Originally posted by stick
The wing warping idea worked great. But to me the prize in roll control had to go to Glen Curtiss and his crew for the ailerons. Yippee
Oh, by all means... ailerons are better than warping in the long run... It was simply the concept of roll control (which the Wrights tried to patent - led to a lot of bad blood with Curtiss for a little while) that made real flight possible. That's what I was talking about. Bleriot et al. never implemented x-axis controls until much later, and it was the ability to use roll to effectively turn the aircraft that made actual controlled flight possible. Ever notice that Bleriot never seemed to be able to land his aircraft reliably? Imagine handling a bumpy gust profile or a crosswind without ailerons (or wing warping, or roll spoilers, etc.) No fun.
BTW, apologies for the lack of spell-checking in my last post...