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topic: Wright Brothers (68 articles)

How is it that we can fly?

February 6, 2020, 2:09:34 pm EST

How is it that we can fly?

Haven't I asked and answered that one before?

Wright Brothers

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-one-can-explain-why-planes-stay-in-the-air/

No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air

In December 2003, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first flight of the Wright brothers, the New York Times ran a story entitled “Staying Aloft; What Does Keep Them Up There?” The point of the piece was a simple question: What keeps planes in the air? To answer it, the Times turned to John D. Anderson, Jr., curator of aerodynamics at the National Air and Space Museum and author of several textbooks in the field.

What Anderson said, however, is that there is actually no agreement on what generates the aerodynamic force known as lift. “There is no simple one-liner answer to this,” he told the Times. People give different answers to the question, some with “religious fervor.” More than 15 years after that pronouncement, there are still different accounts of what generates lift, each with its own substantial rank of zealous defenders. At this point in the history of flight, this situation is slightly puzzling. After all, the natural processes of evolution, working mindlessly, at random and without any understanding of physics, solved the mechanical problem of aerodynamic lift for soaring birds eons ago. Why should it be so hard for scientists to explain what keeps birds, and airliners, up in the air?

Adding to the confusion is the fact that accounts of lift exist on two separate levels of abstraction: the technical and the nontechnical. They are complementary rather than contradictory, but they differ in their aims. One exists as a strictly mathematical theory, a realm in which the analysis medium consists of equations, symbols, computer simulations and numbers. There is little, if any, serious disagreement as to what the appropriate equations or their solutions are. The objective of technical mathematical theory is to make accurate predictions and to project results that are useful to aeronautical engineers engaged in the complex business of designing aircraft.

But by themselves, equations are not explanations, and neither are their solutions. There is a second, nontechnical level of analysis that is intended to provide us with a physical, commonsense explanation of lift. The objective of the nontechnical approach is to give us an intuitive understanding of the actual forces and factors that are at work in holding an airplane aloft. This approach exists not on the level of numbers and equations but rather on the level of concepts and principles that are familiar and intelligible to nonspecialists.

When I studied aerodynamics on my own I also found that there were no actual explanations of flight. Not only that, the theories of flight, the equations, were not actually theoretically based, but rather required empirical measurements in order to determine the coefficients of lift and drag. In other words there was no definition of what a wing was.

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1902 Wright and 1895 Lilienthal glider replicas flying together

Wed, Jan 8 2020, 8:44:38 am EST

At Kitty Hawk

video|Otto Lilienthal|history|Wright Brothers|history|Ben Saltzman

Ben Saltzman «Ben Saltzman» writes:

In December, we had the opportunity to make history by flying the 1902 Wright glider and 1895 Liliental glider replicas on the dunes of the Outer Banks.

Short video: https://youtu.be/lVXdHiA3iUo

Air and Space magazine also ran a story about the event, which is here: https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/more-century-later-lilienthal-and-wright-gliders-fly-together-first-time-kitty-hawk-180973882/

Over 4,000 miles and seven years separated the flights of Otto Lilienthal and the Wright brothers. Although the Orville and Wilbur Wright were strongly influenced by Lilienthal’s designs, the men and their aircraft have never been in the same place - until now.

Markus Raffel, Department Head of Helicopters for the Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Göttingen, journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean with his replica of Lilienthal’s 1895 biplane glider to Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head, NC; just 4 miles south of the Wright Brothers National Memorial. There it came face-to-face with the 1902 Wright Glider replica owned by Kitty Hawk Kites. On December 14th, Raffel gave a presentation on Lilienthal’s designs and research into manned flight as well as the construction of the replica with historically accurate materials. Paul Glenshaw, former director of the Discovery of Flight Foundation and writer for the Air and Space Smithsonian Magazine, also gave a presentation on the 1902 Wright Glider’s history, the Wright brothers’ research, and the replica’s construction and numerous flights at Jockey’s Ridge.

Following the presentations, both gliders were brought onto the dunes to take to the sky. Hang gliding pilot and stuntman, Andy Beem of Windsports in L.A. piloted the Lilienthal glider alongside Kitty Hawk Kites hang gliding instructor, Billy Vaughn in the Wright glider. The gliders made 6 concurrent flights on Saturday afternoon until the wind died down. Sunday, December 15th, did not have ideal wind conditions in the forecast but around 10:00 AM the wind picked up and the gliders were carried back to the dunes for another round of flights. With stronger winds the crews decided to fly the gliders separately and make history yet again. Hang gliding pilot, Gisele Dierks from Morningside Flight Park in Charleston, NH was given the reins on the Lilienthal glider and became the first woman known to fly one of Lilienthal’s aircraft.

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Wing Warping

April 5, 2019, 8:07:08 EDT

Wing Warping

The Wright Brothers concept of aircraft control

Wright Brothers

http://news.mit.edu/2019/engineers-demonstrate-lighter-flexible-airplane-wing-0401

Instead of requiring separate movable surfaces such as ailerons to control the roll and pitch of the plane, as conventional wings do, the new assembly system makes it possible to deform the whole wing, or parts of it, by incorporating a mix of stiff and flexible components in its structure. The tiny subassemblies, which are bolted together to form an open, lightweight lattice framework, are then covered with a thin layer of similar polymer material as the framework.

While it would be possible to include motors and cables to produce the forces needed to deform the wings, the team has taken this a step further and designed a system that automatically responds to changes in its aerodynamic loading conditions by shifting its shape — a sort of self-adjusting, passive wing-reconfiguration process.

“We’re able to gain efficiency by matching the shape to the loads at different angles of attack,” says Cramer, the paper’s lead author. “We’re able to produce the exact same behavior you would do actively, but we did it passively.”

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Episode 80 – Can Hang Gliding be saved?

Fri, Nov 30 2018, 7:19:10 am PST

Cloudbase Mayhem podcast

Cloudbase Mayhem|David Glover|Dustin Martin|Francis Rogallo|Larry Tudor|PG|podcast|record|Steven "Steve" Pearson|USHPA|Wright Brothers

https://www.cloudbasemayhem.com/episode-80-can-hang-gliding-be-saved

Hang gliding is arguably the first “extreme sport” in human history and its influences radically changed the world. Drawing inspiration from Leonardo Davinci, Otto Lillienthal built the first foot-launched hang gliders in the late 1800’s. His wings inspired Octave Chanute and his assistants to make thousands of flights at the turn of the last century on the shores of lake Michigan which led to the Wright Brothers’ remarkable inventions and humans take to the skies.

Orville and Wilbur Wright’s flights in the early 1900’s are still hard to wrap your head around. Imagine picking up a 150 pound glider built out of bamboo, balsa and muslin cloth in 30 miles per hour of wind and actually soaring! Their flights in 1911 wouldn’t be matched until the early 1970’s!

Their passion for flight lead to the rapid development of powered aircraft which had a massive impact in the devastating air campaigns of World War I and World War II. Interest in unpowered flight returns after the Wars and the arrival of Francis Rogallo and his genius leads to Hang gliding as we know it. Suddenly we can chase the birds, fulfilling a shared dream that has existed from the beginning of human history.

The sport goes crazy in the early 70’s, over a hundred manufacturers get into the game, performance gains go through the roof, but then so do the accidents. In the late 70’s the Hang Gliding Manufacturers Association creates a certification process and the sport becomes more interested in safety than just getting off the ground at any cost. Gliders continue to innovate at an insane pace and incredible distances are flown: the first 100 mile flight goes down, then Larry Tudor flies 200 miles, then 300 but as wings get more and more sophisticated and fast, they also get more difficult to fly and importantly- to learn.

In 2012 Dustin Martin flies an unbelievable 475 miles in Texas, the farthest anyone has flown on unpowered aircraft but the future of hang gliding is anything but encouraging. What’s next for the sport, and has what’s happened to hang gliding foretelling of paragliding’s future? This is a remarkable tale told eloquently by the legendary Bruce Weaver from Kitty Hawk Kites, the president Wills Wing Steven Pearson, the former president of USHPA and former world record holder David Glover, the “Dark Prince” Larry Tudor and the current world record holder, Dustin Martin.

East Coast pilot gathering, 1973

January 29, 2018, 8:10:01 EST

East Coast pilot gathering, 1973

The year everything began to change

Brad Gryder|East Coast pilot gathering 1973|history|Terry Sweeny|Tommy Thompson|Tom Peghiny|Wright Brothers

Tommy Thompson <<soar8hours>> sends via Brad Gryder:

We all were ground skimming with no mountain flights yet. I showed up at the beach with my own design wing and it was a gathering ground for the east coast pilots. After all, the Wright Brothers chose it for soaring their glider before they added a motor. Their longest flight was 9 min 45 sec!

Tom Peghiny ran the Sky Sports hang glider company along with Terry Sweeny. They made the Bobcat, Lark, Kestrel, Sirocco and Merlin wings. Glider's back then weighed 40 lbs and we're rough as nails.

Knowing how to fly

December 22, 2016, 9:14:26 EST

Knowing how to fly

The basic training

Wright Brothers

http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/flying-gliders-makes-safer-pilots/#.WFqUp1yHOOY

Why Flying Gliders Makes Safer Pilots

Soaring gets more people involved in flying and turns out pilots with outstanding stick-and-rudder skills.

The NTSB and the FAA are taking increasing notice of the category of stupid pilot tricks called departure from controlled flight, or loss of control, a type of accident that more often than not has fatal results. While the safety of light aircraft flying has gotten markedly better over the past couple of decades, one kind of accident, loss of control, has stubbornly persisted. For the FAA, cutting down on loss of control accidents is job one, as it knows that doing that will greatly cut down on accidents overall, and fatal accidents, in particular.

One of the things Lilienthal learned fatally was that weight-shift control wasn’t always entirely adequate, something our modern hang gliders learned again painfully. The Wright brothers built gliders to test their evolving control system and to learn how to fly. They learned how to fly their glider before they were confident enough to build a bigger version to carry an engine.

In my view, powered flight is just a noisy offshoot of glider development.

One of our Experimental Soaring Association members, Mike Sandlin, came out of hang gliding and has been building what he calls “air chairs.” His aircraft are ultralight aluminum structures with cloth covering. They’re designed to be built with what he refers to as “garage technology.” Cartop-able, they can be flown from hang glider sites. They have a seat, aerodynamic controls, a wheel to take off and land on, and can be launched by several methods. Mike has made his designs available on the Internet in a noncommercial way, and people are building and flying them all around the world.

Which is why learning to fly in gliders makes so much sense. Mastering basic stick-and-rudder knowledge and skills is at the very heart of glider training. A training flight in a glider, especially in calm air, lets the student really hear, see and feel exactly how the stick and rudder affect the aircraft.

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Thermal Shark

November 24, 2016, 8:34:21 PST

Thermal Shark

Breaking the Wright Brothers soaring record at Kitty Hawk

Gary Osoba|record|Wright Brothers

Gary Osoba writes:

Thanksgiving Day, 1974:

A call from John Harris of Kitty Hawk Kites, North Carolina reports that a hang glider pilot just broken the site record for endurance, the first flight ever over one hour. The original site and World Record was set by the Wright Brothers on October 24, 1911 and lasted 9 minutes and 45 seconds.

Here's a shot of me flying the original "Thermal Shark," which I designed and manufactured for several years during the 1970's. This was the model that broke the Wright Brothers original record.

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Rhythm Of Flight Episode 7 "Keystone Kites"

February 9, 2016, 11:14:53 pm EST

Rhythm Of Flight Episode 7 "Keystone Kites"

South Carolina

video|Wright Brothers

https://youtu.be/yYUZ6MexT8E

We are very excited to bring you episode seven of our hang gliding series across America!! Follow Jonas and Wolfi as they continue their journey north to South Carolina to the place where flying all first began with the Wright brothers, Kitty Hawk!

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Flying in the movies

December 15, 2015, 7:40:57 EST

Flying in the movies

It started at Kitty Hawk

record|Wright Brothers

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/magazine/the-art-of-flying-in-the-movies.html?ref=movies

But just in case: Orville and Wilbur Wright, tinkerers and bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, got their flying machine aloft for about 12 seconds, ushering in the age of modern aviation. Their feat marked another milestone as well, a signal event in the entwined histories of flight and photography. We know about the launch of the Wright brothers’ Flyer partly because its departure from terra firma was recorded on film, in what David McCullough, in his new biography of the Wrights, rightly calls "one of the most historic photographs of the century". It’s a still image, but the picture, snapped by Orville and Wilbur’s assistant, John T. Daniels, on a tripod-mounted Grundlach Korona V camera, can nonetheless claim a place of honor in the annals of cinema.

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Corn Hill

November 27, 2015, 7:52:57 PST

Corn Hill

Early immigrant story

George Ferris|record|Wright Brothers

1) The answer is a true fact

2) In 1928 German glider pilot Peter Hesselbach broke the Wright Brothers duration record.

