Charles E. Taylor
Charles Edward Taylor was a pivotal figure in the early aviation industry, best known for his role as the first aircraft mechanic and an essential contributor to the Wright brothers' success. Born in 1868 in Cerro Gordo, Illinois, Taylor's early life was shaped by a hog cholera epidemic that forced his family to move to Nebraska. His fascination with machinery began during his youth, which led him to work as a machinist, eventually catching the attention of Orville and Wilbur Wright.
Taylor played a crucial role in the construction of the first successful aircraft engine, overcoming his limited prior experience with engines to create a design that exceeded the Wright brothers' specifications. His ingenuity and practical skills were instrumental during the historic flight on December 17, 1903, and he continued to innovate throughout his career, developing increasingly powerful engines for the Wrights’ evolving aircraft designs.
Despite his significant contributions, Taylor preferred a private life and often remained in the background of aviation history, only receiving recognition posthumously. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1965, a testament to his lasting impact on the field of aviation, where he remains a respected but often overlooked figure.
Charles E. Taylor
American machinist and airplane mechanic
- Born: May 24, 1868
- Birthplace: Cerro Gordo, Illinois
- Died: January 30, 1956
- Place of death: Los Angeles, California
Taylor manufactured the aircraft engine used by the Wright brothers in 1903. He also built engines that powered their 1904 and 1905 airplanes and was the mechanic for the Wright Flying School at Huffman Prairie, Ohio.
Primary field: Aeronautics and aerospace technology
Primary invention: Aircraft engine
Early Life
Charles Edward Taylor was born in the small town of Cerro Gordo, Illinois, to hog farmers Willet and Elmira Taylor. A hog cholera epidemic forced the family to move to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1878. Taylor worked in a bakery and quit school after the seventh grade. At age twelve, he began work for the Nevada State Journal and worked his way into the bindery. It was here that he began his lifelong love affair with machinery. Taylor later claimed that the hog cholera epidemic was responsible for his career as a machinist.
As a young man, Taylor moved to California and worked briefly as a surveyor. Returning to Nebraska, he opened a machine shop. In 1892, he met Henrietta Webbert, and they were married two years later. In 1896, the Taylors moved to Dayton, Ohio, where Charles took a job with the Stoddard Manufacturing Company, a producer of farm machinery and bicycles. In 1898, he opened another machine shop where he did some subcontract work for Wilbur and Orville Wright. Coincidentally, Henrietta’s family was familiar with the Wrights, and Henrietta’s uncle owned the building in which the Wrights’ bicycle shop was located.
Taylor sold his machine shop and accepted a job with the Dayton Electric Company but was soon hired as a full-time machinist by the Wrights. Taylor was aware that the Wrights were interested in gliders and flight, but he knew very little about airplanes or the brothers’ flying activities. Taylor would later claim that he was hired as much for his management skills as for his machinist skills. Indeed, he managed the day-to-day affairs of the bicycle shop as the Wrights spent more time with their experiments, making trips to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This was to change when they returned from Kitty Hawk in 1901 and began construction of a wind tunnel for aerodynamic testing. Thus began Taylor’s aviation career.
Life’s Work
When the Wright brothers returned from Kitty Hawk in 1901, they recruited Taylor to assist in the construction of a wind tunnel to verify lift and drag calculations. He constructed balances for the machine by grinding down old hacksaw blades. After completion and testing of the wind tunnel, Taylor returned to managing the bicycle shop, leaving the aviation experiments to the Wrights. In 1902, the brothers announced that they were finished with glider experiments and desired to conduct powered flights. However, they met total resistance from engine manufacturers, who were unwilling or unable to construct an engine to meet the Wrights’ specifications. The Wrights again turned to Taylor to manufacture an engine that would be light enough and powerful enough for their aircraft. Taylor was confident that he could manufacture such an engine, even though his only experience with engines up to that time was an attempt to repair an automobile engine in 1901. In six weeks, without any blueprints, and using only the limited machinery in the bicycle shop, he proceeded to manufacture the first successful aircraft engine.
The design and construction of this engine was critical to the Wrights’ success. They calculated that the engine must weigh less than 180 pounds and develop at least eight horsepower. Working from hand-drawn sketches tacked to the machinery, Taylor constructed the engine. Since he kept no personal records, there is only limited information available about exactly how he manufactured the various parts. None of the original sketches have survived. What is known is that the original crankshaft was machined out of a hundred-pound block of tool steel and that the pistons and cylinder barrels were cast from a fine-grained iron. Taylor manufactured a number of duplicates for each part for constructing what he called a “skeleton model.” This was a nonfunctional engine that was hooked up to the shop power system to verify the fit and proper operation of all the parts. Once Taylor was satisfied that everything fit and worked as expected, the actual engine was constructed.
