The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew for the first time in 1908.

Like any model, garbage in, garbage out. Simulating aerodynamics correctly is rather literally rocket science. It's hard, especially with flexible surfaces. Making something kinda sorta look like flying is a lot easier, but only a fool would make strong conclusions from that. The Wrights themselves said the 1903 Flyer was unstable in pitch, and they lengthened the elevator. That it was so unstable that no one could fly it for a second is unlikely. This would have been caught in their kite and glider experiments years earlier.
 
Norman said:
Next thing simplex is going to tell us is that the scales were invented in Toledo, Ohio.
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Now I am worried if Otis was the first person to push all the buttons in an elevator....
 
Regardless of who was the first to successfully take off and fly under power, there was a bitter legal battle between the Wright Brothers and everyone else that attempted powered flight. The Wrights contended that their patent on wing warping covered all controls for aircraft roll. Glenn Curtiss used ailerons between the wings of his Curtiss Pusher and insisted his device was sufficiently novel to not be covered by the Wright patents. The book "Birdmen" by Lawrence Goldstone was just published this spring and it focuses on that legal battle in early aviation. It is also extremely readable.
 
What Simplex1 claims has some truth to it.

Simple physics math indicates that 1HP can only levitate 33 pounds on planet Earth. The Wright brothers Flyer weight was 745lb and 12HP engine. With 12HP the most it could be lifted is 400lb out of ground effect. With 30Kts winds in 1903 the Flyer may have flown better without the engine. The lack of winds in the 2003 replica attempt made it impossible to achieve flight simply because there was not enough power.

The Wright brothers claim is that they were the first to fly a heavier than air machine, and they did. But given the right winds conditions a kite (heavier than air) will also get off the ground and glide when released.

Glenn Curtiss planes was the first to use ailerons instead of wing warp and a steering wheel and colum like in use today. He also developed higher power engines. Curtiss was very much estimulated into flying by the Wright brothers achievement.

José
 
simplex1 said:
1) The theory that (wing warping) ailerons made the powered flight possible is a pure myth. People (Henri Farman or Leon Delagrange) flew without ailerons of any kind, in a close circuit, for about 20 minutes before the moment the Wright brothers showed their planes (Aug 8, 1908).
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Are you arguing about the first controlled, powered flights now or shifting to another argument around ailerons?

The reality is that the Wrights have witness accounts and pictures of the 1903 flights. In addition, there were hundreds of witnesses to their 1904-1905 flights in Huffman Prairie where they were advancing the art.

The aileron argument is a red herring as is the "first public display" argument.
 
I've heard it all now. Next we'll be hearing that Columbus didn't discover America and Grizzly Adams had a beard.
 
OkieFlyer said:
I've heard it all now. Next we'll be hearing that Columbus didn't discover America and Grizzly Adams had a beard.
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Well the Indians were already here, and the Norwegians briefly, some Eskimos and likely some Russians as well. Wasn't grizzly Adams a TV show in the 1970s?
 
ClimbnSink said:
Well the Indians were already here, and the Norwegians briefly, some Eskimos and likely some Russians as well. Wasn't grizzly Adams a TV show in the 1970s?
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i remember as a small child wondering how columbus could discover a place where people already were.
 
MAKG1 said:
Simulating aerodynamics correctly is rather literally rocket science. It's hard, especially with flexible surfaces. Making something kinda sorta look like flying is a lot easier, but only a fool would make strong conclusions from that. The Wrights themselves said the 1903 Flyer was unstable in pitch, and they lengthened the elevator. That it was so unstable that no one could fly it for a second is unlikely. This would have been caught in their kite and glider experiments years earlier.
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Prof. Fred Culick performed one of the most serious chain of tests about the stability of "Flyer I 1903" and found the plane to be unflyable by a human being.

