Historical Note: Wright Company

The Wright Company was founded on November 22, 1909 by aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright with the intent to capitalize on their creation of the first flyable airplane. They established headquarters in New York City but had their factory in Dayton, Ohio.

The Wrights had first flown in 1903 and then applied for a patent for their method of flight control using both roll and yaw control. Their initial patent application was rejected but with the help of patent attorney Henry Toulmin they were granted Patent 821,393 on May 22, 1906. With a patent in hand, the Wrights began demonstrating their planes, flying at exhibitions in the U.S. and in Europe. Among their pilots were Walter Brookins, Frank Coffyn, Arch Hoxsey, Ralph Johnstone, Roy Knabenshue, Phil O. Parmalee, and A.L. Welsh. The Wrights made an agreement with the Aero Club of America that aviators flying their planes in airshows would pay licensing fees for the exhibitions. They also closely guarded their patents and engaged in a “patent war” with rival Glenn Curtiss and other companies who, the Wrights believed, built planes with similar control systems.

The Wright Company’s first airplane for sale was the Model B. The U.S. Army was one of their early customers, purchasing what became known as the Wright Military Flyer in 1909, the first military aircraft in the world. The U.S. Navy purchased a Wright Model B in 1911 but generally preferred planes built by Curtiss which were more suited for operating on water. A Wright Model B became the first plane to serve on a commercial transport flight on November 7, 1910 when Phil Parmalee carried two bolts of fabric from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio.

Wilbur Wright died in 1912 and after a few years, in 1915, his brother Orville sold the company to a syndicate controlled by T. Frank Manville, William B. Thompson, and Harry Payne Whitney. By 1916 the company merged with the Glenn L. Martin Company to become the Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation. Orville Wright sold his patent rights to the Wright-Martin company, and the company continued battling patent infringements. Upon the U.S.’s entry into World War I, the U.S. government intervened in the patent wars because the military needed many more aircraft to be built. The government pressured the industry to form the Manufacturer’s Aircraft Association to create a patent pool which would collect and distribute licensing fees to the Wright-Martin and Curtiss companies. By the end of World War I, the patent war had effectively ended.

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