Wright Brothers

From the “Virginian Pilot”, (“12 pages in two parts”, “True to the Democratic Party in victory or defeat”, Norfolk Va. Friday December 18, 1803, Three cents per copy):

“Flying machine soars 3 miles in teeth of high wind over sand hills and waves at Kitty Hawk on Carolina Coast.

No balloon attached to aid it.

Three years of hard, secret work by two Ohio brothers crowned with success.

Accomplished what Langley failed at.

With man as passenger huge machine flew like bird under perfect control.

Box kite principle with two propellers.

The problem of aerial navigation without the use of a balloon has been solved at last”.

And what is right here in our backyard:

A company called:
Curtiss Wright (!), (European Division)

Best regards

Dave,

No offence taken,
‘
There is a rash of very interesting books on the market that explain in great detail the beginnings of flight. Much to my chargrin, it seems all the bookstores are full of Wright Brother’s books and of course Charles Lindberg. No offense against either of these two subjects, but I prefer other aviation related topics. I do admit the Wright Bros books are fascinating when you learn that there were many other large organizations that were fully funded and yet weren’t even close to what the Wrights achieved
Take Care,
TTP

Wilbur died from Typhus in 1912, 45 years old.

Orville in 1948, 78.

The crippling patent battle was solved when USA needed to build many planes for World War One. The Government bought the patent.

Orville sold the aircraft factory in 1915 for 250.000$.

In 1901 the American astrophycisist Simon newcomb concluded that it would be impossible to build a flying machine heavier than air. Adm. Melville, chief engineer of the US Navy, also saw the difficulties, and that a prototype would cost more than the most expensive warship (it would today!?)

Octave Chanute – only by united efforts of many men, and a lot of money. (He later worked with the Wrights)

When Langleys Aerodrome crashed into the Potomac for the second time from a houseboat (he didn’t believe in “keep it simple s…..”) the US Government withdrew all support. N Y Times editorial: “The flying machine might be evolved …in from one to ten mio. years”. Nine days before 17’th December 2003!

11 years later the Aerodrome was completely rebuilt – yes, by Curtiss – and the Smithsonian and flown twice from a lake (5 seconds). And exhibited as the first working aircraft!

(From Bill Gunston: Plane Speaking and a Danish book from 2003)

Best regards

Just adding a little more about Richard Pearse.

Richard Pearse invented some novel features on his aircraft ,…like the variable pitch prop, steerable tricycle undercarriage, rear elevator, and wing flaps to name a few.

The engine he designed and built was truly remarkable though.
It was a horizontally opposed twin cylinder (like half a Cont 0-200).
But, it fired in both directions, effectively making it a 4 cylinder.

History is a bit vague on when he really (if it all) did fly.

Still, it’s good to have inventiveness back then. We wouldn’t have the technology today if we did have those early aviation pioneers, whether they be American, French British, or even NZers.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

The original Wright Flyer came to the Science Museum in London when the Smithsonian credited Langley with the first flight.

IIRC, somebody, (possibly Curtiss?), modified (a lot) the Langley Aerodrome so it did eventually fly.

The Smithsonian finally agreed the the Wrights had been the first during WW2 and the Flyer went back. Whichever was the surviving brother ensured the Science Museum had time to build a replica first. I think the replica engine was built by the DH Technical School from the original patterns. Anybody been to South Ken more recently than me and remember for certain?

There were many patent battles, and the story of the Smithsonian backing Langley s Aerodrome. The original Wright then went to London until after the second World War, so disappointed was the Wrights – or was that after one of them died?

Anyway here is a replica of Glen Curtiss pusher D from Old Rhinebeck. He “invented” the ailerons to circumvent the wingwarping patent of Wright. Note that the ailerons are mounted between the wings. (a little hard to see here)
The Wrights also had ailerons, but on the wings.

There are many claims to have beatern the Wrights. Celmet Alder, Santos du Mont, Langley etc but history records the Wrights as the first.
As for publicity at the time we have to remember that many had clamed to be the first. The press and public had become bored of fitst flights storied and many beleived it could not be done.
Lest just hope something is done in the UK in 2008 to commerate S.F. Cody’s first flight here in Farnborough in 1908?

Before we go any further,I think it’s important to point out that Richard Pearse was not the first man to achieve powered flight.It’s uncertain that he ever flew at all in fact.The claims that Pearse was the first to fly have been made by others since,and not by the man himself.These claims and rumours were already cropping up in Pearse’s lifetime,and he made extensive efforts to quash these rumours himself,writing to national newspapers and scientific periodicals etc denying claims which had been made by others on his behalf.He never claimed to have achieved controlled,powered flight himself.

Hm. Maybe it was a RUSSIAN (Alexandr Fyodorovich Mozhaisky)who did the first “heavier than air” flight? 😀 Actually in Russia the Wright brothers were never acknowledged as the first.

But all the others in the “heavier than air” club, be it Weisskopf, be it Mozhaisky, be it Phillpps, had no full steering control and/or no sustainable propulsion. The Wrights were the first to have all that, and they used a scientific approach to the problem, something that the others didn’t do.

Dave

re your comment about flyer being a 2 seater. There were several (powered) flyers.