This is the hill where the corn was stolen by the pilgrims and planted the following year . To make restitution to the local Indians they held a large feast that we now celebrate as thanksgiving. In the early 70s some of the first soaring flights began here at corn hill and pilots flew here until 2013 when the last launch ( house lot) at corn hill was developed.

Thanks to George Ferris.

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The Wright Brothers were not the first to fly

March 27, 2013, 9:05:26 EDT

The Wright Brothers were not the first to fly

Gustave Whitehead

Wright Brothers

http://www.flyingmag.com/pilots-places/pilots-adventures-more/wright-brothers-not-first-fly

In a startling announcement a few days ago, Jane's All the World's Aircraft has named an August 1901 flight by Connecticut aviation pioneer Gustave Whitehead as the first successful powered flight in history, beating the Wright Brothers by more than two years. Jane's, which calls itself the world's foremost authority on aviation history, with great authority, has traditionally backed the Wrights as first in flight. Now they say the evidence for Whitehead's flight is strong enough for the publication to reverse course and recognize it as the first successful powered flight.

Jane's Editor Paul Jackson describes what happened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on August 14, 1901.

"It was in the summer of 1901 that Whitehead flew his airplane, which he called the Condor. In the early hours of 14 August 1901, the Condor propelled itself along the darkened streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut, with Whitehead, his staff and an invited guest in attendance. In the still air of dawn, the Condor's wings were unfolded and it took off from open land at Fairfield, 15 miles from the city, and performed two demonstration sorties. The second was estimated as having covered 1½ miles at a height of 50 feet, during which slight turns in both directions were demonstrated." The length of flight and altitude reached make the Wright's first powered foray pale in comparison.

http://www.gustave-whitehead.com/

http://www.janes.com/products/janes/defence-security-report.aspx?ID=1065976994

Thanks to Tommy.

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1909 film clip of Wright Brothers

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 9:10:26 am CDT

Selling flight

video|Wright Brothers|history

Ed Horton writes:

This 1909 film clip for the Wright Brothers was trying to sell air power.

This film clip is in very good condition for its age as it shows the Wright Bros (Wilbur at the controls) demonstrating the Flyer to a group of European officers and officials in 1909.

The shots of the plane in flight show a surprising degree of speed and smoothness, an excellent starting sequence with the linen covered props and easy start, but the outstanding sequence is the take off along the rail.

You can't see the actual weight drop to pull it along the rail, but in some shots you see the tower. It is clear that the aircraft was unstable because you can see Wright was pretty busy on the aileron, and the amount of deflection to correct a pitch excursion was significant.

The small piece of string on the forward aileron was put there by the Wrights to ascertain degree of side slip. The aircraft basically turned flat, and, although they eventually put in a form of wing warping to add control in the roll axis, it was always a difficult matter to handle in turns.

They kept it as flat as possible because any side slip over a certain angle was unrecoverable. This was the two seat version as you can see, designed for a hopeful military use and could only fly in very calm conditions. The replica flew at Temora a few years ago.

The in flight shots are something else again and possibly the earliest aerial movie shots ever taken. When you think he had to fly the plane and also hand crank the camera, it must have been fixed in position as the camera stays motionless, and, in any case, cameras were heavy in those times and the plane had little spare weight capacity.

Note the take off ramp and the old Italian Roman ruins in the final shots, as the approach speed was very slow in deed.

http://www.europafilmtreasures.eu/PY/322/see-the-film-wilbur_wright_and_his_flying_machine %27

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Edward Chalmers Huffaker

September 12, 2011, 9:18:22 MDT

Edward Chalmers Huffaker

Curves surfaces

Wright Brothers

Bob Reich <<robert.reich>> writes

Recently, my son, Will and I visited the Huffaker home and ferry station in East TN. The home was built in 1832 and was occupied until very recently. The home is now abandoned, but the owners granted unfettered access to us. The original log cabin site is long gone and lost. This home had outbuildings and slave quarters, but there is some question about the “slave quarters" as slaves were not common in East TN. Indentured servants, however were. We were searching for artifacts.

The home is the site of a 1790's ferry across the French Broad River at Seven Islands. It was frequented by Indians and whites alike. The pilings are still there. Original notes and papers of Edward Huffaker were discovered in the barn in the eighties. It since has been scoured.

Edward Chalmers Huffaker Papers

Aviation pioneer Edward Chalmers Huffaker (1856-1937), born in Sevier County, Tennessee, worked with Orville and Wilbur Wright at Kitty Hawk in 1901.

He earned degrees from Emory and Henry College and the University of Virginia. In 1893, E.C. Huffaker submitted his paper entitled The Value of Curved Surfaces in Flight, based upon his new theory of lift resulting from observations of soaring birds, to the Congress on Aerial Navigation. Two years later, in May of 1895,the Wright brothers wrote the Smithsonian Institution requesting publications on flight. Edward C. Huffaker's paper and his application of Bernoulli's principle to the generation of lift as air flows over curved surfaces were among those they received. Huffaker built successful and unsuccessful early gliders with Chanute. He also worked with Langley and the Wright Bros. He is credited with determining the lift characteristics of foiled wings when flat plate wings were the primary focus of the day. The genius of Edward Chalmers Huffaker significantly connected this special Tennessean with the Wright brothers' historical first powered flight. Aviation changed the world forever and E.C. Huffaker earned a place in the history of early flight.

Edward Chalmers Huffaker was enshrined at the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame on November 8, 2003.

To learn more about Huffaker’s contributions to powered and unpowered flight visit page 188 + on-line and in the book

A history of aerodynamics and its impact on flying machines By John David Anderson

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2011 Hang Gliding and Paragliding Day

May 27, 2011, 9:43:11 pm CDT

2011 Hang Gliding and Paragliding Day

Stay home and fly

calendar|Celebration of Motor-less Flight 2011|Nick Greece|PG|USHPA|Wright Brothers

Nick Greece <<nick.greece>> writes:

USHPA Announces 2nd Annual Celebration of Motor-less Flight, May 28, 2011

The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHPA) announces the Second Annual National Hang Gliding and Paragliding Day, May 28th, 2011. Hang gliders and paragliders are set to host nationwide fun flying events.

This colorful event is perfect for those on a “staycation” who are looking for something adventurous to do on Memorial Day. It will be a nationwide celebration and membership drive as well as a great way to have fun while watching, learning about, and participating in, the exciting world of free flight. Events will range from aerobatic displays, costume events and barbeques to tandem flights and spot landing contests.

“National Hang Gliding and Paragliding Day is an opportunity for pilots and non-pilots alike to celebrate flight. With Memorial Day weekend marking the start of summer, it also opens the flying season for pilots across the US. 2011 is particularly significant, since we are also celebrating the birth of soaring - the Wright brothers’ historic flight in Kitty Hawk 100 years ago this fall. USHPA and its chapters hope to promote National Hang Gliding and Paragliding Day as an opportunity to inspire individuals to pursue their dreams of personal aviation through foot-launched flight as well as to celebrate the achievements that brought us here,” says Martin Palmaz, Executive Director of USHPA.

For a complete list of events across the nation, go to http://ushpa.aero/calendar.

Electric Plane

November 9, 2010, 8:18:23 PST

Electric Plane

Tom Peghiny

Wright Brothers

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/10/wired-flys-e-spyder-electric-plane/all/1

I’m about 600 feet above the Connecticut countryside, looking out over the fall colors of the valley below. I’m in the small, open cockpit of an ultralight with a stick in my right hand, rudder pedals at my feet and what feels like a throttle lever in my left hand.

But as much as the E-Spyder feels like a normal light aircraft, I have to remind myself that I’m flying an electric airplane. A prototype electric airplane, one that only a handful of people in the world have flown. Tom Peghiny, the creator of this amazing aircraft, is watching anxiously from the ground, so I resist the urge to turn south and follow the ridge tops. Instead I stay close to the airport.

Electric flight is in its infancy. Only a handful of electric aircraft have ever flown, and beyond the designers, only a few other pilots have experienced the pleasure — and it is a pleasure — of flying purely on battery power. With that short list in mind, when Peghiny offered, I jumped at the opportunity to fly one of the only electric airplanes currently flying anywhere in the world.

Of course the current range of an electric airplane doesn’t make the technology a practical replacement for traditional small aircraft. But to focus on range is to miss the point. As of now, flying an electric airplane isn’t about going somewhere, just as flying an airplane in the decade after the Wright brothers first flight wasn’t about going somewhere.

It’s about the possibilities ahead.

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Thanksgiving - the origin »

November 1, 2010, 8:33:01 PDT

Thanksgiving - the origin

On a hang gliding site

comic|record|Wright Brothers

http://www.seascapemotorinn.com/FlyIn.html

In 1928 a glider pilot, Peter Hesselback, stood atop Corn Hill in North Truro on Cape Cod. Before a large crowd he readied himself to launch into the ocean breezes, excited by the fact that he could break the Wright Brothers' duration record of 9 minutes and 45 seconds set in 1911.

Little did he realize that his historic attempt was taking place from a ridge that would be the future hang gliding flying site for our Annual Halloween Fly-In which began in 1974. This site had also played a significant role in American history in the year 1620. In 1620 the Mayflower left England filled with Pilgrims bound for the Virginias. The ship was blown off course by a vigorous storm and found shelter in the harbor of a peninsula shaped like a fishhook. This peninsula stretched out into the ocean 40 miles from mainland Massachusetts and was called Cape Cod. Finally, anchored in the safety of the harbor, the captain announced that the ship was damaged and would be unable to continue to the Virginias.

The Pilgrims went ashore to search the new land for food and water. Plenty of fresh water was found, but as winter approached their rations diminished. In late November, during their search for food, they climbed to the top of a hill on the shore in north Truro. This much is fact. What followed depends on who is telling the story.

Most accounts tell of the Pilgrims finding a large cornfield on a hilltop in Truro that they harvested to supply them through the winter months. But further research revealed another story.

The Pilgrims discovered sand mounds on top of the hill. The mounds were on top of graves in a native Indian burial ground. The Indians believed that giving a portion of the harvest to their ancestors would guarantee a plentifully harvest the following year. Buried in the sand mounds on top of each grave were large pots that were filled with corn at the end of each harvest and covered with sand. The Pilgrims uncovered the large pots, finding the corn. Since that day the Pilgrims called the site Corn Hill.

It was recorded at a later date that the Pilgrims admitted taking the corn. They stated that because of the food shortage they were desperately in need of seed for the following year and that they vowed to make restitution. In part, that restitution came in the autumn of 1621. The corn they had taken from the graves was used for seed the following spring and produced a huge, flourishing crop. The Pilgrims and the Indians, sitting side by side, celebrated with a week-long feast. We still celebrate this feast in November - Thanksgiving. There is a plaque on Corn Hill commemorating the historical event of the Pilgrims finding the corn.

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The day they wrecked gliding

Thu, Dec 18 2008, 7:57:53 am PST

December 17th, the first flight of a powered aircraft

Wright Brothers

From the Google Reader:

On this day in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright made some of the first sustained flights. The first flight was a approximately 120 feet lasting about 12 seconds.

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Wright Flyer

August 26, 2008, 8:52:23 PDT

Wright Flyer

Flying the Wright Brothers Flyer at Kitty Hawk

Jim Rooney|video|Wright Brothers

Nova video here. Thanks to Jim Rooney.

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Wright Brothers »

Wed, Dec 13 2006, 10:43:37 am PST

Wrights

As told by a bee keeper

William "Billo" Olive|Wright Brothers

Billo «william.olive» writes:

I found this article very interesting. It is pertinent to all pilots, but in particular it might resonate with anyone who learnt to fly a hang glider on the sand dunes.

http://www.williamolive.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=344

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Kill Devil Hill

Fri, Oct 27 2006, 6:01:50 pm PDT

In reference to the earlier picture of the Wright Brothers getting up on a tip

Harry Sudwischer|record|Wright Brothers

Harry Sudwischer «harry» writes:

That picture looks like Orville’s 1911 glider, not 1903. The pilot is sitting upright not prone. Orville went back to Kitty Hawk and Soared the Glider for 9 minutes, 45 seconds October 24, 1911.

That was an American Soaring record that stood until Ralph Barnaby broke it at Corn Hill on Cape Cod MA. 15 minutes, 6 seconds and became the first American to win an international soaring certificate, August 18, 1929.

Next weekend a large contingent of North East HG Pilots are descending on Cape Cod to fly in the Last (Maybe) Cape Cod Halloween Fly In. Our Host Chuck Nyhlan is selling the Seascape Inn . So this may be the last year we can fly out of the back of the Motel on top of the ridge.

