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>They did several things differently, from doing their own research to building wind tunnels to validate their data and eliminate guesswork. >Sometimes the non
by Isamu 7y ago
>They did several things differently, from doing their own research to building wind tunnels to validate their data and eliminate guesswork.
>Sometimes the non-glamorous lab work is absolutely crucial to the success of a project. - Wilbur Wright
>Since the 18th century, engineers had been using Smeaton’s coefficient to calculate the density of air. After running over 50 simulations using their wind tunnels, the brothers determined its value to be 0.0033, and not 0.005.
>They also used the data from wind tunnels to design wings with better lift-to-drag ratio and used them to build their 1902 flying machine, which performed significantly better than their previous gliders.
The wind tunnel work was crucial to their success, arguably the single most important element. It enabled them to iterate their designs and compare them quickly. In today's language, it helped them to fail fast.
Had they been better funded, they might have committed the error of trying to iterate mostly with full-sized fliers, which would have drastically slowed down iteration.
- ereyes01 7y agoYes, it enabled them to not only fail fast, but to fail and live to tell the tale! Much talent and knowledge was lost in the people that died trying to fly before them. It's also amazing to read about the many pilots who died trying to cross the Atlantic before Charles Lindbergh did it. The journey nearly cost him his life as well, and it took some time before such flights were safe enough to routinely attempt. Early aviators had some serious guts.
- jfk13 7y ago> the many pilots who died trying to cross the Atlantic before Charles Lindbergh did it I hope you're not suggesting that Lindbergh was the first. First non-stop solo flight, yes; but Alcock and Brown flew it 8 years earlier: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/bM5diyl48K/alcock https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/bM5diyl48K/alcock
- AceyMan 7y ago> Early aviators had some serious guts. Here, here! On this note, I must recommend Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann. It's a terrifying and honest account of his experiences in the early days of commercial aviation (Gann's narrative starts in the '30s). Wikipedia citation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_Is_the_Hunter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_Is_the_Hunter
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ricardobeat 7y agoI’m surprised to have never heard about this before - always pictured their success as pure trial and error / persistence. (also, I’m aware meta comments are frowned upon, but your comment would read exactly the same without the quotes, they are a bit of an eyesore on mobile and not necessary)
- sytelus 7y ago> Had they been better funded, they might have committed the error You just described their contemporary competitor Samuel Pierpont Langley. This is great example to cite when someone complains they don’t have enough GPUs to compete with BigCos.