Two Brothers Who Made History

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 24, 29 January 1938, Page 14 (Supplement)

Two Brothers Who Made History

8y... Wayne Thomis

THE first flight and the giant ocean-going Clippers of to-day are separated by only 34 years. It was on December 17, 1903, that the Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, made the pioneer effort. As inventors and superb pilots of their own aeroplanes, the Wrights have received such universal acclaim during the decadei since the first successful jump off the earth that further praise for these i phases of their accomplishments is j pointless and repetitious. But there is another side of the story—a side all too well concealed from most of us. Because of petty jealousies, and because it is human to stretch and twist the truth to make a good tale, the world

at large h«# been M to berlere thai the Wrights were mere bicycle mechanics who chanced upon the knowledge that enabled them to fly. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The brothers, as all who know the history of their efforts now agree, were the greatest of aeronautical scientists. In addition "to being profound original thinkers and inveetigators, they also w«re fine all-round engineers. Let us list their achievements both in the field of pu«e science and in that of engineering.. The list is in chronological order: (1) They discovered and perfected a method of achieving wing balance in the air when they worked out the principle of the aileron or the warping wing in July of 1899. This, the first discovery of the brothers, is of the utmost importance and was missed entirely by other aeronautical experimenters. (2) In September and October of 1900, in practical experiments, with full-scale gliders at Kitty Hawk, N.C., they began to suspect that the tables of wing lift and air resistance which constituted the only aeronautical data of the time where entirely wrong. The next summer they proved that these tables, prepared and supposedly confirmed by the world's greatest scientists, were inaccurate. Brothers Made Fhst Wind Tunnel (3) During the winter of 1901-02 the brothers invented the world's first wind tunnel—a mechanical device through which they were able to obtain their own accurate tables of wing resistance and lift. No one else in the world had been able to devise such an instrument, and consequently no one else was able to get the information they possessed. (4) On October 2, 1902, they realised the necessity for a movable rudder to be worked in conjunction with the wingwarping principle. With the rudder once attached, the aeroplane as we know it to-day was virtually ready to perform. (6) In the spring of 1903 the Wrights designed and built their own fourcylinder, four-cycle, water-cooled engine when manufacturers were unable to supply their needs. (6) The same spring they calculated for the first time a formula for the design of a propeller. This had never . before been done even for ocean-going steamers. Their calculations worked out perfectly in practice. (7) In September, 1904, the brothers constructed the first aeroplane catapult, the propelling foree being energy developed by the dropping of a 600pound weight from a height of eighteen feet. They built it to help their lowpowered 'planes into the air, but to-day catapults are used the world over to

I shoot aeroplane* off the decks of ships. j Engineers are even considering the use i of catapults to assist take-off I>y future large land 'planee. Consider these items. Remember that no books of reference existed to which the brothers might turn for guidance or inspiration. There were no records of experiments save those which their own work had shown to be inaccurate. Realise that all these discoveries represented purely creative work of the highest order. Take the item of win* balance— lateral control. Otto Liljenthal, the great German pioneer; Octave Chanute, the enthusiast, and even the great Dr. Samuel P. Langley, secretary of the Smtithsonian institution, who had by that time enjoyed some success with steam-driven model aerodromes, as he called them, had failed to perceive what the Wrights immediately saw—that side balance must be under the control of the aeroplane operator. How Wilbur Got An Idea Lilienthal relied on shifting his weight t» balance hi* eraft. Chanute and Langley and others relied upon built-in, inherent stability in their models, but failed to see that this very inherent stability prevented them from being manoeuvreable, usable, man-carrying machines. Th* Wright* Ad aot make these mistakes. They- hit on the idea of balancing the wingi by warping their tip*. Wilbur had the firet vision of this control when he twisted the cardboard cover of a box whfU tending a customer in the brothers' little bicycle shop in Dayton. H« saw that the idea smoothed the way and bettered the plan he and Orville had first discussed of hinging an entire wing so it could be moved by the pilot. They already had seen that too many problems of construction stood in the way of this solution of the balancing difficulty. J

