Wright Brothers Share Family Secrets at Porter Public Library

Roger Storm and Tom Benson, better known as “Orville” and “Wilbur,” have been impersonating the famous, flying Wright brothers all over the country, ironically enough via airplane. This past Friday, they happened to be in Westlake at .

“We’ve been to Reno, Houston, Charlotte, [and] Chicago to give this talk,” said Benson, a Columbus native himself. “Our objective is to get kids interested in math and science,” he said. Benson now works at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

But not only has unwrapping the tale of the Wright brothers brought Storm and Benson all over the country, it has also led them down a path they never expected: a collision of their historical research and modern day. After giving a talk in Dayton, they spoke with an audience member who knew the inside story of the Wright family. 

Since then, one of the great-grand-nephews of the Wrights has given Storm and Benson a tour of their house and now they’re invited to family picnics as Orville and Wilbur! Benson has even flown in an original Wright airplane the way they would have ridden it: sitting on a wing with no safety gear, just one hand gripping the wing to hold him in place.

Storm, a Fairview Park chemistry teacher, met Benson while interning at the NASA lab. Both were interested in the history of the science they were studying— something that’s not often looked into in a laboratory setting. So they went to the library and started reading.

Storm and Benson loved recollecting the fond memories of “Orville” and “Wilbur” as if the anecdotes were part of their own past. Like how Orville had a hockey accident and knocked out a lot of his teeth, accounting for why he never smiled or talked much. Or when Orville tried to make chewing gum out of road tar and sugar. “That one didn’t work out so well,” Storm joked.

Benson talked of the embarrassment they went through having to go to the fabric store to buy material for their plane, which needed to be “lightweight and strong,” an unlikely pair. They ended up choosing a fabric that was primarily used for women’s underwear! Quite uncomfortable for the bachelor brothers, neither of which ever married or had kids.

Both brothers dressed for work everyday, even though they weren’t showing up to an office or a boss. Storm and Benson showed pictures of the Wright brothers in long sleeve shirts, black pants, jackets, and ties in the middle of June, full humidity. Also in their slideshow was a picture of the first female to fly in a plane. The French woman tied her skirt at the bottom in modesty, but soon her look became the trending fashion there!

And get this: the Wright brothers were not the first people to fly an airplane. Sir George Cayley of England deserves that credit, even though North Carolina’s quarter boasts “first flight.” Ohio also claims the Wright brothers on their quarter, stating “birthplace of aviation engineers.” But Benson, “Wilbur,” had a clear, audience-pleasing opinion on that rivalry: “North Carolina had wind and Ohio had brains.”