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The Wright's Didn't Always Get It Wright

Wed, Oct 18 2006, 5:24:24 pm PDT

Wright's

"There goes another tip batten!"

Gary Osoba|Wright Brothers

Kitty Hawk -1903 (Thanks to Gary Osoba)

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John Dickenson hang gliding pioneer, part 2

Tue, Sep 19 2006, 8:17:35 am MDT

John Dickenson

It all started in the sixties

Graeme Henderson|John Dickenson|history|Wright Brothers

Graeme Henderson «flyingfree» writes:

Eclipsed by the size of the sport that he founded, John Dickenson’s story has remained a mystery in spite of the many efforts over the years to highlight his eminent role. Myths abound, credit has gone to people who have no true claim to it, and Australia’s greatest contribution to global aviation has continually been overlooked. As the absolute founder of the sport John Dickenson deserves better than this.

In the spring of 1963 an Australian, Mr John Dickenson, built the aircraft that evolved into the modern Hang Gliders built today. Often mistakenly called ‘The Rogallo Wing’, it should correctly be called ‘The Dickenson Wing’. It is important to note that Dr Francis m. Rogallo played only a small part in the building of this aircraft, no more than say Otto Lilienthal, or The Wright Brothers, or even Leonardo Da Vinci.

The full story here: https://OzReport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson.htm.

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Kitty Hawk Kites »

August 11, 2006, 0:32:05 CDT

KHK

Looking for instructors

Wright Brothers

Bruce Weaver writes:

“Kitty Hawk Kites is looking for instructors to come to the beach and help finish out our busy season. We will stay very busy through September and will have work into the Fall. We teach on the East Coast’s largest sand dune over looking the Atlantic ocean just miles south of where the Wright Brothers first flew.

Short term housing is available. Come take advantage of the best teaching conditions of the year. Also take advantage of all the other activities we offer like our aerotow flight park, surfing, kite surfing, kayaking, sport fishing, and everything else the beach has to offer. Contact Bruce Weaver at (252) 441-2426 or «Bruce». “

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Wright Brothers Soaring Record

March 19, 2006, 7:04:44 pm EST

Soaring Record

Who was the first to break the Wright Brothers Soaring Record?

record|Terry Barnes|USHGA|Wright Brothers

http://ozreport.com/10.60#3

Ely, Dale R «dale.r.ely» writes:

I saw the film of Rob Keeler breaking the Wright brother's soaring record. It was shown at a monthly meeting of the Connecticut Hang Gliding Association way back when.

How did we get the film? Well, Lee Keeler was Rob's brother and Rob was the vice-president of Seagull Aircraft at the time. Lee was a dealer and I bought my Seagull III from him (475$ !!!) In the Spring of 1974. Lee had just set the eastern record by flying 4+ hours off of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire the previous fall.

I'd have to go find my logbook for exact details, but I made some significant flights in my Seagull III. With it, I was the second person to soar in a hang glider in Connecticut - it was at Avon Mountain and the flight lasted 40 minutes. Rick Williams flew a Chandelle just before me and was the first, with a 15 minute flight above takeoff. I still have the film on 8mm. Great pilot. Great bunch of pilots in the CHGA.

In the fall of '74 many of us went to Magic Mountain in Vermont for a meet. I got 1 hr and 5 minutes. Lee Keeler was up at least that long in his III just before me. We had the only Seagulls at the time and had a good margin in performance over the regular deltas of the period (most were Chandelles from California or Zephyrs, the local brand in Connecticut). All were great kites that enabled the beginnings of hg in New England. Tom Peghiny at SkySports was also making his first appearances with the SkySports Bobcat. His great Kestrel would come later.

Later on, we went to a GSI (GliderSports International, an early competitor to USHGA before things got sorted out) instructor clinic at Mt. Cranmore in New Hampshire. On the last day, Al Mulazzi and Doug Weeks organized a daring impromptu trip to fly Mt Washington. (Al was later lost in a tragic no-hookin accident at Avon Mt. in Connecticut). There were 7 of us and we flew the then unflown west side of the mountain, which has a 3300' drop to the valley. It was an 11-minute sled ride in my Seagull III. I was sixth off, I believe, and only one of two to make the parking lot at Wildcat Ski area (the rest landed on the main road).

tommy thompson «soar8hours» writes:

Terry Barnes does not ring a bell on the day I saw the record broken. But he may have a point.

Discuss Soaring Record at the Oz Report forum

Pliable Moose at Kitty Hawk

March 16, 2006, 9:12:54 EST

Pliable Moose

The continued discussion about surpassing the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk

Mark Armstrong|record|Wright Brothers

http://ozreport.com/10.060#1

http://ozreport.com/9.153#2

http://ozreport.com/9.154#1

Mark Armstrong «Mla» writes:

Strange that I happed to look at the Oz Report today.

I am the pilot that flew for 1.5+ hours at the Jockeys Ridge, in the dark I might add, in the Pliable Moose Thermal Shark on the day KHK received the glider from the manufacturer. Prior to that, both Glen Hocket and Tom Hadden both broke the hour on the sand dune. I was there and witnessed those flights as well.

We were all the KHK instructors from late 74-76. We also set other strange records never to be broken again - like flying in the bar (no harness) etc. Those were great years full of memories. Other interesting firsts. Glen Hocket and I were the first to land standard Rogalla's in the cut out whole on the back side of Grandfather mountain. The logging was taking place as we landed.

As I landed I caught the top of a short snag with my rear flying wires and dropped to the ground on my feet. The logger then immediately cut the snag down. No harm to the glider either (An Eipper 18' standard).

Discuss Pliable Moose at the Oz Report forum

Breaking the Wright Brothers soaring record

March 14, 2006, 10:07:54 EST

Wright Brothers

Another claimant

record|Terry Barnes|Wright Brothers

http://ozreport.com/9.154#1

Terry Barnes «N7470D» writes:

The breaking of the Wright record in 1974. I actually broke the record in my Quicksilver II but it was quickly broken right afterwards by Lee Keeler in a Seagull.

Discuss Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

The Thermal Shark and the Wright Brothers

Sun, Jul 24 2005, 12:00:01 pm GMT

Who broke the Wright Brothers soaring record at Kitty Hawk?

Bob Keeler|Doug Keller|Kitty Hawk Kites|Tommy Thompson|Torrey Pines|USHGA|William "Gary" Osoba jr.|Wright Brothers

Tommy Thompson Charter / Life Member #2531 <soar8hours@yahoo.com> writes:

I just read the article in the last Oz Report and disagree with the part about the Pliable Moose Thermal Shark breaking the Wright Brothers record here at Kitty Hawk, NC. Sorry to inform you, but it was broken by a Seagull III piloted by a bearded pilot by the last name Keeler from California. The reason I know this is because I was there live and in person at this historic event called the Tactile Flight Meet #2 in 1974.

This meet is now called the Spectacular and was hosted back then by Vic Powell of the Capitol Hang glider Club and me. At the time, I was president of the first hang glider club in North Carolina called the NCHGS, North Carolina Hang Glider Society. We had a newsletter called the Albatross in which I was editor.

James E. Mrazek wrote a book in 1976 called Hang Gliding and Soaring which list these facts on page 181. The Wright's record of 9 minutes 45 seconds was beaten with only a 13 minute flight. And guess what? I have slides of the glider in flight as well as the pilot accepting the double eagle trophy which I purchased and presented myself.

So the Moose may have soared an hour there at some point later on, but it was a Seagull III and a guy named Keller from CA who beat the Wright's at their own game. I guess I'll need to dig through all the old slides and present the Oz Report readers with a piece of history which slipped through the cracks of aviation journals.

I mailed in my money for subscription for magazine #2 and joined the the Southern California Hang Glider Assn ( USHGA now ) on July 6th 1973 for $5. Then I did my life membership on May 5th 1980. It was $250 for 28 of us to help the finances of the national club! That was when dues were were only $10 a year I think.

I hear now only 19 life members are still living. At the time, I remember thinking I'll need to fly for 25 more years to ever break even on my money. Man was I ever wrong.

Gary Osoba <wosoba@cox.net> responds:

Sounds like I sure stepped on someone's foot, here! I'm sorry. Tommy appears to know much more about it than I do. I wasn't there, and can't remember the name of the Thermal Shark pilot if I was told. What I remember (31 years ago) was receiving a call from Kitty Hawk Kites from a very excited staff because they had just received the glider and broken the one hour mark, something quite significant at the time. I was also told that the endurance record was previously held by the Wright Brothers at 9 minutes and 30 some-odd seconds. I was not told that someone else had broken the record in between. Given the facts related by Tommy, I would now suspect the record was probably broken in between more than once.

Maybe I can help fill in some details here: The "bearded pilot by the last name Keeler" was likely Bob Keeler, who was a very good pilot of Seagull brand gliders. He was tall, lanky, and quiet. I have particularly fond memories of flying with him at Torrey Pines when he was on the Seagull V, a very unusual design complete with huge rudder. Bob usually flew seated, and crossed his legs in a relaxed, characteristic style. Wonder where he is today? Thanks to Tommy for sharing these details.

Discuss Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Thermal Shark

Sat, Jul 23 2005, 1:00:02 am GMT

Breaking the Wright Brothers soaring record at Kitty Hawk

Gary Osoba|John Harris|Kitty Hawk Kites|William "Gary" Osoba jr.|Wright Brothers

Gary Osoba stated that:

Pliable Moose, Inc. sent to Kitty Hawk Kites (to John Harris) in 1974 a Thermal Shark (so named because Gary was flying thermals in Kansas going cross country in 1972 or 1973). It arrived Thanksgiving Day, 1974.

One of the instructors at Kitty Hawk Kites unpacked the glider and got an hour plus soaring flight. This flight and this glider were the first to break the Wright Brothers soaring record at Kitty Hawk. The Wright Brother's record was 9 minutes +.

Discuss Thermal Shark at the Oz Report forum

Track logging software connected to Google Earth

Sat, Jul 23 2005, 1:00:01 am GMT

The obvious connection.

CUP|G7ToWin|Google Earth|GPS|IGC|Ulf Arndt

Ulf Arndt <ulfa@za.ibm.com>, author of GPS logging software, writes:

I'm busy extending the TP and T3D2 code with kml and kmz Interface format. Right click here for an example of a flight in Porterville from takeoff to the Flyers Lodge using the IGC to KML/KMZ Conversion Option of TP.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpstp

http://gpstp.sourceforge.net/htmldocs/User/KML/kml.html

And for those clued up in Java, the T3D2 code analyzes IGC tracks for thermals and and makes a kml file. You can download an example here.

http://t3d2.sourceforge.net/KML/KML.html

http://sourceforge.net/projects/t3d2

(editor's note: You can use G7ToWin to convert IGC track log files or CUP waypoint files to the gpx format, which can be read and translated by Google Earth to the kmz format.)

Discuss Google Earth at the Oz Report forum

2004 Katharine Wright Winner

Wed, May 26 2004, 6:00:02 pm EDT

It's Gertrude.

Bill Bolosky|Francis Rogallo|Katharine Wright Award 2004|PG|Wright Brothers

Bill Bolosky <bolosky@microsoft.com> sends in the NAA press release.

Inventor of flexible wing technology wins Katharine Wright Award Gertrude Rogallo and husband developed prototype that led to hang gliding, ultralight flight

Arlington, VA Gertrude Rogallo, who worked with her husband to patent "flexible wing" technology, won this year's Katharine Wright Award, given by the National Aeronautic Association.

The "Rogallo Wing," invented by Gertrude and Francis Rogallo in 1948, became the forerunner to several branches of aviation today, including hang gliding, paragliding and ultralight flight.

For her contributions to the growth of aviation, Rogallo won the Katharine Wright Award, given annually to a woman who has "made a personal contribution to the advancement of the art, sport and science of aviation and space flight over an extended period of time."

Gertrude aided her husband throughout his career, as he worked for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, and later NASA. They worked together in developing an airfoil that was light, stable and flexible like a parachute but could create lift like an aircraft's wing.

The result was the prototype that she created in 1948 with her husband's plans, a sewing machine and old kitchen curtains the Rogallo Wing. Their invention was applied and refined in the last half century, allowing millions to enjoy the freedom of personal flight. Today, the Rogallos live in Kitty Hawk, N.C., near the site of the Wright Brothers first powered flight.

Santos Dumont

Wed, Jan 7 2004, 5:00:02 am GMT

Bill Arras|Wright Brothers

bill arras <billarras@hotmail.com> writes:

In 1972-73 I was fortunate to spend my junior year of high school in Brasil as a Rotary exchange student, it was great. I lived in Juiz de Fora, in the southern part of Minas Gerais, not far from the town of Santos Dumont. As a result of living there, I know very well the Brazilian take on Santos Dumont. He's a hero in Brasil and will likely remain so, even though from what I've read Santos Dumont himself recognized the Wright Brothers' place in history after they came out of the closet.

