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Capt Cash

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Wow, that's a great video. You really get a first hand look at just how incredibly unstable and pitch sensitive these first airplanes were. I would imagine in the first years it was a real physical workout just to stay ahead of a stall, and not lending itself to more than a second of inattentionjust forpilotsto keep their airplanes aloft and in control. I think it was a while before you saw trimmed hands off flight in otherwords.

I think a major factor in the Wright'ssuccess was their pioneering wing designthrough the use of their homemade wind tunnel. In unbelievable short time they created thebasic airfoil that is still used today. With an effecient amount of lift, theyhad their most difficult problem ofthe flying equation solved. Everyone else was years behind them still trying to fly their machineson radical looking bannana shaped wings. And while we know it is certainly possible today to almost make a brick fly, at the time of the Wrights, there was nobdy, including the Wrights that could develop enough power for adequate airspeed and controllability to dothis.

BobH

My Feedback: (2)

Maybe even more noteable than the wing design is their propeller design.. It was VERY efficient. They really were the only ones who actually "got it". Their propeller is about as efficient as those made today!! So even with a better engine you need a prop to use that power.. or else you go no where

buzzard bait

Yes, by 1905 their propellers had reached 82% efficiency. Props on planes at the local airport today are about 85% efficient. They realized they could use their wind tunnel data to design the propeller, and it's true, it was one of their most important advances.

It's also true that their plane was pretty unstable in pitch. That was a defect in the canard configuration that was not overcome until the "neutral point" was identified in the 1930s. After that there were some experiments with reviving the canard, like the Ascender and the Shinden. The Wrights decided early on that there were so many problems to be overcome that once something worked reasonably well they moved on and did not revisit it. The French were astounded when they saw Wilbur fly, but they quickly decided they could do better. They built the first successful airplanes with the engine in the front and tail in the rear, and they invented the stick and rudder pedal system (and had a huge patent dispute about it, not resolved until forced to during WWI). They also experimented with several different types of ailerons from 1904 forward, until Farman's type, cut into the wing, prevailed. But wing warping remained a highly popular form of control, especially in racing. From 1910 until the start of WWI every winning racing plane used wing warping, including the famous 124 mph Deperdussin and the Sopwith Schneider trophy winner. The Wrights get criticized for sticking with it, but ailerons really did not show any clear advantage until WWI combat, and the two were used interchangeably, sometimes by the same manufacturer.

And thanks for that link, Matz. I had seen it before and then lost it. It was a delight to see it again. You can see the string they tied to the elevator as a kind of turn and bank indicator. They did that in 1905 after disconnecting the rudder and wing warping controls because they realized they needed better coordination on turns.

Jim

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abufletcher

Matz, what's the history of the Deutsche Wright Flugmaschinengesellschaft?

AlphaWhisky

Just to make for a little interest maybe, I don`t see any mention here yet re the efforts of Richard Pearse in New Zealand ......

Alan W

abufletcher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse

Perhaps another instance of a tree falling when no one is there to hear it. As I said earlier, I believe that in the end, it boils down to how "first flight" is defined...and who does the defining. The Wrights seem to have gotten more of the right pieces together at the right time so, I suppose, the prize "rightly" goes to them.

A good quote from the article:

"Unconcerned about posterity and in remote New Zealand, he received no public credit for his work during his lifetime....Although Pearse patented his design, his innovations — such as ailerons and the lightweight air-cooled engine — did not succeed in influencing others."

There have been numerous instances in the history of science and invention of some break-through in thought or action having taken place but the circumstances and quirks of fate were not properly aligned for it to be acknowledged.

KiwiKid

It would have been helpful if Richard Pearse had thought to take along a videograhper

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY00HYyo7dk[/youtube]

CafeenMan

BuzzardBait - As I was reading through all the information here, it really surprised me that nobody had mentioned the Wright's wind tunnel. You nailed their achievement very well. They used sound scientific methods to test, re-test, adapt and improve. I have never read anything about any other people working to achieve flight during that time frame using a wind tunnel. Most others just kept building things, trying to fly in them and failing. But they didn't learn anything in the process. The Wrights were going to be able to fly no matter what anyone else was doing.