""They built it and then drew as they went along", said Fred Culick, professor of aerodynamics at the California Institute of Technology and chief engineer on Cherne's team. … Cherne's group, working mainly on weekends in a warehouse donated by a rocket company in El Segundo, finished what they considered an exact replica. Then in 1998 they tested it at NASA's Ames Research Center near Sunnyvale, Calif. Three weeks of wind-tunnel tests of their Wright Flyer replica "clearly showed how unstable it was and how it can't be flown safely," said Culick."
Source: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20031008&slug=wright08

However, Culick in not the only one who built a replica of "Flyer I". There is also the people from "Wright Experience" project ( http://www.wrightexperience.com/ ) who really attempted to fly the 1903 plane after finishing it and the best they could achieve was a set of two unstable flights of 100 and 115 feet respectively.
see:
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1mscspl-VU
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg46QLzO3b0

I have to mention that the plane you see in the two video (1), (2), is not powered by a 12 HP engine but by an 18 - 20 HP motor!!

"they were able to produce 18-hp on the dynamometer with the reproduction engine, and on a test flight, they produced 20-hp @ 1100-rpm."
see: http://wrightstories.com/the-engine-that-powered-the-reproduction-wright-flyer/
 
Flyhound said:
Regardless of who was the first to successfully take off and fly under power, there was a bitter legal battle between the Wright Brothers and everyone else that attempted powered flight. The Wrights contended that their patent on wing warping covered all controls for aircraft roll.
Click to expand...

The Wright brothers likely did not know, at the time, about the 1868 ailerons patent of Matthew Piers Watt Boulton ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Piers_Watt_Boulton ). If their competitors had studied a little more the archives and brought to light the brevet of Boulton the Wright brothers would have lost their legal battle immediately and would have remained to fight only against plane builders who intended to use wing warping ailerons.
 
kyleb said:
The reality is that the Wrights have witness accounts and pictures of the 1903 flights. In addition, there were hundreds of witnesses to their 1904-1905 flights in Huffman Prairie where they were advancing the art.
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The Wright brothers started to publish pictures about their alleged flights from 1903-1905 only beginning with September 1908.
see: "The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane" that appeared in The Century Magazine (see http://www.loc.gov/resource/mwright.05001574/#seq-1 , page 644 ).

They simply claimed in the Sep. 1908 article the photos had been taken at various moments between Dec. 17, 1903 and the autumn of 1905. We have to thrust them. There is no evidence about the authenticity of the dates.

Details from large pictures the Library of Congress has (see the attachments), which you do not normally see in books, show "Flyer I" just about to go down a slope and landed in front of a large sand dune, respectively. It is quite clear from the images the two brothers landed below the starting point which disqualifies the Dec. 17, 1903 flights as true powered flights. We can talk at best about engine assisted descents in strong headwinds not about what is normally understood by powered flights.

Regarding the witnesses the two brothers had in 1904-1905 this is again a pure claim. I want to see the list of witnesses and their declarations.

Image 1: "First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 a.m., December 17, 1903; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina", Library of Congress.
Image 2: "Close-up view of damaged 1903 machine, rudder frame broken in landing, on ground at end of last flight, December 17, 1903; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina", Library of Congress.
 

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simplex1 said:
Prof. Fred Culick performed one of the most serious chain of tests about the stability of "Flyer I 1903" and found the plane to be unflyable by a human being.

snip...

However, Culick in not the only one who built a replica of "Flyer I". There is also the people from "Wright Experience" project ( http://www.wrightexperience.com/ ) who really attempted to fly the 1903 plane after finishing it and the best they could achieve was a set of two unstable flights of 100 and 115 feet respectively.

snip....
Click to expand...

So you admit that the Wright Bros. flew in 1903 and it was proven possible by the WrightExperience crew.
They also proved Pros. Culick tests to be inaccurate.
 
simplex1 said:
... the best they could achieve was a set of two unstable flights of 100 and 115 feet respectively.
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Cruiser said:
So you admit that the Wright Bros. flew in 1903 and it was proven possible by the WrightExperience crew.
They also proved Pros. Culick tests to be inaccurate.
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Sounds like my own solos. But they counted.
 
This reminds me of the futile discussions I've had in the spin zone about Climate Change and Evolution.
 
simplex1 said:
Piloting "Flyer I 1903" is "like balancing a yardstick on one finger, two at one time. If you lose it, it goes — quickly, said Fred Culick ..."
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Thats because we know how an aircraft is 'supposed' to fly and understand the concepts of positive, negative and neutral stability. They had very little understanding of how an airplane was 'supposed' to fly - so they flew what they had. There is a tremendous difference between doing something for the first time in a sustained fashion and then doing it a 100 years later.

