Fixing Smeaton’s constant was only small part of the puzzle. They discovered in wind tunnel that certain shapes produces almost 3X better lift to drag. They tri

Fixing Smeaton’s constant was only small part of the puzzle. They discovered in wind tunnel that certain shapes produces almost 3X better lift to drag. They tried out 150 shapes varying one variable at a time to find optimal shape and angle of attack [1]. Another big problem was 3 axis control system and designing propellers that can generate enough thrust. Before Wrights, propellers were used in ships but no one really understood how the worked and their design was largely “cut and try”. Wrights needed to produce enough thrust to lift whole machine with just ~10HP engine. They literally invented theory of propellers as wings and deviced equations to compute thrust. They also designed mechanism to transfer power from engine to propellers and the fact that they need two propellers rotating in opposite directions [2]. [1] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eb92/1d44112fbdd04532f56cb2f0944f46c54a30.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eb92/1d44112fbdd04532f56cb2... [2] http://www.wrightexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/161/2015/07/Propeller-Evolution.pdf http://www.wrightexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/161...