Santos Dumont is truly a hero in his own right for his work first with dirigibles, then his development and seemingly first-ever successful flight in an airplane. The world was unaware of the Wright Brothers' accomplishments, about which they were very secretive for years while they sought to tie up patents and commercial contracts.

A good book on the subject is "Man Flies" by Nancy Winters.

On a side note, one of the places commemorating Santos Dumont is the airport in Rio de Janeiro bearing his name. To me it's the most incredible airport in the world, has the best scenery on take-off and landing approach, cruising the beautiful beaches and granite domes of Rio.

Discuss "Santos Dumont" at the Oz Report forum   link»

The other side of flying

Tue, Dec 23 2003, 11:00:03 am EST

Wright Brothers

Witherspoon, Larry D «larry.d.witherspoon» sends:

The Pilot's Role Goes From Daring to Dull
Washington Post 12/17/03
author: Don Phillips
Copyright 2003, The Washington Post Co.
All Rights Reserved

A century after the Wright brothers launched the aviation era with a daring and wobbly 12-second flight over North Carolina, the work of a commercial pilot is, a lot of the time, about as exciting as that of a systems manager.

Pilots at the major airlines today are surrounded by computerized navigation and safety equipment that does much of their flying for them. They get loud warnings if their plane is on a collision course with another plane or the ground. Autopilot systems can follow a set course between continents and land on the center line of a runway thousands of miles away. Some of the best landings -- the smooth ones that leave passengers applauding -- are executed by "autoland."

Much of a pilot's time in the air is spent watching instruments, managing computers or just relaxing. On intercontinental flights that last as long as 20 hours, four pilots rotate with only one takeoff and one landing to hone their flying skills. So tranquil has a long-distance pilot's life become that airline officials have spent considerable money and time figuring out ways to keep pilots awake, alert and engaged.

"I think a lot of them are bored to death," said Curtis Graeber, Boeing's chief engineer for human factors.

(editor's note: The rest of this article can be found on the Washington Post.)

Discuss flying at the Oz Report forum

101 years of powered flight?

Thu, Dec 18 2003, 11:00:04 am EST

Wright Brothers

Whalley, Stephen «Stephen.Whalley» writes:

Were the Wright brothers the first to fly? May be we should have been celebrating 100 years of powered flight last year. http://www.asss.utvinternet.com/articles1/whowasfirst1.htm.

Discuss Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Oz Report Forum »

Thu, Dec 18 2003, 11:00:02 am EST

Wills Wing|Wright Brothers

I was skeptical at first (because it was a forum and not a mailing list), but the Oz Report forum is proving to be a valuable resource for information about hang gliding, as well as having some spirited discussions about the Wright Brothers and the King Mountain meet format. On Tuesday December 16th, the 500th member signed up for the forum, making the Oz Report forum bigger than all but two of the over 110 hang gliding forums on Yahoo. Only the original hang gliding list and the towing list have more members.

Numbers count because of the "network effect." The more folks you have communicating together the more potential you have for useful information. Also, because the forum is moderated, I can pull out offensive material that crosses the line into personal attack (however I judge that). I've really only had to do that once, out of the thousands of messages, so I appreciate everyone's restraint. I guess just knowing that those kinds of messages can be deleted (or edited) makes for a more civil conversation.

The forum format also helps organize the material so that it is more useful. You can easily just go back and find topics of interest to you (like the discussions of intermediate gliders, the Aeros Discus, Wills Wing U2, and the others). On mailing lists there are no coherent topics, and the threads just disappear.

It was good to see Kevin Frost as member number 503, drawn in by the King Mountain issue.

Discuss whatever at the Oz Report forum

Wright Brothers and others

Wed, Dec 17 2003, 4:00:05 pm EST

Douglas Pohl|Gary Osoba|Patrick Laverty|Paul MacCready|Wright Brothers

FAI - News Center «jmb» sends:

100 Years Ago, The Dream of Icarus Became Reality

Thursday 17 December 1903, in the USA, on the deserted beaches of North Carolina, at a place called Kitty Hawk. The dawn was grey and misty. The engine started and it ticked over perfectly. Orville Wright applied full power and released the tether. The Flyer slid along the rail slowly gaining speed. Five people from the village witnessed this historic event : the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.

Paying tribute to this feat, FAI publishes on its Webpage a text written by an enthusiastic Swiss private pilot, who offered to describe in his own words this historic flight, which marked the beginning of an extraordinary human and technological era for mankind : http://www.fai.org/news_archives/fai/000295.asp.

(editor's note: Icarus? How about Daedalus? I mentioned this to the FAI press center.)

Gary Osoba «wosoba» writes:

With all the attention and analysis currently being accorded the Wright Brothers’ accomplishments a century ago, a question comes to mind:

Is 100 years a long enough time to develop a balanced historical perspective of this achievement?

I would suggest not, if the reviewer attempts a perspective primarily from the present and particularly if he mostly examines the aviation-related achievements which have unfolded within the century since.

If we could take all of the flight-related dreams throughout mankind’s history and stack them up against what occurred at Kitty Hawk 100 years ago today, only a minute percentage of them would find fulfillment in that event. Why is this so? Because from the earliest of time man dreamed to fly as he saw birds, and insects, and other flying creatures fly- under their own power or through the utilization of naturally occurring energy forms manifested as atmospheric discontinuities. Dreams which centered on the use of machines to produce the power for flight, whether steam, internal combustion, or otherwise, are relative newcomers when weighed against the mass of history. Even a cursory review of the literature will reveal this perspective.

As such, I would suggest that when Paul MacCready’s team achieved sustainable, controlled human-powered flight by winning the Kremer Prize in 1977, the seminal flight event in the past century had occurred. Although the flight did not result from the flapping of arms or other devices so typical of long-standing human dreams, all of the elements were present and success was gained. As such, the vast majority of historical flight dreams would have found fulfillment in that event- not the Wrights’ achievement, or landing on the moon, or breaking the sound barrier, or any of the other 20th century flight achievements which are often pointed to as the most spectacular.

This is not to meant to detract from the Wright brothers’ achievements. Indeed their earlier flights with gliders had already achieved results which make their first powered flight look small by comparison. And it should be noted that their gliding achievements would more closely fit the vast sum of age-old flight dreams by using naturally occurring atmospherics, as the birds and other flying creatures do. Nor is this meant to ignore the legacy the Wrights established as scientists; carefully working toward an important goal through experimentation, trial and error.

It is interesting to think about looking forward, and wondering what more time might lend to the historical perspective. I believe that the majority and past perspective, not the present, will again prevail as the more valued flight form. It is the most elemental, the most pure. And, given the reality that the energy forms used in the bulk of powered flight during the century following the Wright event are either unsustainable or ultimately damaging to the world in a long perspective, this will likely be reinforced.

Here’s to the Wrights, MacCready, and all pioneers in flight!

Patrick Laverty «patrick.laverty» writes:

While you ex-colonial Anglo Saxons celebrate the Wright brothers see what these other ex colonials think. http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/pearse/pearse.htm.

And for good measure here's some sour grapes from the ex governors. http://monbiot.com/dsp_article.cfm?article_id=628.

(editor's note: I really love Pearse's claim (also see the plaque at Stanwell Park in Australia.)

Douglas Pohl «dpohl» sends:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/152738_will17.html

100 years after Kitty Hawk, mobility is pretty ho-hum Wednesday, December 17, 2003

By GEORGE F. WILL SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

WASHINGTON -- The 12-second flight 100 years ago this morning reached a height of just 10 feet, less than the 63-foot height of a Boeing 747, and covered just 120 feet of ground, less than a 747's 195-foot wingspan. But the Wright brothers' fourth and final flight that day in North Carolina lasted 59 seconds and went 852 feet. So by sunset the 20th century's themes -- farther, faster, higher, now -- were, so to speak, in the air.

Almost everything -- commerce, war, art -- would change as aviation began altering, as nothing had ever done, humanity's experience of the most basic things: time and space. Politics, too. The first important politician to campaign by air was a militant modernist, Adolf Hitler. The newsreels screamed: "Der Fuhrer fliegt uber Deutschland."

Aviation's infancy was not for the fainthearted. In the early 1920s an airmail pilot named Dean Smith, on the Chicago-to-Omaha route, cabled his superintendent:

"On trip 4 westbound. Flying low. Engine quit. Only place to land on cow. Killed cow. Wrecked plane. Scared me. Smith."

Airmail was one way government subsidized aviation, which drew government into deep involvement with technology. So, of course, did the great driver of social change, war. In their new book, "Reconsidering a Century of Flight," Roger Launius and Janet Daley Bednarek note how rapid was the development of the airplane "from a machine in some ways most lethal to those who used it to a machine of great lethality to those against whom it is directed."

In 1905 the Wright brothers testified to Congress that airplanes' military uses would be "scouting and carrying messages." Forty years later cities would be laid waste from the air. But city bombing was not as lethal as was feared. In April 1939 the British government, anticipating city bombing, issued to local authorities 1 million burial forms. The actual British casualties from aerial bombardment, 1939-45, were 60,000.

One early theory, refuted by experience, was that strategic bombing might make wars less bloody by bypassing bloody clashes between armies, such as World War I's trench warfare, and instead quickly inducing an enemy's surrender by disrupting his "vital center." The fallacious assumption was that modern economies and societies are fragile.

It was nearly a century after Kitty Hawk, and due less to developments of aircraft than of munitions, that military aircraft really became lethal for targets smaller than whole cities. Until recently, the question about bombing was how many sorties it would take to destroy a target. Suddenly, because of precision munitions, the question is how many targets one sortie can strike. In World War II about one bomb in 400 landed close enough to affect -- not necessarily destroy -- its target. Now nine of 10 do.

The most astonishing consequence of aviation is not its military applications or their civilian echoes. (After World War II, Harley J. Earl, General Motors' chief stylist, turned his fascination with the twin tails of the P-38 fighter into automobile tail fins that defined the chrome-plated '50s.) Rather, the amazing consequence was the banality of flight -- the routinization of mobility -- especially after 1958, when Boeing's 707 speeded the democratization of air travel. Unfortunately, this had some negative public health consequences because viruses -- HIV, for one -- also became mobile.

From the first, flight expressed the essence of the modernist movement -- freedom understood as the absence of limits, and a future of infinite possibilities. While developing cubism, Pablo Picasso sometimes painted wearing aviator's gear. His response to the April 26, 1937, bombing by Germans of Guernica during Spain's civil war -- a rehearsal, or overture, for what was soon to come from Europe's skies -- moved Picasso to produce what may be the 20th century's iconic painting.

Cubism itself was influenced by a perspective no previous generation knew, that of the Earth -- the geometry of its urban grids and rural plots -- seen from above. The Eiffel Tower had provided Europeans their first downward vision of their environment. Robert Hughes, the art critic, says that what was spectacular was not the view of the tower from the ground but the view of the ground from the tower. Until then, almost everybody lived their entire lives no more than 40 feet -- the height of an ordinary apartment building -- above the ground.

Modernism shaped another expressive activity that flourished in tandem with aviation, the competition to build the tallest skyscraper. In Manhattan, epicenter of the competition, the race was eventually won by the twin towers of the World Trade Center, where 98 years after Kitty Hawk the histories of aviation and architecture intersected.

 Discuss the Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Woodstock for the aviation crowd

Tue, Dec 16 2003, 2:00:05 pm EST

David Glover|Quest Air|Rob McKenzie|Wright Brothers

David Glover calls in a live report from the site of the Wright Brothers 100th anniversary at the site of the world's first powered flight. He says (and I paraphrase):

There are ten of thousands of people here joining in the celebration. There are booths set up from NASA, EAA, Microsoft, Ford, Kitty Hawk Kites and many others. Microsoft has numerous booths showing the Flight Simulator with the Wright Brothers Flyer on the screen. The controls are the replicas of the original Wright Brothers cradle that you move with your hips and the pitch control handle. You lie down to fly the simulated flyer and there are hundreds of people in line by every tent and booth.

Of course, Kitty Hawk Kites has the hang gliding simulator here in their booth and they are packed just like everyone else.

There are Jumbotrons - banks of TV sets three stories high projecting the event and the activities. All the dignitaries are supposed to be here tomorrow along with G.W. (Bush that is). Four past president are supposed to join him. The joke around here is whether 43 will be bringing in a platter of turkey like he did for the troops in Baghdad.

Francis Rogollo received an award as one of the century's one hundred most important aviators. He was here to receive it. He just passed me in his wheel chair. Lots of aviation pioneers are here, Chuck Yeager, etc. I just got Francis to sign Davis' NAA award for his most memorable flight (347 miles in Zapata).

I drove from Quest Air with Rob McKenzie. He's here to get away from it all (the burnt hills of San Bernardino) and he brought all his toys with him. I think he'll be at Quest through January.

