Wright brothers biographer David McCullough says there’s a lot to be learned from the epic effort that brought flight to the human species but it’s not what everyone thinks. The Pulitzer-winning author, who has written about some of the most important figures in American history, told a near-capacity audience at NBAA’s opening session Tuesday that while all the virtues of hard work, stick-to-itiveness and innovation apply to the Wrights, their success was more due to their failures than their successes. In general, Wilbur and Orville had terrible luck and virtually no support from outside their family and all those negative experiences combined to create a data set that “changed the world.” He also credited their sister Katherine as being the glue that held the effort together.
As an historian, McCullough said he believed studying history is an essential element to planning for the future and that he found it a common thread in the most impressive people he has interviewed. He said even George W. Bush is an avid consumer of history books. The Wrights’ unshakeable belief that they were onto something big turned out to be a big embarrassment to a lot of prominent people at the time who dismissed them as crackpots. But it wasn’t until prodded by a member from the audience who asked if he could provide perspective on the 2016 presidential election that he made the link between literacy and leadership. He said election of Republican nominee Donald Trump would be the greatest mistake in the country’s history. He said Trump freely admits that he doesn’t read books, embraces ignorance and that his well-publicized indiscretions make him unfit to lead the country.
