’m sorry for the delay in sending airplanes. We will be extending a free year to all of our flyers. However, we have an exciting announcement that you may have read about. Fly the Wright Way newsletter bore witness to the first successful flight of a self-propelled plane carrying man. We are thrilled to share this news with you, and attached are the specifications for this plane.”
While you’d think that paper airplane enthusiasts would be thrilled about the prospect of people flying, that was not the case.
The following message arrived as the February edition:
“Some of you would like for me to apologize for my previous newsletter. Instead, I would like to thank the many simpletons who sent me responses to the announcement of flight including, “How would I ever build this plane?” or “I tried to make this out of paper, and it won’t fly.” Instead of refunding your money, I’m going to use it to shut down a paper mill so you morons can’t get your hands on enough paper to make more planes. Attached is a design that should fly farther than your intellect.”
Attached was the design for a crumpled-up piece of paper. Apparently, another author intervened because there was one final issue of Fly the Wright Way.
“Hello, I wanted to apologize for our previous two newsletters. My brother W, in his excitement, did not think properly about the newsletter. While we are excited about the possibilities of a man-carrying plane (or woman, as my sister keeps reminding me), we understand that you signed up for paper airplanes.
While we pursue opportunities in Europe, I wanted to refund each of you half of the price of your subscription. W just found out I was doing this and is very angry. So let me go calm him down. Thanks for flying with us over the years. See you in the air.
—O”
Now there’s no way to know for sure (or evidence) that such newsletters came from the Wright Brothers themselves. Still, it’s been documented that some people carried a grudge against the newsletter on their first transatlantic flight. William Boeing and a very young Amelia Earnhardt were sad that the airplanes stopped coming. Even households with names like Disney, Lindbergh and Edison received this final issue.
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash