Flying for Fun
D.B. Mathews 909 N. Maize Rd., Townhouse 734, Wichita KS 67212
The December column’s theme was the use of model aircraft by the Wright brothers, and others, in the development of the first man-carrying, heavier-than-air aircraft. Since submitting that text I’ve noticed a need to clarify what I see as two separate but interrelated and extremely essential developments by the brothers that made manned, powered flight possible.
First, throughout the earlier years of building and flying gliders, model and manned, the Wrights read every printed word they could find on the subject (sound and fanciful) to develop a planform that was capable of sustained flight yet stable enough to allow for safe operation. The bulk of these theories and their adaptations were first tried on model aircraft, for obvious reasons.
As I mentioned last month, several other pioneers had arrived at admittedly primitive guidelines that allowed an object to glide down a hill or into the wind, albeit inconsistently. However, the Wrights were the first to succeed with repeatable extended flights of their gliders.
The second component was every bit as essential as the first: the ability to control the aircraft in all three planes and even change its trajectory. All of the mentioned pioneers’ earlier gliders depended on shifting the pilot’s weight to affect the aircraft’s attitude in flight.
By 1902 the brothers, through hundreds of hours of calculations and discussion, had progressed to a pilot laying on top of a biplane’s bottom wing while operating movable elevator, rudder, and wing-warp controls. In the early versions, wing warp (ailerons) was activated through a harness around the pilot’s hips while the elevator and rudder were controlled by the pilot moving vertical sticks with his hands.
The Wright brothers had essentially succeeded in creating a flying machine that was sufficiently inherently stable to be safe to fly; then they added movable controls to destabilize the aircraft so that it could be turned and climbed.
In 1890 Octave Chanute delivered a speech at Cornell University in which he prophesied that the solution to manned flight would be hastened if an association were formed to devote itself to the task. He insisted no one man could be an inventor to imagine new shapes and new motors, a mechanical engineer to design the arrangement of the apparatus, a mathematician to calculate strength and stresses, a practical mechanic to construct the parts, or a syndicate of capitalists to furnish the needed funds.
Chanute was correct; no one man was able to satisfy all of those requirements, but two men were: the Wright brothers. The facts that they were never married, so they had no responsibilities to families; that they had a maiden sister to watch after them like a mother; and that although not formally educated they had read and assimilated everything written on the subject, had taught themselves mathematics and engineering, and had the natural mechanical skills to convert ideas into realities enabled these brothers to accomplish manned flight while better-educated and better-funded competitors could not.
You may be aware of the Wrights’ development of the first practical wind tunnel (which is on display in the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio), but did you know that they developed a mathematical expression of the volume of lift generated by specific airfoils still in use today as Reynolds numbers? The legend of the twisted inner-tube box to lock onto wing warping is a well-known story, but the significant thing is their discovery of the need for wing warping to control roll.
Did you know that among the large number of test flights with unmanned tethered gliders, the Wrights developed a system to alter the horizontal stabilizer’s angle of attack using a stick with lines attached top and bottom to move the elevator up and down from the ground? So who invented control-line flying?
Another thing to consider is that the Wright brothers had much more flying time tethered to a hill and gliding into the wind down a hill than anyone else. Considering the need for instinctive corrections required in flight, this accumulated time was a significant factor when they finally succeeded in getting a powered airplane into the air.
The Power System
In chatting with others who have historical interest in the 1903 Wright Flyer, we all seem to know the least about the power system. The following is an excerpt from Fred Howard’s Wilbur and Orville.
In the fall of 1902, they had sent letters to a number of motor manufacturers, hoping to purchase a relatively vibrationless motor weighing not more than 180 pounds. Ten replied, but none could deliver, so the brothers decided to build a motor themselves with Charlie Taylor’s help.
When finished the motor was a simplified version of a contemporary automobile motor, with four water-cooled horizontal, in-line cylinders, but without fuel pump or carburetor. Fuel was injected directly into the cylinders by gravity from a tank with a capacity of about a quart and a half.
There were no spark plugs. Opening and closing two contact points in each cylinder created the spark. The cylinders were primed in advance with a few drops of gasoline. Dry batteries provided the spark until after starting, when a throw knife switch bought at a local hardware store was thrown to switch the current from batteries to a low-tension magneto driven by a twenty-six pound flywheel.