Discuss the Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Wright Brothers »

Wed, Dec 10 2003, 2:00:03 pm EST

Brett Snellgrove|Wright Brothers

Brett Snellgrove  «Snelly14» writes:

Regarding the replica of the Wright flyer that would hardly fly, apparently all the early Wright machines were most difficult to fly. This may be due to the canard configuration and the very rear Center of Gravity position achieved with the prone pilot over the main wing. This caused significant instability. We now know the center of lift on a canard aircraft needs to be positioned further forward somewhere between the mean center of lift of both airfoils.

The fact that the Wrights taught themselves to fly such an unstable machine without significant injury is a real tribute to there skills as aviators.

Discuss Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Wright Brother's - the big story

Wed, Dec 10 2003, 2:00:02 pm EST

Wright Brothers

Wright Brothers|history

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2003/
12/09/science/sciencespecial2/index.html?8dpc

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/
09/science/sciencespecial2/09WILF.html

You have to register to read it, but it is free and worth it.

They emerged from obscurity and made history with, as historians of aviation carefully phrase it, the first power-driven heavier-than-air machine in which humans made free, controlled and sustained flight.

"Each time the machine started from the level ground by its own power alone with no assistance from gravity, or any other source whatever," he said. "After a run of about 40 feet along a monorail track, it rose from the track and under direction of the operator climbed upward on an inclined course till a height of 8 or 10 feet from the ground was reached… The height chosen was scarcely sufficient for maneuvering in so gusty a wind and with no previous acquaintance with the conduct of the machine and its controlling mechanisms. Consequently the first flight was short."

Discuss "Wright Brother's - the big story" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Paper hang glider

Tue, Dec 9 2003, 2:00:02 pm EST

Bill McCorkle|Wright Brothers

http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/news/newsletters/pdfs/frontline_1103.pdf

Bill McCorkle «guillo» writes:

On page twenty of this PDF is a nice article about some NC State (my alma mater) engineering students who design a hang glider made entirely out of paper products.

The article states:

Piloting a hang glider with paper wings, North Carolina State University students won Energy Challenge ’03 at Jockey’s Ridge State Park, Kitty Hawk, on Saturday, April 5. The competition was held as part of the anniversary of the Wright brothers’ 1903 flight. The winning team was awarded a prize of $15,000.

The competing glider wings were constructed primarily of materials derived from paper, such as cardboard. Scoring for the event was based on a number of factors, including distance flown, weight of the glider, material properties, recycled content and novelty of design.

The NC State team “AeroPack” developed a novel paper that incorporated fine sawdust from the furniture industry to improve properties. They used computer-aided design to produce, in efficient fashion, a sail meeting the performance requirements without wasting energy or resources. After testing more than 300 paper sheets with different compositions, they manufactured their own paper for the glider"

Discuss paper hang gliders at the Oz Report forum

Your editor on the Wright Brothers on NPR

Mon, Dec 8 2003, 10:00:04 am EST

record|Wright Brothers

http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgDate=07-Dec-2003&prgId=10

Click on the URL above and then Scroll down to (don't click on these):

listen

Listener Letters

NPR's Liane Hansen reads letters from listeners.

or use this URL: http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=1536575

You'll hear Liann Hansen read a portion of the e-mail message that I sent to NPR regarding the fact that the Wright Brothers often had to hang around waiting for the wind to come up.

Here's what the full message said:

As a hang glider pilot who has soared the dunes near Kitty Hawk I much appreciated hearing the voices of the folks who knew and sometimes flew with the Wright Brothers last Sunday.

One small correction to the story by Hal Cannon. It was stated that the Wright Brothers went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina because of the consistent winds. In fact, they went there because of what they believed (wrongly, as it turned out) to be the consistent winds. They were fooled by the averages.

The Outer Bank winds are inconsistent, and while averaging twenty miles per hour in the winter, they are sometimes 40 mph and sometimes zero. I believe a review of the Wright Brothers journals will demonstrate that they spent many days sitting around waiting (hang waiting, is how we refer to it) for the winds to come up.

Here's the long explanation:

Meteorology data in 1899 was not what it is today, and the Outer Banks were the edge of civilization then, so it is understandable that the local wind data wasn't as thorough as we have now.

The Outer Banks are barrier islands. They are separated from the mainland by a significant body of water, the Albemarle Sound.

If you really want consistent winds (in the summer time) you want to go to the coast and wait for the daily sea breeze. The on-shore sea breeze happens when the interior land heats up and the air above it rises. The cooler air over the ocean is drawn in by the rising of warm interior air. Nice winds flowing right into the dunes at the beach.

Now, as the Outer Banks are separated from the mainland by such a large body of relatively cool water, the likelihood of an onshore (from the east) flow is much reduced. It does happen, but not at all as consistently as it does in other areas (more on this later).

But, the Wright Brothers went to Kitty Hawk in the fall and winter, so even if they were looking for a sea breeze (something given their Dayton upbringing they were likely not to be familiar with), they wouldn't have found it in winter, when the interior isn't being heated up that much anyway. They actually had to rely on winds coming from the southwest with fronts and storms.

Now unlike sea breezes, frontal passages and storms are not a daily phenomenon. And unlike the case with sea breezes, the winds associated with fronts and storms can often be too strong and gusty. You'll see numerous references to the Wright's gliders beings hurt by gusts of wind.

Now, it turns out that there is a barrier island that has a very consistent on-shore flow, South Padre Island in South East Texas, near Brownsville. These islands and the mainland coast experience a 15 to 20 mph on shore flow almost every day during the summer. (Look at the geology a bit to see why they can have these winds.)

This onshore flow is so strong and consistent, that when the Bermuda high sets up with a long arm into the central Gulf of Mexico (a basic summer pattern) that the winds blow all the way up into the Texas Panhandle and Kansas. You'll find that this area is one of the hottest spots in the US for wind and kite surfing on the interior sound.

We've scouted out these winds and used them to set the long distance world hang gliding records (over 400 miles). If interested you can read more about the URL below. Just search for "400 miles." Or look at the Cloudsuck book

I've asked G.W. Meadows (who lives near Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks) to check out the accuracy of what I wrote above to NPR, and he has promised to send me a critique soon.

Discuss the Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Flying the Wright Flyer

Mon, Dec 8 2003, 10:00:03 am EST

USHGA|Wright Brothers

http://firstflight.open.ac.uk/takeoff01.html

At the fall USHGA BOD meeting, we were helping launch a modified replica of the 1902 flyer into a 9 to 10 mph wind. The thing would hardly fly.

Discuss the Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Wright Brothers Photos

Mon, Dec 8 2003, 10:00:02 am EST

photo|Wright Brothers

RMW «rmwooten» sends out these URLs for

Some high resolution enhancements of the Wright brothers photography.

http://www.lib.ecu.edu/exhibits/wright/closer.html  http://www.lib.ecu.edu/exhibits/wright/index.html

Discuss the Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Wright Brothers »

Mon, Dec 8 2003, 10:00:01 am EST

Wright Brothers

G. W. Meadows «gw» writes:

I've noticed lately a lot of increased 'first flight' activity on the Oz Report. Things are sure changing fast here in Kill Devil Hills, NC (site of the Wright Bros. achievement. The government is throwing money around like it grows on trees. The Wright Bros. Nat. Monument grounds had turned into 'tent city'. Just two days ago, the entire grounds was fenced in with 'sand fences' and the bypass has been finished in the last few weeks.

Probably the coolest thing is a full scale sculpture of the first flight. It was placed on the south side of the monument about a week ago. It has the flyer (made of stainless steel) and full size sculptures of Orville, Wilbur and Mr. Daniels (the photographer of the famous flight). It's raining here right now, but I'll try to get out and about during my busy schedule in the next few days or so and take some photographs.

By the way, for those of you who have visited this area, you may not know that the famous telegraph (seen below) was sent from a lifesaving station in Kitty Hawk which is now the 'locally popular' Black Pelican restaurant.

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Wright Brothers Papers at the Library of Congress

Thu, Dec 4 2003, 2:00:02 pm EST

Wright Brothers

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wrighthtml/wrighthome.html

I love the Library of Congress just of doing this. The picture of the telegraph from the Wrights after the first four successful flights is a gem.

Discuss Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Alberto Santos-Dumont

Wed, Dec 3 2003, 1:00:03 pm EST

Wright Brothers

Jaco Herbst «jacoherbst» sends:

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/Columns/?Article=ForgottenFatherOfFlight

The Forgotten Father of Flight by David Edwards

On December 17, 1903, when Orville and Wilbur Wright made their historic first flights at Kitty Hawk, the world responded with . Silence.

Almost no one celebrated the Wright brothers' tremendous achievement because few people at the time even knew it had happened. Most newspapers didn't run the story, because the Wrights had invited no journalists to Kitty Hawk and granted no interviews afterward.

Discuss Alberto at the Oz Report forum

Percy Pilcher

Wed, Dec 3 2003, 1:00:02 pm EST

Patrick Laverty|Wright Brothers

Patrick Laverty «patrick.laverty» writes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1096724,00.html

The Bill Brooks in the article works for Solar Wings/Pegasus and is the designer of the Booster power unit. He also did a pedal power harness for hang gliders some tears back.

(editor's note: In this the Wright Brothers 100th anniversary year of the wrong turn in flying - going powered - we look back at the folks that mighta, coulda, shoulda, woulda, but actually didn't.)

Discuss Percy at the Oz Report forum

Wright Brothers photos from Library of Congress

Mon, Dec 1 2003, 2:00:03 pm EST

David Glover|photo|Wright Brothers

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/media/photo/
congress/display/congress_gli.htm

David Glover sends this URL

http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/
feature_1525320.html

Gene Mathews sends this one for the NPR feature over last weekend.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16736

The above is a review of numerous Wright Brothers books from the NYROB's. I complained to them about a year ago that they didn't have enough of their material freely available on the web, just the latest issue, and now I see that they have fairly recent back issues accessible. Good for them.

Discuss Wright Brothers at the Oz Report forum

Actual PG Towing

Wed, Nov 26 2003, 8:00:08 pm GMT

towing paragliders

David Prentice|PG|Wright Brothers

David Prentice «earthcog» writes:

Well I guess the French guy who wrote the email saying aerotowing a paraglider can only be done in the smoothest of air, were not fully informed! Today Bobby aerotowed me to 2,000’ agl into 500 fpm lift from which I skied out and flew 5 miles x-c! Now he is going to tow me till he runs out of gas 10,000 plus agl! Details later!

Later:

I just landed and I'm still shivering with chills from my 3,200 meter, 9,600 ft tow. We believe this to be the World’s highest tow of a paraglider! The only reason I pinned off is because Bobby was freezing his ass off in his shorts, we still had over half a tank of gas!

After my mid day aerotow and x-c flight in 500 fpm lift earlier today I wonder if the naysayers will still keep the stance that this is only for skilled pilots in only the "smoothest of air"? We would not be surprised at this attitude, and for this exact reason the Wright brothers were here pioneering flight, and not the French!

But we also think the French would probably not claim this naysayer as one of their own! If we all had this type of attitude, there would never be any advancement in aviation. We will continue!

Discuss "Actual PG Towing" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

1902 Wright glider refurbished

Tue, Oct 7 2003, 4:00:05 am EDT

the Wright Brothers

Dudley Mead|Paul Voight|USHGA|Wright Brothers|history

Much of the USHGA BOD went over to Jockey's Ridge State Park after the final general session on Sunday at noon to see various pilots training on a modified Wright Brothers 1902 glider replica. The 1902 model had been retrofitted with a double surface rudder and a double surface canard to more closely resemble the 1903 plane so that the pilots could prepare the 1903 model which should arrive at the Outer Banks on Tuesday.

The winds were about 10 mph out of the east, and frankly the glider weighs a lot and has a terrible glide, nothing like the Rogollo wings that the students and instructors were using on the dune behind us. We would have to run hard just to get the pilot a three second free flight.

Four hang glider pilots – Paul Voight, Felipe, Dudley Mead (one of the pilots), and I made up a lot of the crew on Sunday. In this shot one of the other glider pilots, a Navy fighter pilot helps run the glider down the slope to get the relative wind up to 23 mph.

We all get a change to get in the pilot’s “seat.” It is very uncomfortable. No wonder the Wright Brothers flights were so short. Warping the wings with a hip actuated control was no fun. Most of us had to really scrunch up to fit.

Discuss "1902 Wright glider refurbished" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Kitty Hawk Kites »

Tue, Oct 7 2003, 4:00:02 am EDT

Florida|USHGA|Wright Brothers

John Harris and Kitty Hawk Kites were very welcoming of the USHGA BOD meeting (even though the finger food ran out after five minutes at their reception). While we were running the Wright Brothers glider up and down the hill, John said be sure to mention “Kitty Hawk Kites, teaching gliding since 1902.”