Now consider the originality of their thinking. They alone of all the brilliant men who had attacked the science of flying were willing to challenge the authenticity of the aeronautical tables of lift and resistance prepared by Lilicnthal and supposedly confirmed by Lengley. The challenge was purely on the basie of gliding experiments they conducted. The experiments were unsuccessful, therefore the tables must be inaccurate. Others had the same lack of success with gliders built in accordance with the same Üblee, but no one else decided the tables were wrong. The others were prevented from arriving at this conclusion probably because they had too much respect for the scientific men to doubt their pronouncements. But not the Wrights. Their mind* were incisive. No mere matter of personal renown of scientists living or dead could prevent their thinking through to the right conclusion regarding the tables. After proving the accepted tables wrong in the 1901 experiments the brothers quickly found a way to work

out true and accurate tables of their own—something that had been beyond the capacity of the so-called scientists. Oryille first eaw that whirling an airfoil on a circular table was not the way to obtain the information they ■wanted—the real lift and resistance, or "lift and drift," of an airfoil, as they then called it. He decided the way to do this was to hold the airfoil steadyand blow air past it. So the brothers"built the world's first wind tunnel, it being Bft long and ICin square and costing them about 15 dollars. Baffling mysteries about the positions and movements of centres of pressure and centres of lift for any airfoil about which the brothers were curious became crystal clear in their tunnel. So they obtained their new tables of primary importance, tables without which no successful aeroplane could possibly have been constructed. This was pure 6cience, and no one in the world except the brothers Wright had that information in 1902. Through the new tables they were able to calculate exactly how much wing area their first real aeroplane should have to be able to carry the weight of the pilot, its motor, fuel, etc And this they did. Their'first power ship wae not built on a hit-or-miss basis. They knew exactly how heavy it might be and still fly. They built it to formula. Bat first they tried out this new information in construction of their 1902 glider. And it was on this glider that they experimented first with the movable rudder. The rudder answered a need they discovered am their air experience increased. Warping their wing tips would keep their glider* 1«t«1 in atraight flight, the brothers had found, bat when they banked their glider for a turn they had a tendency to skid because the wing on the outside of the turn came around too fast. On the night ef October t, Orville, while tossing slecplessly at their Kitty Hawk base, suddenly saw that if they had a movable rudder which could, eav, be turned to the right while the glider was making a left turn, the rudder might prevent the right wing from swinging

! too rapidly. On October fi the first flights with the improved rudder were made, and these proved it a success. From the 1100 gliding flights made by the brothers that year they evolved another theory which aided them greatly. They found that flying required a technique new to man—a technique to be learned only by flying. So they flew. From what is now known it is believed that neither of the Wrights considered the building of their aeroplane motor a great achievement. Nevertheless it was an outstanding job of engineering. The late Charles Manly was the only person in the world to do a better job with an engine. Manly's motor, built for Professor Langley's experiments, developed 50 horsepower, while the Wrights' motor of about the same weight developed only twelve for flight purposes. The Wrights flew in spite of iitheir engine instead of because of it, as so many of the untrue accounts of the brothers have it. The creation of a formula for the length end pitch of the two propellers chosen for their power machine was a

great mathematical triumph, arrived at after weeks of preliminary discussion. Xot for a dozen years afterward were other aeronautical engineers successful in duplicating this feat, for the brothers did not make public their figures. Wilbur and Orville then had no doubt that their 'plane would fly when they went back to Kitty Hawk in 1903. They knew it would fly, for they had learned the science of flight. They were the world's greatest aeronautical scientists, and ■ still are, for even to-day their principles are embodied in every practical aeroplane in the world. There have been lefineniems but no essential advances. The true story of the Wright brother* is a thrilling, inspiring one. It is all too sad that due to small-mindedness on the part of officials at the Smithsonian institution in Washington, Orville Wright, the surviving brother—Wilbur died in 1912—is unwilling to allow the original Wright airplane to be exhibited there. Instead he teat H Iβ 1025 to the Soottk Kensington Museum in London, where it is displayed, as it rightfully should be, as the world's first man-carrying aeroplane. It is there only on loan, however, and all Americans hope that tome day Orville Wright will place the machine in a museum in the United States where it can become a shrine for all aeronautical enthusiasts. The Rosenwald Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago's Jackson Park, where a great aeronautical section is being gathered, would be a logical and proper place where this treasure and world wonder could rest permanently.