CafeenMan

Matz - Does the site you're talking about have blueprints for any of the early Wright aircraft?

gabriel voisin

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abufletcher

Models CAN prove some things. After all, that's why the Wrights use models in their windtunnel! But you're correct that there's nothing to learn from a model that has been completely re-designed (as was the model in the video above). But I believe that a large scale RC model built closely following original building techniques should be able to replicate many of the flying qualities (or non-flying qualities as the case may be) of the original. The challenge for the RC pilot is just like the challenge for the original pilot, namely, he has to learn to fly from scratch.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2s6I05gt6g[/youtube]

CafeenMan

Thanks for the answer, Matz. I was in Germany for four years and loved it there. I would have stayed if I spoke any European language. Walking around in any Germany city or town was wonderful. A bakery, a chocolate shop (where they make the chocolates in the shop), a real art store, very nice department stores. wonderful art everywhere I went, beautiful buildings, etc. I loved the attitude of the Germans. Many Americans I worked and lived with kept saying "Germans are rude." No they aren't. They're honest. You're just not used to it. If your fly is down a German will tell you whereas an American will be "polite" and let you keep walking around like that while they pretend not to see it.

Of course I went into every hobby shop I saw. There are a lot of very nice European kits that you would never know existed if you live in the USA.

As far as first to fly, I have no horse in that race and don't care enough to do the research so I'll take whatever answer I'm given.

gabriel voisin

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gabriel voisin

Dear cofeeMan,

thanks so much, nice that you liked it.
(But not all is well, taxes are high and expensive gasoline.)

When you're back in Germany, then let me know and I'll show you the complete documentation and pioneer airplanes.

I think you'll love it.

We also have a lot of drawings from the WW1.

CafeenMan

Thanks, Matz. If I ever get over there I'll look you up before I depart from here. Don't know if that will ever happen. I was US Army at that time. That meant I my gasoline was subsidized. But I did like having my own car to drive around Europe.

abufletcher

This video illustrates nicely that inventors "back then" were no dummies.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzkLunC5mBk[/youtube]

gabriel voisin

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CafeenMan

I was in Heidelberg.

buzzard bait

Once again I agree with Matz. I once saw a picture and description of a nice flying model of Henson's Aerial Steam Carriage, powered by CO2. Models of Snoopy's doghouse have flown, along with witches on brooms, lawnmowers, etc.

Unless a machine is thoroughly documented, i.e., every piece of structure, every angle, the materials used, the way they were intended to be operated, it is so easy, based on current knowledge, to make unacknowledged assumptions about design and introduce subtle changes. What we consider a good drawing for a model is completely useless for this purpose. Given what we know, faced with a little uncertainty about a part or an angle, why would you make it so it wouldn't fly? Curtiss modified the Langley machine and flew it off the water on floats. The changes were not even subtle; it was a complete fraud, but it fooled the aviation experts at the most prestigious aviation journals at the time and convinced them that Langley's original machine was "capable of flight" (it still fools people like Seth Schulman). Then he did the same thing with the Goupil Duck and got it off the ground. Since then we have seen "reproductions" of the Whitehead, Pearse and other machines. It's like Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki. They prove nothing, and only serve to mislead.

It is like writing bad history, in which the historian draws conclusions about historical figures based on things the historical figures could not have known at the time. The only antidote is to immerse oneself as thoroughly as possible in the details of the time, and to maintain constant vigilance against the things we know simply by living in the present day.

The same is true of flying skills. The challenge for the RC pilot is nothing like the challenge faced by early aviators. The Wrights crashed over and over because they were encountering difficulties no one even knew existed. Even forgetting about adverse yaw and spiral mode instability, we don't realize how much we know about flight just from the times we live in. Go back and read what Wilbur read, like Chanute's Progress in Flying Machines, and the misconceptions will amaze you. French observers of Wilbur's flights at Le Mans gasped in dread and amazement when he banked the plane. It hadn't occurred to anyone else that you could do such a thing. A perfectly normal maneuver we see every day looked like certain disaster to them.

Matz, I will check out your other posts on the Wright Brothers machines!

Jim

abufletcher

Yes, but was it a SCALE doghouse???

abufletcher

That's a very good point. By the way, I'm not arguing that the Wrights weren't the ones to do the first powered flight. I'm just interested in exploring all of the interesting history surrounding and leading up to the first flight.

buzzard bait

Models of Snoopy's doghouse have flown...
[/quote]

Yes, but was it a SCALE doghouse???
[/quote]

Ha! You got me.

Yes, I think the beginnings are absolutely fascinating. As a boy I loved the WWI stories and had no interest in the Wrights and the others at all. Then in 1978 Scientific American had a cover story about the Wrights detailing the changes in each machines with nice perspective drawings. The author, I think he's still at Cal Tech, said that people know about the Wrights and the first flight, but know almost nothing about how they actually did it. That got me hooked, and I've been hooked ever since.

Matz, thanks again for the wonderful video! I had seen bits of it, but had no idea so much footage existed! I'm very interested in what Germany has preserved about the Wrights. Even the national park at Kitty Hawk does not show this much.

Jim

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