Kitty Hawk Kites now has eleven locations (a new one in Panama City, Florida), with one a beach shack where they teach kite boarding. He offered us all free lessons. Don’t know if anyone made it down there. All the clothes at KHK were on sale (40% off) as this is the end of the season in the resort area. I hadn’t been to such a great sale since we were in Moab, Utah in late October.

All the voting members of the USHGA BOD (I’m not on the BOD in any capacity) got a goody bag of kits, and other party favors. I bought five new pairs of shorts and some Teva’s.

Discuss KHK at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

USHGA BOD meeting

Wed, Oct 1 2003, 4:00:01 am EDT

Bill Moyes|Jayne DePanfilis|PG|USHGA|video|weather|Wright Brothers

Jayne DePanfilis «jayne» writes:

Your travel itineraries indicate that it is best not to schedule anything for Thursday night. The hotel bar will be open in Peppercorn's Restaurant.

There will be a dedication "service" for the Rogallo Pylon at the Kitty Hawk Welcome Center on Friday evening at 5:30 PM. This includes a special ribbon cutting service just for the USHGA because the monument/park is not open to the public yet.

We hope that Mr. Rogallo "Rog" and his wife Gertrude will be able to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony (which is one of the reasons why we scheduled it for 5:30 PM.) I know they will join us if they feel up to it.

There will be a reception afterwards at the Kitty Hawk Kites store in Nags Head at 6:30 PM. The Nags Head store is the flagship location for Kitty Hawk Kites and Outer Banks Outdoors. The store is located across the street from the sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge State Park. The flight school is located in the park but the store is located outside of the park further south on 158 across the street from the dunes where training hill lessons and introductory flights are offered.

Nick Engler will address the board and guests at Kitty Hawk Kites during the reception. Refer to www.wrightbrothers.org for information about the 1902 replica that will be flown by Nick on the sand dunes on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, weather permitting. The USHGA board and guests are invited to watch the re-enactment of the first flight. Nick will provide a "Historical Interpretation of Flight" during the reception on Friday night and I've been told other hang glider pilots and test pilots will be attending.

Josh Criss, hang glider pilot and photo journalist from Northern Virginia, produced a video entitled "The Flyingest Flying." The video is about 80 minutes. It was actually edited to 80 minutes. I watched a portion of the video with Dan when he was in the office after the Spring Board meeting and this video includes footage that I bet most of you have never seen before. Footage of Bill Moyes and the likes flying hang gliders "many moons ago." The film is very well done. We may try to set something up on Saturday night so we can watch the film as a group etc. We'll let you know more during General Session on Friday morning at 8 AM.

General Session will be held in the Currituck Room on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. I was told yesterday by the hotel staff that wireless internet connection is available only in the Currituck room. This was not my previous understanding so I'm looking into it.

Finally, the National Park Service has declined our request to fly hang gliders and paragliders from the base of the Wright Brothers Monument in Kill Devil Hills. Don't take it too personally, other aviation-related requests have been denied recently as well. Too much going on in the aftermath of the storm in preparation for the 100th Anniversary of Flight celebration.

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Sailplane America

Tue, Jun 17 2003, 2:03:07 pm EDT

powered|sailplane|Wright Brothers

Ramy Yanetz <RamyYanetz@aol.com> writes:

On June 19, 2003, around forty sailplanes will begin a 17-day race from Los Angeles, CA to Kitty Hawk, NC to celebrate the centennial of the Wright Brothers' first powered flight. http://ssaregion12.org/rtkh

(editor’s note: My only question is why. Shouldn’t they have flown this flight in 2002, 100 years after the Wrights felt they understood gliding? Doesn’t powered flight, while a wonderful thing in and of itself, represent in many ways a wrong turn for the Wrights? I can only say that flight is much better as a personal experience without an engine.)

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Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer simulator

Sun, Jun 8 2003, 2:03:04 pm EDT

Cliff Whitney|psychology|simulator|Wright Brothers

http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/simulation/Wright_sim.html

Cliff Whitney <cliffw@cliffwhitney.com> writes:

There is a cool flight simulator of the 1903 Flyer that a famous pair of brothers made. It is a real challenge to fly unlike our more modern wings. Just what would the brothers think if they saw a modern Rotax 582/912 on a Drag-N-Fly!

Discuss the Wright Brothers as glider pilots at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

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Why we celebrate the Wright Brothers

Mon, Apr 28 2003, 3:00:07 pm EDT

bicycle|Otto Lilienthal|Wright Brothers

Jim writes to the rigid wing list regarding the question of what the Wright Brothers did:

- They discovered inherent errors in Lilienthal's lift equations and corrected them.

- They invented the wind tunnel and used it as part of their development

- They solved the problem of roll control through wing warping, achieved by pulling opposite corners of the box wing structure together

- They discovered the problem of adverse yaw and solved it through active rudder control

- They recognized the propeller as a rotating wing and designed theirs accordingly

- They implemented a modern system-engineering and development approach, applying lessons learned in early steps to subsequent ones.

and most importantly

- They recognized that flying didn't involve inventing an airplane, but in learning to fly first, then building the airplane incrementally.

What I find most interesting about the Wrights isn't the fact that they were a couple of bicycle mechanics that learned to fly and build airplanes, but that it almost HAD to be bicycle mechanics to do it. They were some of the only people around that understood that a craft doesn't need to be inherently stable to work, it just needs to be controllable with a skilled enough hand.

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Discuss "Why we celebrate the Wright Brothers" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Old gliders

Mon, Oct 28 2002, 10:00:08 pm EST

Wright Brothers

«doug» writes:

The book "Aviation -- The Pioneer Years" has the same photo of Lavezzari and a few more details. Here are the relevant excerpts:

"At the same time in France (as the Wrights, Chanute, Montgomery et al were researching flight in the US), Ernest Archdeacon, a pioneer of automobiles, the telephone and sporting ballooning, inspired by Ferber's attempts, led a vigorous campaign from 1902 to have the experiment of the Wrights and Chanute repeated in France. Encouraged by a conference given there by the latter, Archdeacon had a glider made, copied from that of the Wright brothers. Trials took place in 1904 on the Berck sand dunes; the aviator was a young Lyonnais, Gabriel Voisin. The flights, though short, were very satisfactory, confirming Voisin's early interest in the arroplane."

"All over the country, numerous researchers revealed themselves from 1904 to 1907: Bazin, at Marseilles, built gliders imitating sea birds, using flapping paddles for propulsion; Solirene, at Palavas, threw himself from a tower and crashed violently, but harmlessly, into the sea; Gardey, at Lyons broke a leg with the Berger glider, imprudently launched from a great height by means of an inclined track; Lavezzari, at Berck, made several attempts in 1904, as did Robart at Amiens; Joseph Weiss tested some remarkable gliders in England."

(editor’s note: Of course, by 1903 the Wright Brothers had already perverted man’s quest for flight by putting an engine on their glider and achieved “sustained” flight.)

Kitty Hawk

Sat, May 18 2002, 2:00:00 pm EDT

Bo Hagewood|Curt Warren|David Glover|Doug Haber|Florida|Ken Brown|weather|Wright Brothers

Bo Hagewood|Curt Warren|David Glover|Doug Haber|Florida|John "Ole" Olson|Ken Brown|weather|Wright Brothers

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Bo Hagewood|Curt Warren|David Glover|Doug Haber|Florida|Ken Brown|weather|Wright Brothers

Bo Hagewood|Curt Warren|David Glover|Doug Haber|Florida|Ken Brown|Russell Brown|weather|Wright Brothers

Bo Hagewood|Curt Warren|David Glover|Doug Haber|Florida|Ken Brown|Russell Brown|weather|Wright Brothers

Burned in my mind is the image of Wilbur and Orville Wright, one flying, and the other running with the wing of their very unstable powered glider down the dunes here at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The dunes, barren and windswept, the perfect place for gliding experiments, in spite of their long distance from Ohio. The vast expanse of sand allowing for what were then long flights.

It didn’t seem to matter to me that that was 100 years ago. It was still what I subconsciously expected to see when I came to the barrier islands that are the Outer Banks. Of course, I was disappointed to find a teaming and crowded recreation area filled with summer beach houses. What could I have been thinking?

The dunes were barren because almost nothing grew near Kill Devil Hills. Nothing grew because the Atlantic Oceanwould several times each year roll over most of the nearby land area dowsing it with salt from the salt water. The salt in the sand made an inhospitable environment for plants.

In the thirties (long after the Wright brothers) the USCore of Engineers pushed up the sand from the beach on the east side and physically formed a long north/south dune. They planted on the dune to keep it in place. This dune kept the ocean at bay, allowing for the rain to wash the salt out of the sand. With the salt levels down, plants could grow and stabilize the sand and sand dunes. Civilization was soon to follow.

Now I did know that there was a hang gliding school here at Kitty Hawk Kites flying at Jockey’s Ridge, a sand dune. But, I just assumed that they flew into an easterly on shore sea breeze. Wrong again. It turns out that there isn’t an on-shore flow and that the prevailing winds are out of the southwest in the summer time.

It turns out that on the western side of these skinny barrier islands this is a brackish water sound (Albemarle Sound) fed by rivers (Roanoke, Chowan, others) from the North Carolinamainland. The flow is strong enough, and the outlets to the ocean small enough so that the tidal effects on the sound are minimal.

The sound is quite large and to the west on the mainland you’ll find lowlands and swamps. There isn’t any source of heating inland to generate the rising air that would cause the on-shore flow. So without the guarantee of a daily on-shore flow in the summer months, the Outer Banks weather is determined by the larger, non local weather systems.

We’re here for the annual gathering of pilots and instructors who’ve been affiliated with Kitty Hawk Kites, the Spectacular. Other than a few of those gathered here they are unfamiliar to me. These are not the pilots that I normally see on the competition circuit.

The Spectacular has the flavor of a local fly in, like the Mosquito Bite at DogMountainin WashingtonState. I’m sure that most of you have been to local fly ins in your home areas and can understand what I’m talking about. As a non local, I’m really not connected with more than a few of the pilots here.

On Friday the competition began. The first two days of competition take place at Jockey’s Ridge (the sand dune) and the second two days are supposed to take place at the airstrip where we will be aerotowing.

With strong winds out of the southwest we were perched up on a small shallow dune out to the south of the main dune (Jockey’s Ridge) testing whether it was blown out or just right. The task consisted of running sideways with the glider facing into the wind and down the slope. You ran sideways in order to get a running start toward the cone off to the left that you had to round on the outside to get 5 points.

Further to the left and down the hill was a second 5 point cone. Round that with your body on the outside and the next step was a cross wind leg crabbing up the hill to fly up hill above the cones just below the launch box for a maximum of 15 points if you got above the one furthest up the hill.

Next it was a straight glide down threw a thicket of black plastic polls that acted as bowling pins while you played the part of the bowling ball, until you got to the bulls eye made of little pink flags. Hit the two foot wide area in the middle marked with darker flags, and you got 25 points. 50 points was the maximum for any task.

Hitting the target was not easy given that the winds were strong and gusty out of the left and the target was in a hole at the bottom of the shallow dune. Going low and slow you were easily at the mercy of the constantly buffeting gale.

Having last flown at the dunes ten years ago, I opted to watch. Bo Hagewood, GW Meadows, Ken Brown, David Glover, Curt Warren, and Russell Brown were the pilots that I knew who along with many that I was unfamiliar with were able to show a pretty reasonable level of experience and skill. Bo and Ken were particularly adept at flying a few inches off the ground and handling the glider with some smoothness and finesse in what appeared to be difficult circumstances.

At the end of four rounds Bo on some borrowed glider was in first place followed by Doug Haber, who had previously won two times in a row, followed by Kenny on a Moyes Sonic. On Saturday the winds were stronger, and it was raining. A cold front came through and dropped the temperatures by 20 degrees. Bo wins the part of the Spectacular.

Sunday brought strong northeast winds, overcast, and no aerotowing, but dune flying on the east coast side of the island in front of the three story hotels. Thanks to Kate, a British pilot, Bo and Russell, I had an opportunity to fly the dunes, for three short flights. The first required me to relearn at 10 feet how to fly a flex wing after forgetting again during the Floridacompetitions. The second and third flights were improvements.

Lots of folks soared the hotels and dunes for a few hours in the gusty east, northeast winds with the pounding surf but a few feet away. It was quite a stunt jumping up off the beach, putting a wing tip into the dune and stepping up to the top of the dune, and then over the hotels.

Sunday night at the airstrip 45 minutes to the north on the mainland, Francis and Gertrud Rogollo were there to help celebrate 30 years of Kitty Hawk Kites. While the Spectacular may be quite a small event in terms of the number of participants, it is packed with history and lots of prizes to the winners. John Harris from Kitty Hawk Kites gets out the sponsors and shopping day is Tuesday.