The speed of the motor could be regulated by retarding or advancing the spark, but it was impractical for the operator to alter speed in flight.
At first glance, the propellers seemed to be a simple project. The Wrights presumed that a large volume of data would be available on designing ship propellers. They also presumed that theirs would simply be operating in a more liquid environment.
After numerous trips to the Dayton library, they concluded that the data available for ship propellers was almost entirely empirical and the result of cut-and-try engineering rather than any solid formula or experimental work. They then concluded that their own data on lifting surfaces passing through air was much more scientific and that they should apply it to propeller design.
The result was two 8-foot units with an airfoil-like shape front and back, fabricated from three layers of spruce glued together then shaped with a hatchet and a spokeshave.
The Wrights decided to use two propellers instead of one mounted behind the wing rather than in front to ensure that the flying surfaces would be moving through air stirred up by the whirling blades. Not only would two propellers act on a greater quantity of air, but by running one clockwise and one counterclockwise, any twisting effect (torque) on lateral control would be eliminated.
Power was transmitted from motor to propellers through a series of chains and sprockets. The chains were not from bicycles; they were purchased from the Diamond Chain Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, and were a larger, heavier version used in early automobile transmissions. The contrarotation of the propellers was achieved by crossing the chain in a figure eight and enclosing it in a metal tube to avoid flapping.
No Walk in the Park
Biographical material that I’ve read about the Wrights has glossed over the problems they encountered in the fall and early winter of 1903. A few days after their arrival, the Outer Banks of North Carolina was struck by a violent hurricane which severely damaged the old tar-paper hangar/living quarters. A replacement hangar had to be constructed, and the old unit had to be repaired. Fortunately the Flyer had not arrived from the railroad yet.
The hollow metal shafts originally used to turn the propellers proved to be too weak, necessitating Wilbur’s return to Dayton for repairs, then another wait for shipment of solid metal shafts. These delays pushed them well into the cold of December, making their stay on the cape most uncomfortable.
Did You Know?
- Neither brother had a middle name. They had two older brothers: Reuchlin, who lived and worked in Kansas City, Kansas, first as an accountant then later as a farmer in Tonganoxie, Kansas; and Lorin, who settled in Dayton and worked as a bookkeeper. Both had children, and Orville and Wilbur were reportedly doting uncles.
- The glider wings were covered with muslin on the top surfaces only, but the 1903 Flyer had muslin on both surfaces of the wings. Only the outer quarter of each wing could be warped on the 1903 Flyer; the center sections were rigid for added strength.
- Samuel Langley used a $50,000 payment from the War Department, $10,000 from Smithsonian funds, and another $13,000 from a grant to develop the Aerodrome, which flopped into the Potomac River so ingloriously. The Wrights, on the other hand, used only their own funds, causing them to be frugal to a fault. Orville totaled up all expenses incurred for the 1903 flights, including transportation, at $1,000. For instance, the "wheels" used to roll the aircraft down the launching ramp were hub sections of bicycle wheels.
- Orville contracted typhoid fever and nearly died in 1896. After his recovery, the family became extremely careful about the water they drank and always insisted that it be boiled before their use when they were away from home. In spite of that, Wilbur contracted typhoid and died in 1912.
- When the AMA Nationals was scheduled to be held in Dayton in 1976, my oldest son and I put the Wright brothers’ bicycle shop at the top of our want-to-see list. When we arrived at the counter to pick up a rental car, we inquired about the route to the shop. The response from the young ladies at the counter was one of total confusion; they had no idea what we were talking about. Come to find out, the entire thing had been acquired by the Ford Motor Company many years before and moved to Greenfield Village in Michigan.
Space limitations leave me no choice but to end this inside look at the Wright brothers with their successful flight on that December day. Many more events occurred after that first group of flights. I strongly recommend interested readers obtain a copy of Wilbur or Orville by Fred Howard.
I hope this overview of the events leading to that first manned flight has added to your knowledge, engendered some pride in the role that model aircraft played in that achievement, and dispelled some of the prevailing myths regarding the eccentricity and "stuffiness" of the brothers Wright.
MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