Taylor’s engine significantly exceeded the Wright brothers’ specifications. It weighed 170 pounds, including all of the accessories, and produced twelve horsepower at 1,025 revolutions per minute (RPM). Taylor made use of readily available materials for construction. He built the radiator from metal speaking tubes commonly used in apartment houses, the ignition from components manufactured by Dayton Electric Company, and the fuel valve from a gas lamp. Taylor’s vision and ingenuity was instrumental in the Wrights’s historic flight on December 17, 1903, when they successfully flew a heavier-than-air plane at Kitty Hawk.
Taylor continued to design and build engines for the Wright brothers as their aircraft designs evolved. His 1904 engine developed eighteen horsepower. He integrated an automatic oiling system to prevent engine seizure. His 1905 engine was the first engine powerful enough to allow the carriage of a passenger. He built a thirty-two-horsepower engine for Army tests in 1907, and his successful 1909 military engine produced thirty-five horsepower. In addition to constructing engines, he machined metal fittings and helped assemble and rig the airplanes for flight. He accompanied the brothers to the military trials and accompanied Wilbur to France in 1907. Taylor was the only full-time employee of the Wrights until 1909, when they formed the Wright Company. At this point, Taylor was placed in charge of the engine shop.
Taylor apparently experienced some difficulty in the changing environment, and friction with the shop manager developed. This may have prompted him to accept a job with Cal Rogers in 1910. Rogers offered him $10 per day plus expenses to serve as his mechanic on a proposed cross-country flight. The Wright brothers wanted him to stay and convinced him to take a leave of absence rather than quit. Taylor accompanied Rogers to California, repairing the airplane after each of the many crashes en route. Because of his wife’s ill health, Taylor decided to stay in California, where he worked for a number of early aviation pioneers, including Glenn Martin. After Wilbur Wright died in 1912, Taylor returned to Dayton and continued to work for Orville even after the company was sold. In 1919, Taylor accepted a job with the new Dayton Wright Company. He continued his association with the Wright Company and Orville, working with the company intermittently until 1928, when he moved back to California and virtually disappeared from the public eye.
Taylor did not reappear until he was approached by Henry Ford in 1937 to reconstruct the original Wright shop in Dearborn, Michigan. In this capacity, Taylor tracked down the original equipment, built a replica of the 1903 engine, and reconstructed the original shop. In 1941, he moved back to California, where he again seemingly disappeared. Taylor suffered a heart attack in 1945 and died in 1956 at the age of eighty-eight.
Impact
Taylor was a self-taught machinist with the ability to visualize how to manufacture an engine that could do what had never been done. Although he had limited experience with engines, he built the engine that made aviation possible. Without his insight and ability, the Wright brothers would not have flown successfully in 1903. He not only built the first successful aircraft engine but also improved it every year, allowing the Wright brothers to reach a level of performance that astonished the world. He is recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration as the world’s first aircraft mechanic.
Due to his work managing the operations and flight school established by the Wrights at Huffman Prairie, Ohio, Taylor is also recognized as the first airport manager. He worked with many of the early pilots who flew for the Wright Exhibition Team. He was also instrumental in the success of the first transcontinental flight by Cal Rogers in 1911. During his sixty-year career as a machinist, he worked for a number of major aviation companies, including the Glenn L. Martin Company and North American Aviation.
Taylor is sometimes called aviation’s forgotten man. He was a very private person, and many segments of his life remain undocumented. He did not seek the limelight or claim credit for the Wright brothers’ success. He kept no personal records, and his essential contributions received little attention until the death of Orville Wright in 1948. After Orville’s death, Taylor was awarded a number of honors in recognition of his lifelong contributions to aviation. In 1965, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. More than a footnote in aviation history, Taylor was a major supporting character to more widely known actors. His contributions throughout his life were vital to the perfection of the design of the modern airplane.
Bibliography
DuFour, Howard R., with Peter J. Unitt. Charles Taylor: The Wright Brothers Mechanician. Edited by David K. Vaughan. Dayton, Ohio: Prime Printing, 1997. The most comprehensive work on Taylor, the book fills in a number of gaps about his life. A detailed, well-researched, and well-written biography that includes a number of fascinating photographs.
Jackman, Frank. “The First Mechanic.” Pilot Shop News 007 (Winter, 2008): 1-11. This short and informative article profiles the life and efforts of Taylor, utilizing his own personal observations about his contributions and his relationship with the Wrights. A valuable overview of this fascinating man, much of it in his own words.
Taylor, Charles E. “My Story of the Wright Brothers as Told to Robert S. Ball.” Collier’s Weekly 122, no. 26 (December 25, 1948): 27-70. This article is one of the few published personal recollections by Taylor. In it he discusses his work as well as his personal relationship with the Wrights. He includes a plethora of information that was not available before the article’s publication in 1948. This article was reprinted in Air Line Pilot (April, 2000).
Tobin, James. To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. New York: Free Press, 2003. While this work does not technically deal with Taylor, it is an excellent portrayal of the various attempts at early flight, the problems associated with it, and the elements that led to the Wright brothers’ success. Provides an excellent time line of events and introduces all the major players of the era.