What takes a Nobel prize to do the first time can be done by a competent engineer in the future - look at the atomic bomb for example.
 
simplex1 said:
The Wright brothers started to publish pictures about their alleged flights from 1903-1905 only beginning with September 1908.
see: "The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane" that appeared in The Century Magazine (see http://www.loc.gov/resource/mwright.05001574/#seq-1 , page 644 ).

They simply claimed in the Sep. 1908 article the photos had been taken at various moments between Dec. 17, 1903 and the autumn of 1905. We have to thrust them. There is no evidence about the authenticity of the dates.

Details from large pictures the Library of Congress has (see the attachments), which you do not normally see in books, show "Flyer I" just about to go down a slope and landed in front of a large sand dune, respectively. It is quite clear from the images the two brothers landed below the starting point which disqualifies the Dec. 17, 1903 flights as true powered flights. We can talk at best about engine assisted descents in strong headwinds not about what is normally understood by powered flights.

Regarding the witnesses the two brothers had in 1904-1905 this is again a pure claim. I want to see the list of witnesses and their declarations.

Image 1: "First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 a.m., December 17, 1903; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina", Library of Congress.
Image 2: "Close-up view of damaged 1903 machine, rudder frame broken in landing, on ground at end of last flight, December 17, 1903; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina", Library of Congress.
Click to expand...

I think I've found a way to settle all of the disagreements in this thread.

Just look at the JPEG date stamps and GPS coordinates on the photo attributes. Problem solved. God I'm brilliant.
 
comanchepilot said:
Thats because we know how an aircraft is 'supposed' to fly and understand the concepts of positive, negative and neutral stability. They had very little understanding of how an airplane was 'supposed' to fly - so they flew what they had. There is a tremendous difference between doing something for the first time in a sustained fashion and then doing it a 100 years later.

What takes a Nobel prize to do the first time can be done by a competent engineer in the future - look at the atomic bomb for example.
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If you read the Wrights' notebooks, you would be surprised about just how much they did understand.

Aerodynamics traces back to Cayley, decades earlier, and they were intimately familiar with his work, enough to figure out he had a lift coefficient wrong.

They were also intimately familiar with Lilienthal's gliders, which tell you quite a lot about how airplanes are "supposed" to fly.

No one won a Nobel prize for the atomic bomb nor the airplane. That's a science prize, not engineering. Fermi did win the prize for discovering the chain reaction -- in 1937, well before the Bomb -- but that ain't the same thing.
 
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MAKG1 said:
Aerodynamics traces back to Cayley, decades earlier, and they were intimately familiar with his work, enough to figure out he had a lift coefficient wrong.
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The Wright brothers had no contribution in correcting Smeaton's coefficient as some authors claim

Definitely, Wilbur Wright knew about the work of Samuel Langley regarding the determination of Smeaton's coefficient precise value. This is what Wilbur wrote to Octave Chanute:
"…Professor Langley and also the Weather Bureau officials found that the correct coefficient of pressure was only about 0.0032, instead of Smeaton’s 0.005…". Source, The birth of flight control, An engineering analysis of the Wright brothers’ 1902 glider - pag 703, middle of the first column, http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/eweb/fst/publications/2854.pdf

It is self evident the Wright brothers took the true value of Smeaton's coefficient from Langley and they had no real contribution in correcting this constant as some authors have claimed.
 
I've noticed that the use of a large, bold face font gives me an irresistible urge to skip over whichever post they appear in!
 
Cruiser said:
So you admit that the Wright Bros. flew in 1903 and it was proven possible by the WrightExperience crew.
They also proved Pros. Culick tests to be inaccurate.
Click to expand...

On the contrary "Wright Experience" proved Culick was right.

In 2003, Dr. Kevin Kochersberger, an experienced pilot, could not fly the Wright Experience plane more that 115 feet (chaotically) while the Wright brothers claimed they had flown the 1903 airplane 852 feet in 59 seconds and maintained it stable.

In the hands of Kevin Kochersberger "Flyer I 1903" behaved exactly "like balancing a yardstick on one finger, two at one time. If you lose it, it goes — quickly" as Culick had said about his "Flyer I" replica, years before.

