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Aviation
Fans Celebrate First Flight |
Posted:
12.15.03
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This week, aviation enthusiasts are celebrating the Wright brothers'
first flight with exhibits, air shows and other events in places
around the country, culminating in a reenactment of the Wrights'
accomplishment in Kill Devil Hills on Dec. 17.
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Much has changed about flight from its inception one hundred
years ago. Aircraft have crossed the continent and broken the
sound barrier; spacecraft have explored planets and our sun, and
touched the edge of the solar system. But its beginnings were
more humble.
 America
at the start of the 20th century was a nation on the move. Cities
were growing and becoming electrified, more and more automobiles
were dotting the roads and bicycling was a booming pastime. The
nation, and the world, were ripe for the advent of aviation.
Countries including Germany, France and the United States were
in a race to build the first piloted, powered, heavier-than-air
craft that would help speed transportation. The Wright brothers
from Dayton, Ohio, would accomplish that feat on Dec. 17, 1903.
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Seeds of
flight |
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The spark of invention may have come the day Wilbur and Orville
Wright's father gave them a flying toy that was powered with a
rubber band. The brothers soon broke the cork, bamboo and paper
plaything, but spent many hours working on repairing and replicating
it.
As they got older, they started researching other people's experiments
in aviation, including engineers Otto Lilienthal from Germany
and Octave Chanute, who was born in France. Fascination with mechanical
things led them to build a printing press and publish several
local newspapers, including the West Side News and the Dayton
Tattler.
The brothers also took advantage of the popularity of bicycles
to start their own repair shop, where they designed and sold their
own models. It was in their bicycle shop that they started building
models -- one of which would later become the Wright Flyer.
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Building
the flying machine |
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By the late 1890s, Wilbur and Orville were working full tilt
on a machine that could fly. They gathered information related
to flight from the Smithsonian Institution and studied birds to
understand basic aerodynamics.
In August 1899, the brothers built a two-winged kite with a 5-foot
wingspan and fixed tail. They were concerned with controlling
a flying structure, rather than stability or propulsion, which
ended up being the key to their success.
They discovered that the wings could be warped, or twisted, to
make the structure roll from one side to the other in a controlled
manner. They tested this design on the kite, using ropes pulled
from the ground. On subsequent gliders and aircraft, they used
cables that the pilot operated. Other early aircraft designers
would use this breakthrough technique known as wing warping.
 In
the autumn of 1900, Wilbur, who was at that point 33, and Orville,
who had just turned 29, traveled to Kill Devil Hills on North
Carolina's Outer Banks to test a piloted glider. They chose that
spot because of the area's strong, steady winds and seclusion
- they didn't want the public to see their design until it actually
worked.
The Wrights discovered some of the data on the wing design they
had been using was wrong and decided to redo their lift and drag
tables. They also remembered that inventors sometimes used wind
tunnels, and decided to build one.
In their 5-foot-long wooden wind tunnel, they tested 200 different
airfoils, or wing shapes. They added other features to their design,
such as a single hinged fin to act as a rudder to help the structure
make smooth turns.
The resulting craft could be controlled through all three axes
of motion - pitch, yaw and roll - the basis for powered flight.
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The first
successful flights |
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Wilbur and Orville took a more advanced creation back to Kill
Devil Hills in the fall of 1903. This time, the two-winged biplane
had two propellers and a four-cylinder engine. The craft had a
40-foot-4-inch wingspan and weighed about 750 pounds with the
pilot.
 On
Dec. 14, Wilbur made the first attempt, lying on his stomach in
a hip cradle that he moved to help guide the airplane. The flyer
rolled down a trolley rail to gain speed and then sailed into
the air for a few seconds before it stalled and dropped to the
sand.
The brothers fixed the plane and tried again Dec. 17. It was
Orville's turn. The flyer soared into the air and traveled 120
feet for 12 seconds, marking the first controlled, piloted, powered
flight.
He wrote in his journal: "This flight lasted only 12 seconds,
but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world
in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own
power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without
reduction of speed and had finally landed at a point as high as
that from which it started."
 They
flew three more times that day, the last of which lasted 59 seconds
before the airplane touched down 852 feet from its launching point.
A strong gust of wind then toppled the wooden, wire and fabric
plane, destroying it.
Nevertheless, the two men's place in history was sealed. And
65-and-a-half years later, Neil Armstrong carried some fabric
and two tiny pieces of wood from the Wright Brothers plane sewn
into his spacesuit when he walked on the moon.
The actual 1903 Wright flyer is on display at the National Air
and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
--
Larisa Epatko, Online NewsHour
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