There is supposed to be one more day tomorrow aerotowing, but given that it was in the high fifties today, it is presently hard to imagine that we will go flying out there.

Wright Brothers »

Tue, Aug 28 2001, 4:00:04 pm EDT

Wright Brothers

Dudley forgot to send in their web site: http://www.wright-brothers.org/

Wight Brothers 1901

Sun, Aug 26 2001, 6:00:03 am EDT

Wright Brothers

Dudley Mead «Wingmead» writes:

We will be returning to Kitty Hawk again this year to recreate the Wright Brothers 1901 trip to the Outer Banks. Last year we flew the 1900 glider (and the 1902, photo of which is attached). This year we will have the 1900, the 1901 and the 1902 gliders to fly on the 100th anniversary of their 1901 experiments.

This period for them was a low point in the development of a controllable aircraft, so the flights will be a challenge, to say the least. We would love to have a great turn out there to witness (& help with) our trials on Sept. 8 & 9th. Anyone with the time and the interest would be welcome, unfortunately though, we'll probably loose some participants to the Grandfather Mtn. reunion.

 

Those ever interesting Wright Brothers

Sun, Jan 28 2001, 12:00:03 am EST

Brett Snellgrove|Davis Straub|USHGA|Wright Brothers

Noel Whittall «noel.w» writes:

I'm pleased to see this discussion of the Wrights and their achievements in your Report. I have been a fan since as a kid I saw the original Wright Flyer in the Science Museum in London in the 1940s, before it was shipped back to the Smithsonian. I was able to renew our acquaintance when I visited Washington last fall. The forward elevator did indeed form a safety feature, but I suspect that this was as much because it added to the crumple zone as much as for its aerodynamic properties. It is a pity that it appears to pivot at around 50 percent of chord - they would have surely have had a much less twitchy ride if they had settled at 30-percent, but, hey, NOBODY HAD EVER DONE IT BEFORE!

Other reasons they walked away from the wreckage from time to time must surely have been that the motor was to the side of the pilot, so it missed the driver in the event of a messy arrival, plus the fact that those long skids were much more forgiving of a landing on any but the smoothest ground than wheels would have been. If anybody has doubts about their energy-absorbing properties, try reading 'Cal Rodgers and the Gin Fizz' by Eileen F Lebow. Rogers made the first trans-USA flight on a Model EX Wright biplane in 1911. Still looks much like the original Flyer, but the elevator had moved to the tail by then. The Gin Fizz had wheels, but skids were still a vital part of the airframe. Rogers managed to write off several sets during his epic. The book is a good read, even though it becomes clear after a while that the author doesn't understand how an aircraft flies.

As well as 'Kill Devil Hill', there are several other good books about the Wrights. I liked 'The Bishop's Boys' by Tom Crouch. A recent addition to the range is 'The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright', published by the Smithsonian late last year. Don't overlook 'Miracle at Kitty Hawk', ed. Fred Kelly, which is their collected letters and arguably gives the best insight of all. As far as the revelation of flight is concerned, all the books have the benefit of a happy ending.

Incidentally, if anyone out there has a phone or other contact address etc for Ken Hyde, who builds replica Wrights at, I believe, the Virginia Machine Company, I would be very grateful to have it. I believe the firm is based at Warrenton, Va.

brett s snellgrove «snell14» writes:

To continue the discussion in an area I find interesting. The reason I was reluctant to state you were mistaken regarding the Wright Brothers canard (and rather, simply compare it to the modern configuration) is there have been canards made in the configuration you note. Several human powered aircraft have, and continue to utilize, aircraft with the canard set up such that it stalls after the main wing. This avoids the inefficiencies Mr Sheehy referrers to when the canard stalls first (the main wing coefficient of lift is limited to a number below the canard in this instance). This is acceptable for human powered vehicles as they fall to earth with all the energy of a butterfly. I wondered if this applied to the Wrights.

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All your correspondents are Wright!

Fri, Jan 26 2001, 7:00:04 pm EST

Brett Snellgrove|Davis Straub|Finbar Sheehy|Pablo Gomez|sailplane|USHGA|video|Vincent Endter|Wright Brothers

Brett Snellgrove|Davis Straub|Finbar Sheehy|John "Ole" Olson|Pablo Gomez|sailplane|USHGA|video|Vincent Endter|Wright Brothers

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Brett Snellgrove|Davis Straub|Finbar Sheehy|Pablo Gomez|sailplane|USHGA|video|Vincent Endter|Wright Brothers

Brett Snellgrove|Davis Straub|Finbar Sheehy|John "Ole" Olson|Pablo Gomez|sailplane|USHGA|video|Vincent Endter|Wright Brothers

Let's let Finbar Sheehy «Finbar» have the last word (please):

The comments from Vincent Endter, Pablo Gomez-Trenor, Brett Snellgrove, and the quotes from Kill Devil Hill by Harry Combs are all correct, and do not contradict each other.

Your own original statement, however, was indeed a typo.

In a canard aircraft (horizontal stabilizer in front) the horizontal stabilizer is at a higher angle of attack than the main wing, and consequently stalls first as the main wing's angle of attack approaches the stall. Because of this, "up elevator" no longer works, and the nose begins to drop, until the horizontal stabilizer un-stalls and lifts the nose again. The main wing never reaches its stalling angle of attack. As a result, with full "up elevator" control input, the Wrights' main wing continued to fly, and would not stall or spin, but with high drag from the partly-stalled front surface, their glider "instead of spinning out and killing them the way a conventional aircraft would have done, simply parachuted to the ground in a flat position."

In conventional aircraft the main wing is at a higher angle of attack than the horizontal stabilizer (which usually "lifts" downward in normal flight). As the angle of attack of the main wing approaches stall, the horizontal stabilizer continues to work just fine, making it possible for the pilot to stall the main wing and "crash and burn."

The higher degree of safety of canard aircraft is one reason why they were so heavily promoted by homebuilt aircraft designers like Burt Rutan. Unfortunately, they are inherently less efficient (long, complicated topic), which is why you never see canard sailplanes. In powered aircraft, they also tend to mean that, on a single-engine, single-propeller aircraft, the propeller needs to go at the back, where propellers tend to be very inefficient (the Rutan designs employ great engineering to provide a clean airflow to the propeller). The result of both of these was that by 1915 virtually all airplanes, including the last models from the Wrights' company, had the propeller at the front and the tail at the back, in spite of the heavy cost in spin-related accidents. (Spin recovery was first demonstrated during World War I.)

Michael Duffy is also correct, that the Wrights successfully patented wing warping, which created a legal obstacle for Glenn Curtiss. This inspired him to use ailerons to achieve roll control: apparently the patent did not cover them. While wing warping is slightly more aerodynamically elegant (one of the highly advanced aerodynamic features of flex-wing hang gliders, of course) it is structurally very difficult to do in any large aircraft, and designers would have had to invent ailerons anyway.

Marcelo«marcelo»writes:

In face of the recent discussion on the OZ Reports regarding earlier aviators, me as proud Brazilian that I am, could not miss the opportunity to point to you and to your readers about the great aviator Santos Dumont.

He conducted his flying experiments around the same time that the Wright Brothers were conducting theirs. Although there is lots of controversy regarding who was the father of modern aviation, at the time, the Brazilians and the European Communities considered Santos Dumont to be the Father of Aviation (I believe we Brazilian still consider it this way).

Any way, I'm including a couple of links so you can read and share it at you will, they explain better the whole thing. http://www.maria-brazil.org/sdumont.htm and http://firstflight.open.ac.uk/default.html.

Pretty interesting, at this site there is a short video clip of Dumont's 1906 flight. It seams the plane is flying backwards. http://www.entrenet.com/~groedmed/santosd.html http://www.firstflight.org/shrine/santos_dumont.html.

(editor's note: Not to denigrate the Brazilian's claim to fatherhood, but I have noticed that in general fatherhood is much easier to claim or disclaim than motherhood. The French, who also thought that they had invented heavier than air flight, upon seeing the Wright Brother's flying demonstrations in France (4 years after the Wright Brother's first powered flights) exclaimed, that they (the French) are but children.)

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The Wright Brothers

Fri, Jan 26 2001, 12:00:04 am EST

Brett Snellgrove|Davis Straub|Pablo Gomez|USHGA|Wright Brothers

It seems that whenever I write about the Wright Brothers I get all sorts of e-mail. I hesitate to respond because it can just go on and on. I mentioned the Wright Brothers originally only to point out the fact that they successfully used aerodynamic surfaces for control of their gliders thereby taking a step up from Otto Lilienthal who used a version of weight shift.

I include readers' comments below, and quotes from Kill Devil Hill by Harry Combs, ISBN 0-9-940053-02-0 (for those who wish absolute reference), First softbound printing, November 1986.

I wrote:

(editor's note: The Wright Brothers were able to live long enough to learn how to fly because they didn't die after stalling their glider. The elevators in front of their main wings would remain flying when the main wings stalled, and allow them to come much more gently to earth.)

Vincent Endter «vendter» writes:

You have it backwards. Their elevator (mounted in front) had a higher angle of attack. It would stall first and reduce the pitch before the main wings could stall. This is the main safety concept that Burt Rutan was pushing in his canard designed VariEasy and follow up LongEasy.

Pablo Gomez-Trenor«pgomeztrenor»writes:

I guess you mean that the main wings would remain flying after having stalled the elevators in front of them.... (a tipo, I'm sure).

brett s snellgrove«snell14»writes:

In your report you mention in the Wrights' aircraft, the canard kept flying after the mainwing had stalled allowing softer descents. Interesting, current canards stall first BEFORE the mainwing stalls so the mainwing stall is essentially impossible (unless accelerated).

I would direct readers attention to pages 97-104, 124, 137-138.

From page 99:

"They were still only vaguely aware if a condition known as a 'stall,' and discerned its potential as a possible source of danger, although they did not understand it in detail.

"In any case, the sudden or violent pressure that forced up the leading edge of the wing was an undesirable characteristic, and it impeded the solution to the problem of equilibrium. It had to be offset or balanced by the Wright's forward elevator."

…"When the glider had a tendency to dive forward, the forward elevator could be turned to force the nose up. Although the brothers didn't yet fully understand the center-of-pressure travel, their forward elevator could deal with it."

From page 101:

"Now, here is the truly fortuitous aspect of their forward rudder design: because the elevator was forward instead of behind, the aircraft, when stalled, installed of spinning out and killing them the way a conventional aircraft would have done, simple parachuted to the ground in a flat position."

From page 124:

"Chanute also missed the happy accident of the antistall design the Wrights had developed in their forward horizontal elevator, but he could hardly be faulted for that: the Wright brothers themselves had yet to appreciate the significance of what they had done."

From page 138:

"For Wilbur recognized at once that he had passed a towering barrier, that he has encountered the dreaded killer stall, and he had survived and would survive such moments in the future. He proved that the forward horizontal elevator could prevent the machine from whipping into the deadly maneuver that had killed Lilienthal."

I wrote:

(Elevators in front of the main wings are not an obviously solution to whatever flight problems that Wright's were aware of, so I've often wondered how they came up with this particular configuration. It sure isn't obvious from watching birds, and I don't recall it being used by other researchers with whom the Wright's communicated or whose work they were aware of.)

Bruce Decker«bdecker»wrote back with this quote from his copy of Kill Devil Hills on page 86:

They [the Wrights] could also see that to structure from this flat or curved surface, which they would now call a "wing," they had to find some way of balancing and counteracting the center-of-pressure travel. This balancing arrangement could not be in the form of a movable weight, for many reasons; rather, it had to be some sort of offsetting lifting surface. This is the function served by the horizontal part of the tail of a present-day airplane.

The brothers came up with the idea of a small forward plane, to be built in an extended position ahead of the their wing. At first they thought it could be secured in a fixed position, but he would later discover that it would have to be moveable if it was to maintain the aircraft's balance. The first forward plan, which at the time, they chose to call the "horizontal rudder" but which we today would call a forward elevator (or canard), became the hallmark of their aircraft design. All Wright planes, in the early days, were distinguished by the forward plane, which extended ahead of the wings.

The fact that the Wrights has incorrectly analyzed the center-of-pressure travel, and its differences on flat surfaces versus curved surfaces, turned out, in the long run, to make no difference. This forward plane would be a happy accident of design, because, as we shall see, it would save their lives many times over.

brett s snellgrove«snell14»wrote:

The Wright's thought the center of pressure moved forward, not rearward on pitch up.

I was not able to find the passage that Bruce sent in my copy of the book. None-the-less, the reader is directed to page 97-104 in the version referred to above for a discussion along these lines.

I wrote:

Wing warping (which evolved into ailerons)…

Michael Dufty«madmike»wrote:

I was under the impression that the shift from wing warping to ailerons was not so much an aerodynamic progression as a legal move.

