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The Wright brothers stood on the shoulders of their peers, in an age of focus on flight similar to today's focus on LLM-based AI systems. Lots of money and time
by bane 2y ago
The Wright brothers stood on the shoulders of their peers, in an age of focus on flight similar to today's focus on LLM-based AI systems. Lots of money and time were put into achieving flight, and lots of people achieved some version of it.
The Wright brothers famously used data collected by Otto Lilienthal on glide slopes for unpowered gliders. They reproduced that data with their own gliders.
Wilbur Wright once wrote, "Lilienthal was without question the greatest of the precursors, and the world owes to him a great debt."
But Lilienthal died in an accident before adding the key feature of power, necessary to achieve powered flight.
The Wright Brothers worked on control surfaces for a while, then turned to power. They notably didn't invent the internal combustion engine, nor did they invent or build theirs. They contracted out the work, with specifications.
The site at Kitty Hawk is favorable because of a slope and prevailing wind (it's an awesome place to visit). But the Wright Flyer II flew powered flight in Ohio in 1904. And then the Flyer III flew in 1905, again in Ohio. They again returned to Kitty Hawk in 1905, got rid of the catapault, and worked to start securing military contracts.
Europe, particularly France had a very active scene in flight research. When the Wright brothers' achievment made it to France in 1906, it was publicly ridiculed, no doubt creating the information environment for European sponsored researches to make claims.
The Wrights were not the first to fly, but they were the first in a collection of qualifications
- powered
- controlled
- heavier than air
- sustained
- flight
The technical base that enabled them also existed elsewhere, including Europe. A lighter, more powerful engine, better control surfaces, and a better design could easily surpass their design, and those technologies were improving rapidly. It's clear Santos-Dumont was an accomplished aeronautist, but was a couple years late hitting the qualifications the Wrights had already achieved and in some ways didn't achieve a few of them -- he notably used a hybrid lighter than air system to achieve takeoff in 1906. Insufficient to achieve the award he was shooting for. He later achieved it, with a wholly unique design, which is still remarkable.
If the Wright brothers had crashed and died during their development, the world would have still had flight in the end.
- mannykannot 2y agoWhen Wilbur Wright first demonstrated his airplane (a Model A somewhat modified while repairing the damage caused in shipping) in Le Mans, it was immediately apparent to the mostly enthusiastic crowd that this was the first fully controlled flight any of them had seen - a tight two-mile circuit with a controlled landing near the launch point. Many of those present would have been well acquainted with what Santos-Dumont and other pioneers had previously achieved.
- WalterBright 2y ago> They contracted out the work, with specifications. No, they designed the engine and hired a machinist (Charles Taylor) to make it.
- bane 2y agoI'm happy to be corrected, but my recollection was that they provided some specifications, what we would call SWaP today, and some sketches to support, and Taylor designed, built, and tested the engine. The funny thing is that today the separation of aircraft and engine design persists.
- WalterBright 2y agoI'm sure Taylor contributed to the design. But Taylor was hired to do it as an employee. The Wrights contacted multiple engine makers who all refused the job.
- sitkack 2y ago> But Taylor was hired to do it as an employee. I think that is overly reductive. Regardless of if someone is paid for a thing, the creation is still theirs. I have been paid to solve problems, but the solution was my creation.
- mulmen 2y ago> what we would call SWaP today This in a new term to me. I believe it means Size, Weight, and Power. Specifically as an optimization problem. The modern version includes cost as well which was probably less of a concern with the Wright Flyer. https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/definition/what-is-swap-c https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/definition/what-is-swap-c
- jshier 2y agoThe Wrights actually found that Lilienthal's glider data, especially the specifics about airfoil design, was terribly inaccurate (the closer they got to replicating his designs, the worse their gliders performed). It was only after they built a wind tunnel and used it to validate the performance of various airfoil shapes that they could stabilize their gliders enough to think about making them powered. In many ways, the Wright's greatest advancement was abandoning the established knowledge of the field, including Lilienthal's, and validating their design experimentally from base principles.