Posted on 12/17/2014 11:49:14 AM PST by EveningStar
It is equipped with side stick controls like an F-16 Fighting Falcon. It uses an advanced, “mission adaptive” wing that has no seams at the control surfaces. The wing is so unique its design is protected under U.S. patent 821,393. The entire wing changes shape to control the roll axis of the aircraft ...
And it is the first successful powered aircraft ever, the Wright Flyer.
111 years ago today Orville Wright became the first man to achieve powered flight. His first 12-second flight, covering only 120 feet, changed the course of mankind.
10:35 Local, Thursday, 17 December, 1903; Kill Devil Hill, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina ...
(Excerpt) Read more at alert5.net ...
It’s usually always quite breezy there.
Spent a week on the Outer Banks a few years ago, and the wind can make it a little chilly, even on a warm Summer day. It’s a beautiful place, just not a lot to do. Great for a ‘laid back’ type of vacation.
Thanks. At least my memory isn’t slipping yet!
CC
I’ve oftened wondered why the 12 second flight is always majored as what changed everything; it did, but before they quit the beach they were staying aloft for much longer periods of time. It was the event at Kitty Hawk.
I remember the newspaper article describing the first flight of the “langley aerodrome”. It said the craft “slid into the potomac like a handful of wet cement”.
LOL
CC
Wilbur.
CC
Dayton is the true home of heavier than air flight, no matter what NC says.
CC
I already have.
The irony is that although the Wrights invented some fundamental analysis of lift and drag, and I think were the first to make a wind tunnel, they were fixated on getting that permanent patent on flight, and when others came along after them they had difficulty asserting their prior art. Their only proof of their initial flight was an article in a newspaper which they were initially unhappy was published.
Ironically, their approach to the problem of flight was quite limited, and advances by Glenn Curtis and others quickly transcended all of the Wrights’ technology. To such an extent that nothing unique to the Wrights’ design remains in use.
Basically their achievement constituted proof-of-concept which legitimated the efforts of Curtis and others. Less the beginning of flight as we know it than the end of the presumption that powered, heavier-than-air flight was not possible.
It is easy to see that powered flight only works when you have a light enough power plant generating enough power; the Wrights’ design successfully finessed the limitations of a marginally good-enough power plant. One of the ways they did it was with the twisted propeller, shaped the way you see a rubber-band powered model aircraft propeller is shaped. That milked the most thrust out of their marginal power plant for the low speed flight regime. Another such decision is their canard pitch control, which provides positive lift rather than a negative lift as in conventional horizontal tail design. It works - at low speed. Which is the only regime their engine was ever going to take them. At high speed, such a design is hopelessly unstable (in the absence of sophisticated technology to control it). The Wrights depended on being low and slow enough that the instability crashes would be survivable.
The Wrights’ achievement is impressive. But they solved the problem of flying at all, without doing much in the way of power plant development. In retrospect their design is a quaint backwater from the time when engines adequate to high and fast flight did not yet exist.
Yes, Wilbur’s last flight that day was 852ft 59 sec. Wilbur won the initial coin toss on the 14th. History says he rose to fast and stalled it. The plane had to be repaired. There was some writings I read that Orville running in the sand at launch tipped the wing he was supporting. Either way, the brothers and the great Charlie Taylor made history.
First toured the area in AUG 1977. Even then, the area surrounding Kill Devil Hills was fairly developed with housing. The National Park site was/is a large flat area bordered by the huge sand dunes of Kill Devil Hills. They had the 2 recreated shacks/hangars at that time. It was fun watching the touroids taking hang gliding lessons and crashing face first into the sand close by the National Park.
Had the great pleasure in 1995 of flying with a friend into the adjacent, uncontrolled, First Flight Airport. That was quite the buzz flying in past the Wright Brothers Memorial.
An article sent to me by a fellow FReeper about Charles Taylor. This puts the engine in prospective.
https://dljh1964.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/charles-e-taylor-the-man-aviation-history-almost-forgot/
My Mother was born in 1903
Cool. I’ll dedicate today’s flight to “Kitty Hawk Day”.
106 Years Ago Today: Woman’s First Powered Flight.
Thérèse Peltier made a solo flight of 200 metres at a
height of 2.5 metres at the Military Square in Turin, Italy.
The exact date of this flight has not been ascertained at
present but it was reported in the weekly Italian
magazine “L’Illustrazione Italiana” of 27 September 1908.
there fixed it
There is also a very well done museum at First Flight. Lots of tooling and hand made parts to be sen, as well as research notes, drawings, etc.
These were not just 2 “bicycle mechanics”, today they would be called design engineers. Cutting edge design for the day.
Although it is way off the beaten path, it is worth the trip, even easier if you fly your Cessna or Piper in and land at the co-located air strip.
Recently came upon this info...interesting if nothing else:
http://texaslesstraveled.com/brodbeck.htm
Wow, thanks for this, I never heard of it before!
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