The Wright brothers failed in their attempt to patent the powered aircraft, partly as a result of a group who successfully flew a replica of the Langley aerodrome, which pre-dated the Wright Brothers planes, but they did succeed in patenting wing warping. I wonder if it would be more prominent in modern aircraft if it had not been protected by patent early in the development of aircraft.

From page 346 and 347:

"Also at this time, other early pioneers of flight, notably Glenn Curtiss, with the help of the Smithsonian Institution, became involved in a shameful plan to discredit the Wrights. They engaged in the deception of revamping the structure and control system of the crash-prone Aerodrome. Finally, in 1914, the Aerodrome flew successfully for a short hop, prompting claims that its failure to fly in 1902 was the fault of the launching mechanism, not the airplane. ….

….

"Eventually, as the result of the efforts of many individuals, as well as a concerned Congress, Orville accepted the Smithsonian's official apology, …"

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Paraglider controls

Wed, Jan 24 2001, 1:00:02 am EST

Brett Snellgrove|PG|William "Billo" Olive|Wright Brothers

Brett Snellgrove «Snell14» writes:

The problems with Lillienthal's version of weight shift control, as you note in your excellent review of control systems, continue to remain problematic for modern paraglider pilots. During a collapse, when support from one riser is lost the pilot falls into the collapsed side riser, effectively weight shift turning into the collapse. As the Wright Brothers noted the pilot must effectively shift uphill to turn out of the collapse.

Brakes are not desirable for recovery in these instances as, since a smaller portion of the wing remains flying, the stall speed goes up significantly. Paraglider brakes are actually down going spoilers and can very easily stall the remaining wing inducing a negative spin.

There's an interesting debate on appropriate recovery methods going at present. Personally, I feel the cage is the only effective solution as it frees the pilot to move independently of the wing's orientation through a single attachment point and significantly increases weight shift control authority in the same manner as a hang glider eliminating the risk of negative spin.

One point you over look regarding weight shift control is a further limitation related to control forces. In a pure weight shift system, pilots can only exert a control force equal to their weight multiplied by the perpendicular distance moved -say 400 foot pounds for a 200 pound pilot. Aerodynamic forces can easily exceed this amount in roll.

Aerodynamic controls however, use the energy of the disturbing force and increase the control authority in proportion to the force of the disturbance. This is why modern hang gliders couple billow shift mechanisms (activated via floating cross tubes) for an aerodynamic control effect, and another motivator for the Wright Brothers selection of aerodynamic controls.

It's interesting to note however, after thousands of safe flights, Otto Lillenthal was not killed by the inadequacy of roll control in his glider - rather was pitched up and stalled in a gust before tumbling to earth. Generally weight shift alone is considered more than adequate for pitch - given the shorter chord and leverage of the wing against control input in this regard. Possibly, with the pilot positioned inside the wing and lacking pendular augmentation, the weight shift control in pitch in Lillenthal's craft was also inadequate, and may explain the absence of successful pilot-in-wing designs ever after.

(editor's note: The Wright Brothers were able to live long enough to learn how to fly because they didn't die after stalling their glider. The elevators in front of their main wings would remain flying when the main wings stalled, and allow them to come much more gently to earth.

Elevators in front of the main wings are not an obviously solution to whatever flight problems that Wright's were aware of, so I've often wondered how they came up with this particular configuration. It sure isn't obvious from watching birds, and I don't recall it being used by other researchers with whom the Wright's communicated or whose work they were aware of.)

Wing warping

Tue, Jan 23 2001, 10:00:02 am EST

Davis Straub|sailplane|USHGA|Wright Brothers

Davis Straub|John "Ole" Olson|sailplane|USHGA|Wright Brothers

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Davis Straub|sailplane|USHGA|Wright Brothers

Davis Straub|John "Ole" Olson|sailplane|USHGA|Wright Brothers

G.W.'s use of the term "downtubed" rigid wing coupled with the Stalker's elaborate control mechanisms got me thinking about Otto Lillienthal and the Wright Brothers and their control mechanisms. Otto, of course, used a form of weight shifting to actually control his gliders. While the upper part of his body was essentially fixed at the armpits, the bottom part was somewhat free to swing from side to side. By displacing the lower part of his body he changed the center of gravity of his glider with respect to the center of pressure.

The obvious problem with this, as the Wright Brothers clearly saw, was that if the air pushed up one wing, the pilots' weight would automatically go toward the lower wing. This is the exact opposite response that you would want to have in a control mechanism that has the goal of keeping the wings level when flying through turbulence. The roll away from the lifted wing would be exacerbated by the weight shift control mechanism.

In order to level the glider, Otto had to force his weight uphill toward the lifted wing. He was put in a hole when one wing lifted. The hole got deeper when he (well, his bottom parts) fell to the opposite side. Now he had to work that much harder to get out of the hole and get the wings level again.

The Wright's correctly saw that they needed a mechanism that would allow the pilot to quickly react to turbulence induced changes in the glider attitude without putting the pilot at an added disadvantage. By allowing the pilot to quickly change the shape of the wings they used differential aerodynamic forces to keep the wings level.

Wing warping (which evolved into ailerons) was one of the reasons (although not the major reason) the Wright Brothers lived long enough to be able to both learn how to fly and to do the scientific work necessary to design wings with adequate lift.

Modern rigid wing hang gliders are a curious blend of weight shift, pseudo weight shift, and wing warping controls. Because the pilot is suspended on a line, like a pendulum with all the weight at the bottom, he has much more control over his weight shifting than Otto had. Also because he is holding onto a control bar, he can quickly move his much more effective mass to overcome the natural tendency to fall away from the uplifted wing.

Rigid wings (including the new Stalker) use pseudo-weight shift control for roll inputs. The pilot's movements to the side activate the spoilerons. To the hang glider pilot it feels a lot like weight shifting, but the shifting of his weight has little or no effect on the roll of the glider. Of course, weight shifting is still used for pitch control.

Rigid wings, because they use aerodynamic surfaces for control, are significantly easier to fly (in terms of the work required of the pilot) than flex wing hang gliders that have to rely almost completely on weight shifting. Sailplanes with three axis controls are even easier (again in terms of required pilot exertion).

Pilots who want to fly free (without being surrounded by a cage) and easy, should think about the early history of flight, and ask themselves what it has to say to them.

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Wright Brothers redux

Thu, Nov 2 2000, 12:00:00 pm EST

Dudley Mead|Francis Rogallo|Wright Brothers

Dudley Mead «Wingmead» writes:

By virtue of being born in Dayton, Ohio (birthplace of the Wright Brothers), and being a hang glider pilot, I was invited to fly this exact replica of the Wright Brothers 1900 glider at Kitty Hawk (actually Jockeys Ridge) for the 100th anniversary of their first flights.

 

This was the glider that put them on the road to the 1903 Flyer. Prior attempts at flight by others all focused on attaining stability. The Wrights focused on controllability which, obviously, turned out to be the key to their success.

I flew this glider on the anniversary day, and a replica of their 1902 glider the next day. The "flights" were all towed or tethered, and as such, not really free glides. Nevertheless, it was an awesome experience to recreate those early efforts at flight.

The 1900 glider had only a 17-foot span and 165 sq. feet of area. The airfoil was extremely shallow, the fabric somewhat porous, and, of course, lots of drag. I had about 18 towed flights into a 18 to 25 mph wind. Highest altitude was about 6 feet.

The 1902 glider had a 32-foot span and 305 sq. feet of sail area. The airfoil, also shallow, the fabric still porous, and, again, lots of drag. I had about 12 towed flights into a 22 to 28 mph wind. Highest altitude was about 12 feet.

More than the flight details, the opportunity to follow these historic footsteps was quite a privilege. The advancements they made in those two years clearly demonstrated their genius and determination.

Nonetheless, I am very clearly reminded of the design advancements made in hang gliding and the ingenuity demonstrated by the designers of our modern wings. The difference is, we have had over 100 years to get used to the idea that man can fly. The Wrights didn't have that luxury. They had only Octave Chanute and a few locals to witness and encourage the 1902 glides.

I can only wonder what would have been if Francis Rogallo, or Taras Kiceniuk, or Roy Haggard, or Felix Ruhle, or Paul McCready had been with them at the camp in the dunes. More info can be found at www.wright-brothers.org.

(editor's note: These guys are building all six versions of the Wright Brothers gliders and powered glider. They will be needing some financial support to accomplish this goal. The gliders are as near to perfect copies of the originals as possible.)

The Wright Stuff

Mon, Aug 7 2000, 9:45:06 pm GMT

Bruce Decker|Kitty Hawk Kites|Wright Brothers

Bruce Decker, <bdecker@s7.com>, writes:

I've read them all and Kill Devil Hill by Harry Combs is still the best story of the Wright Brothers:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0940053020/o/qid=965531371/ sr=8-2/ref=aps_sr_b_1_2/104-7556973-9054354

I asked Bruce about the book, and especially about how much it goes into their scientific work. He writes:

Very good on technical detail including some photos of their lift tables, etc. It was written by Harry Combs (Combs Aviation). Harry was one of the pioneers of jet aviation and hung out with the likes of Neil Armstrong. As an aerospace engineer, Harry goes into a bunch of aerodynamic theories and the scientific methods used by the Wrights.

There are other books on the Wrights that go more into the personal life such as "The Bishop's Boys" but for the enjoyment of aviator readers, I would put Kill Devil Hill at the top.

Aside from the aeronautical commentary, Harry knew that many of the people who knew the Wrights, flew with them, did business with them, witnessed their flights in Europe, etc. were getting on in years and their memories would be lost forever unless someone took the time to document them. He decided he would fly around the world looking for anyone and everyone who had memories to contribute and he produced his book. I was told by his publisher that the book is required reading for Air Force cadet pilots.

I recommended this book to a fellow hang glider pilot. When it arrived, he thought he would read a few chapters before bed. He called me the next morning just before work to thank me for the book recommendation but that he had no idea how he would function at work that day :-)

Another great work on the Wrights is a video produced for the TV show The American Experience and entitled "The Wright Stuff". It is a fascinating documentary complete with actual flights of a replica Wright Flyer from the Outer Banks dunes by Pilots from Kitty Hawk Kites. I was able to get a copy from Greenfield Village (The Henry Ford Museum) near Detroit at their gift shop. Henry Ford actually moved the Wrights original house and their last bicycle shop from Dayton, OH to Detroit and re-assembled them next to each other at the museum. The house is just as it was when the Wrights lived there. Their bike shop is complete with original Wright bikes, original tools (lathes, drill presses, etc) that were used to build the Wright gliders and airplanes. Also, partially built replicas of the 1903 Wright glider are on display. It is really an experience to walk the floors, and touch the machines that created it all.

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Wilbur and Orville

Sun, Aug 6 2000, 6:00:02 am EDT

Wright Brothers

Bruce Decker,«bdecker»,writes:

I've read them all and Kill Devil Hill by Harry Combs is still the best story of the Wright Brothers:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0940053020/o/qid=965531371/ sr=8-2/ref=aps_sr_b_1_2/104-7556973-9054354

Bill Gates on the Wright Brothers

Fri, Aug 4 2000, 9:00:03 am EDT

Wright Brothers

Pontin:You've said you admire the Wright Brothers.

Gates:Sure.

Pontin:Is there any one around like that now?

Gates:Like that? No. These were guys who over at least a decade basic tools -- for how you did design, how you did wind tunnels. And they did it from really modest beginnings as well. Out of their bicycle shop. And they went and spent months in a place that was isolated in some God-forsaken space. And they could only go once a year, and they would loose the entire year because their plane would get screwed up. Anyway, it's a phenomenal story of dedication. And it wasn't in their lifetimes, but it's afterwards that there was a fundamental change.

This is part of a really interesting interview with Bill, where he sort of lets it all hang out. You can read it at a great site: http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue82/mag-gates-82-home.html

If you are interested in Wilbur and Orville, I highly recommend:

Fred Howard: Wilbur and Orville, which you can find at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486402975/ qid=965429703/sr=1-6/104-7468340-5195956

Needles for Dents

Mon, Dec 20 1999, 6:00:01 pm EST

Mark "Forger" Stucky|Mike Ziaskas|record|sailplane|Wright Brothers

Mike Ziaskas, «Mzsoar», writes:

To remove the dents, you may want to try injecting water into the indented area with a hypodermic needle and then apply the heat gun as Terry suggests. The heat will generate steam, which will lift a good portion of the dent. This is an old RC sailplane trick that we use on the damaged carbon/foam wings.

A word of caution: move the heat gun constantly over the area so as not to get the area so hot that you melt the foam. Test the temperature with you bare hand on the spot (it shouldn't be so hot that you can't hold your hand on it. Anyway, I doubt that the spar integrity has been compromised

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