The Wright brothers’ first powered aircraft engine produced approximately 12 horsepower.
The engine was built in the Wrights’ Dayton bicycle shop by their employee Charlie Taylor, working from the brothers’ requirements. The lightweight four-cylinder gasoline engine powered the 1903 Wright Flyer, whose design also required two propellers and a launching rail. The brothers needed enough power to overcome the aircraft’s weight and the drag created by its large fabric-covered wings.
The engine was not a mass-produced aviation motor. It was a compact, water-cooled machine made specifically for the Flyer. Its aluminum crankcase helped reduce weight, while the engine drove the propellers through chains adapted from bicycle technology.
The figure is an approximate rating because early engines were not measured under modern standardized testing conditions. It is also easy to confuse the engine’s power with the Flyer’s speed or the brothers’ later engine designs. Despite its modest output by modern standards, the engine was sufficient because the aircraft was light and the propellers were carefully designed from the brothers’ aerodynamic experiments.