There was an unspoken agreement that Orville would be the pilot for the trials, even though he had not flown since the accident. On July 27 Orville announced to the Aeronautical Board that he was ready to resume testing. He chose to comply with the specification calling for a ‘trial endurance flight of at least one hour’ and another requiring that the plane ‘be designed to carry two persons having a combined weight of about 350 pounds.’ He chose tall, slim Lieutenant Frank Lahm to fly with him, and complied with both requirements by staying in the air for one hour, 12 minutes and 38 seconds, a world record for a two-man flight. That flight was witnessed by President William H. Taft, his cabinet, other high-level government officials and an estimated 10,000 spectators.

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On July 30 Orville told the Aeronautical Board that he was ready for the cross-country and speed test. He chose wiry Army Signal Corps Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois as his passenger and navigator for the 10-mile cross-country flight. The course was from Fort Myer to Shuter’s Hill in Alexandria, Va. They circled a captive balloon used as a marker and returned to Fort Myer, setting a record for two-man flight at a speed of 42 1/2 miles per hour to complete that phase of the contract. However, they still had to train two Army pilots.

The pilots assigned were Lieutenants Lahm and Frederic E. Humphreys, a Corps of Engineers officer, and this time the training was conducted at College Park, Md. The brothers decided that Wilbur would do the instructing while Orville went to Germany, where the German Wright company had already been set up. He and Katherine arrived in Berlin in late August 1909. There Orville flew one of the German-manufactured planes at Tempelhof Field on September 4. He set an altitude record of 565 feet on September 17 and also established an endurance record with a passenger of one hour and 35 minutes. He tried for another altitude record on September 30, climbing to an unofficial height of 902 feet. Most of his flights were witnessed by the German royal family.

When Orville returned home, both men felt that it was time to size up their future. They were now involved in about 20 legal actions to protect their patents. The Wrights by then had held the world’s attention for two years, achieving fame and fortune beyond their dreams. Between September 1909 and the end of 1910, they had received over $200,000 in the United States alone, including $30,000 for the first Army plane, $15,000 for Wilbur’s flights while Orville was in Germany, $100,000 for the formal organization of the Wright Company on November 22, 1909, and more than $50,000 in dividends and royalties. At this point, they had three possible courses of action: continue their flights and prove their superiority as the world’s foremost pilots; devote their attention to manufacturing aircraft and defending their patents; or retire from the aviation business and pursue other interests. They chose the second course.

But the invention they had brought to the world was being improved upon daily by other innovators, who were also advancing the frontiers of aeronautical knowledge. During 1910 the speed of aircraft had increased to more than a mile a minute; the distance record had increased to an astounding 244 miles in five hours, 32 minutes; the altitude record had reached 8,692 feet; and engine power had increased from 25 to almost 100 horsepower. The Alps had been crossed by air, flights had been made from London to Paris, and four passengers had been successfully carried aloft with a pilot.

Despite the Wrights’ initial successes, the European nations were then developing aircraft of their own more rapidly than the United States. In March 1911 Wilbur went to Europe to prosecute patent infringements. Orville later returned to Kitty Hawk to experiment with an automatic control device on a glider. There were so many newsmen around, however, that he never tested it, for fear that it would be copied–although he did make 90 glides and set a soaring record of nine minutes and 45 seconds, a record that lasted almost 11 years.

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