Beside this, "Wright Experience" cheated a bit (more) because they used an 18 - 20 HP engine not a 12 HP motor like the original. It is not clear if the 2003 plane would have left the ground with a 12 HP engine.
 
How could an unqualified man have designed and built a plane engine in 6 weeks?!

About the engine that powered Flyer I 1903 various authors said that:

"The Wrights wrote to several engine manufacturers, but none met their need for a sufficiently lightweight power-plant. They turned to their shop mechanic, Charlie Taylor, who built an engine in just six weeks in close consultation with the brothers."

The article about Taylor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Taylor_(mechanic) ) also does not bring more light saying just that Taylor was a mechanic hired by the Wright brothers to repair bicycles and "He designed and built the aluminum water-cooled engine in only six weeks, based partly on rough sketches provided by the Wrights."

It is not uncommon for a mechanic to adapt a ready made engine to a specific purpose, but to design it from scratch and build it in 6 weeks, without previous experience, is simply incredible.

Another big problem with this 1903 engine is that the Wrights attributed various powers to it at different times: 15 HP, 16 HP, 12 HP and beside this the original engine did not survive. Orville Wright claimed he had reconstructed the 1903 engine (after 1908) but again we have to trust him that what he built was a copy of the alleged 1903 motor and not something else.
 
simplex1 said:


It is self evident the Wright brothers took the true value of Smeaton's coefficient from Langley and they had no real contribution in correcting this constant as some authors have claimed.
Click to expand...



Do you believe that any of these authors that you disagree with comment on POA?


Once you win the internets, and all 18 people who have read this thread agree with you about the Wrights, will you be receiving a medal or a ribbon?

images
 
The much celebrated 66% efficiency of the 1903 propellers not confirmed by wind tunnel tests

In an alleged March 6, 1903 note, with calculations regarding the efficiency of their propellers, (see http://www.localhangar.com/cgi-bin/...?POP=yes&CLUBNO=6&reason=show_page&PAGEID=116 ) the Wright brothers simply applied a known elementary relation:

Efficiency_propeller=Thrust * Plane_speed / Power_available,

( 66%=90lbf*24mph/8.73HP )

They needed a 90lbf propeller at 24mph considering a 8.73HP engine was available and they calculated that their propeller should be at least 66% efficient otherwise the required 90lbf thrust to keep the plane aloft would not have been reached.

Their calculations show just how great the performance of the propeller should have been not how great it really was.

This efficiency was never obtained by the Wright Experience team. The site http://archive.today/0pne0 says that many tests were effectuated and efficiencies between 75% and 82% were obtained which in not 66%.

Wright Experience team also say they replicated, with the help of computers, the 1903 propellers using badly damaged parts of the originals. However, in their reconstructions, they made some assumptions that could have alter the efficiency.

In conclusion the 66% figure is not confirmed. When a team wants to replicate the results or predictions of some inventors the team has to obtain exactly the same results not much better!

In the article "The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane, O. and W. Wright, The Century Magazine, September 1908, pag. 648-649, http://www.loc.gov/resource/mwright.05001574/#seq-5 ", the brothers themselves wrote:

"Our first propellers, built entirely from calculations, gave in useful work 66 per cent. of the power expended. This was about one third more than had been secured by Maxim or Langley."

The text is clear, the two brothers calculated and then obtained a 66% efficiency.

An advanced high efficiency propeller, made by Lucien Chauviere, can be seen in L'Aerophile from May 15, 1908, pag. 182 (see http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6550620m/f192.image.r=helice.langEN ). It is above the propellers presented by the Wright brothers on Aug. 8, 1908 and clearly made before the propellers of the two American inventors became known.

Definitely, Europeans or other inventors did not learn from the Wright brothers how to make efficient propellers. The opposite seems to be true.

Basically the two brothers appeared in Aug. 1908 with propellers already available in France since 1907 and claimed they had invented them back in 1903.
 
SoloEqs said:
Wing warping and rudder control were used and reported on by John Montgomery in 1895, long before the Wrights "developed" them.
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Perhaps my english is incorrect.
I said the development (a significant consequence or event: recent developments in the field of science.) Of (aileron i.e. wing warping and rudder) control (to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command.)

I never said they invented them or were the first to use them. They learned how (developed) to control those movements.
 
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