The original 1903 flyer, was single manned with a prone pilot, and flew only on the famous day in Dec 1903. As described above it didn’t use a catapult, but did fly from rails angled into the wind.

The next two flyers were of similar arrangement. The 1904 flew only a few times. It was with the 1905 flyer that the Wrights learnd to fly circuits for extended periods. The trials of the 1905 flyer took place on the prairies near Dayton at 1800ft and in the middle of summer. That was the prompt for using the catapult, although the effects of height and temperature on lift weren’t understood at the time.

The brothers then did not fly for two and a half years. It was the 1908 flyer that had seats for 2, with the passenger between the pilot and the engine.

Ken

Hey TTP,

What are you on about? I was not alluding to any such thing that the Americans are dumb and they copied the New Zealanders.

I have no idea whether Richard Pearce of New Zealand flew first, second or otherwise and have no real opinion on that debate. The history books state the Wrights were first, and I’m happy to believe that unless someone proves otherwise, which I doubt will ever happen.

I was simply repeating the jist of what the article from 1942 states and I wondered if this was well known because I had never heard that no-one believed them for four years till reading this, and nor had my father or a few other mates when I asked them.

My latter quip regarding US history was not about inventions nor aviation, but about how a lot of history is inaccurate or overlooked, and in my experience having studied the history of several countries in some depth, there is a lot of twisting and overlooking certain facts in US history – one example is right from day one with the tale that Christopher Columbus discovered America.

I freely admit that there is probably a lot of our own NZ history that is also wrong. After all, history is written only by the winners, and sometimes winners cheat and lie.

If you found my original post offensive I apologise, it was not meant to be in the slightest. I simply tell it as I see it.

I also found a lot of what you posted to be quite interesting, so thanks. I’ve learned a bit more about the first flight. I didn’t even realise that the Wright Flyer was a two seater.

And your country has given the world a lot, much more than us. You guys invented the Flying Fortress, the Liberator, the Dakota, the Catalina, the Mustang (with a smidgeon of help from Rolls Royce), the beautiful Lockheed Hudson (my favourite bomber), the Corsair, the Kittyhawk, and best of all, the Simpsons. All things to be very proud of.

We, however, have mainly come up with foolish things like splitting the atom, jumping off bridges with a piece of elastic tied to your feet, jet boats that allow you to drive a boat at 100kmph in six inches of water straight at a rockface, and climbing the world’s tallest mountain just to say you’ve “knocked the bugger off”, …. not much there for mankind really.

I hope there’s no hard fellings
Dave

TTP,

Ignore the stupid jibes – this is an international forum and the sooner people learn to co-exist on it the better.

Don’t forget that the Wrights had actually been flying unpowered versions of their aircraft for three years BEFORE 17 December 1903 so they knew instinctively how they behaved. People trying to emulate their achievements today are coming at the task with virtually no experience of flying these extremely marginal types of machines. Most have had pretty extensive experience of flying much more controllable modern types and they do not have the “feel” for these early contraptions.

The difficulty modern flyers have in copying what the Wrights did only serves to underscore the Wrights’ achievements.

The first flight was by the two AMERICANs Orville and Wilber Wright, Despite all your alluding that maybe it was some “American plot” After all how could stupid Americans invent anything!!! they just copy New Zealanders!

The first flight occured without the use of a catapult, and they did fly, but the wind that day was around 20 knots which helped it fly. The replica that flew this past December was an EXACT COPY of THE ORIGINAL, So it didn’t matter one iota that modern engineers built it, even though they didn’t. What actually happened was that the original Wright Flyer was a highly unstable aircraft. The margin between minimum flying speed and max speed was very slim only a couple of knots, somewhere between 23 knots and 29 knots. The fact that the Wrights were able to fly was largely due to their skill, and the winds allowing a safe airspeed. The day of the re-enactment they needed at least 15 knots but only achieved 12 knots and to add to their problems it rained which didn’t help, so they were unable to fly.
The Wrights did tell people about their first flight, but many did not believe them and their aircraft was destroyed, So they spent the next year building a better model so they could try to sell it to the Army. Also they began Patent proceedings to protect their invention. They feared as soon as others realized they figured out the secret of flight they would just copy their design. So they kept everything quiet for a few years.
But don’t believe me I’m just some dumb American…….
Wish we were as smart as all of you,
TTP

The first flights from Kill Devil Hills were not catapulted. (As the re-enactment was not!) That it was not possible to pull this off (17’th Dec. 2003) is interesting even with the help of the best testpilots and engineers.

Wind tunnels, compensating for adverse yaw, correcting Lillienthals research – they were certainly not ordinary bicycle smiths.

Best regards

One of the biggest problems Europe had with the brothers flight is that they were catapaulted into the air and did not take off under their own steam.

Certainly there are people who still believe Dumant was the first to fly because of this.

Tank

I’m currently reading Ian Mackersays (sp?) book on the brothers. It does appear that very few people believed that they had flown. The French claimed at the time that Santos Dumant was the first (1905). The Wrights initially tried to sell their invention as an observation platform by the military but repeated advances to the American army were knocked back. The British prevaricated and went their own way. The French and Germans…

The book highlights the Wrights reluctance to demonstrate their flying machine until an order was signed, for fear that their ideas would be stolen. Hence the lack of publicity.