CINCINNATI

Here's what you know:

1.   The Wright Brothers, airplane flight pioneers, were from Dayton, Ohio up the road from Cincinnati.
2.   The Wright Company was established in Dayton to manufacture powered flying machines.
3.   The huge General Electric plant in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati is one of the three large manufacturers of aircraft engines in the world.

Here is the rest of the story. 

The real obstacle the Wrights had to overcome was power.   An engineer from Hamilton, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati, was determined to overcome that problem.  His name was Frederick Rentschler. 

Frederick was born in 1887 and he worked for his parents who owned a small automotive company in the early part of the Twentieth Century.  It was here, as an engineer, he earned engine-building experience.  After serving in the military during WWI, Rentschler came home and brought his ideas for a light-weight air-cooled engine to the Wrights.  He became the president of the Wright Aeronautical Company. 

In 1925, Rentschler left the Wrights and moved up East looking for an investor for his proposed aircraft engine company.  He found one.  It was called the Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool Company. 
He agreed to use his backers name and founded the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company. 

In 1929, Rentschler paid off the Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool debt.  He merged his company with Boeing and others to form the United Aircraft and Transportation Company.  He carried his company name forward under the United umbrella. 

Today it is Pratt & Whitney Aerospace, a subsidiary of  United Technologies.  Last year it had revenue exceeding $16 billion. 

Frederick Rentschler died in 1956.  You can visit his Hamilton, Ohio home as it is a on the National Register of Historic Sites.

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