Designing the First Flying Machine

Who is credited as the inventor(s) of the airplane?

• Otto Lillienthal

• Orville and Wilbur Wright

• Alphonse Pénaud

• Charlie Taylor

What does the author describe in the passage?

• Orville and Wilbur Wright's childhood in Indiana

• how French inventor Alphonse Pénaud designed the helicopter

• how the first airplane was invented

• flight patterns of migratory birds

Otto Lillienthal's gliding airplane design was not a success.

What evidence from the text supports this statement?

• "By this time, many people had been trying to invent an airplane that worked. Some airplanes were steam-powered; others had flapping wings, like birds."

• "The German inventor Otto Lillienthal, also known as "The Gilder King," was appearing in all the papers, showing off his gliding machine, which he'd built based on his studies of storks."

• "Though his gliders had no motors, instead coasting purely on air, they could keep a pilot hanging in the air under the right conditions."

• "When Lillienthal made headlines again by plunging to his death in August of 1896 during a gliding accident, inventors knew they had to improve upon his designs, or else."

Which of the following helped Orville and Wilbur to finally create a successful plane?

• directly working with the German inventor Otto Lillienthal

• their experience building experimental aircraft during their childhood

• the research and designs of other inventors which Orville and Wilbur improved upon

• the formal education in Physics that Orville and Wilbur had both received

What is this passage mostly about?

• the creation of the first motorized airplane

• the Wright Brothers' bicycle business

• Otto Lillienthal's gliders

• the first transcontinental flight

Read the following sentences:

"If the brothers had kept on building bikes and printing poetry, they might have done very well for themselves, and we might have forgotten them by now. But instead, they used the proceeds from their business ventures to fund further tinkering in a new kind of interest: flying."

As used in the passage, what does "ventures" most nearly mean?

• distractions

• inventions

• designs

• projects

Choose the answer that best completes the sentence below.

_________ many of Orville and Wilbur's first airplane models crashed, they persevered and were eventually successful.

• Even though

• As a result

• Initially

• Above all