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Here are the achievements of the Wrights with the 1903 Flyer: 1. First 3-axis flight controls 2. First propellor theory that was twice the efficiency of other
by WalterBright 2y ago
Here are the achievements of the Wrights with the 1903 Flyer:
1. First 3-axis flight controls
2. First propellor theory that was twice the efficiency of other airscrews
3. First aircraft engine that had twice the power/weight of other engines
4. First design that used a wind tunnel to get an efficient wing shape
5. First directed research and development program to identify the problems and solve them one by one, with the results culminating in the 1903 Flyer
6. Properly documented everything with photographs, notebooks and witnesses
7. The Flyer is hanging in a museum today, and exacting replicas have been built and flown exhibiting the same documented flight characteristics as the Flyer.
If you look at other contenders, they were all lacking these points. For example, with the Wright propellor, engine, and airfoil their craft had an enormous advantage over other designs that were trial and error.
All modern aircraft can trace their lineage back to the 1903 Flyer, and no other claimant. The others were all developmental dead ends.
P.S. About the catapult thing - are airplanes launched from aircraft carriers not airplanes? Besides, the 1903 Flyer did not use a catapult.
- hathawsh 2y agoI would like to nominate this comment as one of the best ever posted on HN. In fact, I would love to see a whole documentary about each of these points.
- WalterBright 2y agoSee "The Wright Brothers as Engineers" by Quentin Wald https://www.amazon.com/Wright-Brothers-Engineers-Appraisal-Experience/dp/0970607504 https://www.amazon.com/Wright-Brothers-Engineers-Appraisal-E...
- lcfcjs6 2y ago[flagged]
- QuantumGood 2y agoI do NOT think it is AI-generated (though it might be), and that belief could be part of why you are being downvoted. I've been watching the sentiment on AI-related comments for a while. It seems to have somewhat turned back to "if it's useful, it's okay" as long as it isn't promoted as AI.
- WalterBright 2y agoI've made similar postings on HN about the Wrights years before AI.
- QuantumGood 2y agoAs noted, I did not think your comment was AI-generated.
- bmacho 2y ago> It seems to have mostly turned back to "if it's useful, it's okay" No. Everyone still hates them with passion--at least when the commenter mentions that it is LLM generated.
- cyberax 2y agoWalter Bright is not an AI...
- WalterBright 2y agoWalter Bright was replaced by a D9000 AI chatbot several years ago. He was jeopardizing the mission.
- andrewflnr 2y agoHumans sometimes write punchy lists, too, especially when they're trying to prove a point. Where do you think the LLMs learned it?
- alwa 2y agoDistinguished computer scientist [EDIT: engineer!], seasoned writer, and longtime HN stalwart @WalterBright? Frankly I’d be willing to imagine the AI learned what it knows from him…
- WalterBright 2y agoThanks for the kind words! But I can't claim to be a computer scientist, as I have not done any research. Engineering is my calling, not science.
- WalterBright 2y agoStylometry has me pegged with a predictable style that predates AI.
- tshaddox 2y agoWriting that predates AI is precisely the type of writing AI mimics. :)
- DistractionRect 2y agoYou can actually formally do just that, HN maintains a highlights list which you can email them nominations for: https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights
- MostlyStable 2y agoThanks, I didn't know about that previously, although some sorting methods might be nice. It seems like quite a lot of comments are getting nominated that seem pretty...normal.
- dj_gitmo 2y agoCheck out Gregs Airplanes and Automobiles for really well researched aeronautic docs. He made one specifically about the Wrights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkpQAGQiv4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkpQAGQiv4Q
- avmich 2y agoReally? :(
- AceyMan 2y agoI always argue that the Wright Bros are the USA's greatest engineer(s).¹ Planes today still use the same design (in fact, the Flyer is even better—a twisting wing is more efficient than ailerons, but we haven't figured out how to make titanium, aluminum & carbon fiber bendy like wood (yet)). ¹–my 2nd spot goes to John Moses Browning – also, whose 120+ year designs are not only still in use, they're still in production.
- WalterBright 2y agoThe 1903 Flyer did have one defect - it was unstable in pitch. It required an active hand on the pitch control.
- seabass-labrax 2y agoI am forgiving of this defect for the reason that my attempts at aircraft in Kerbal Space Program have mostly had the same issues! There is a very, very small difference in design between an unstable plane and one with practically no pitch control at all, and the ideal configuration is found just between the two.
- jshmrsn 2y agoThis is true again for the most advanced fighter aircraft, except the active hand is now a computer.
- dmoy 2y agoRockets too Can't do that in Kerbal Space Program (at least not without mods), but it works fine in meatspace
- kwertyoowiyop 2y agoMy understanding is that this was intentional. They thought instability was needed for their desired maneuverability. Today we see this as the wrong answer to the question of whether an airplane should be stable or unstable, but it shows how far ahead they were that nobody else even knew enough to ask that question.
- robocat 2y agoA great list although the phrase cherry-picking comes to mind. Should we add 8. "Wright biplane used ground mounted launching rails, and assistance of a catapult". New Zealand has its own contentious "powered flight" claimant Richard Pearse: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse Self-promotion and patriotism often are the biggest influence on what the narrative becomes (e.g. Edison, space race).
- WalterBright 2y ago1. The 1903 Flyer did not use a catapult. It did use a single rail, as taking off from sand is not very practical. 2. There's a lot of question about Pearse's first flight, as to its date and whether it happened at all - because Pearse left behind no photos, drawings, documentation, or the airplane. 3. Edison's claims are fully documented, witnessed, patented, and litigated.
- db48x 2y agoClose. The 1901 glider used a rail and took off down hill. Their Flyer used skids and could take off from level ground even on sand.
- WalterBright 2y agoThe skids were for landing. I don't recall them ever taking off using the skids.
- db48x 2y agoYou’re right. The book I most recently read on the subject talked about them disassembling the rail down the hillside that the glider used and then later putting it up on flat ground. I don’t know how I missed that part, especially since the pictures of early flights clearly show the Flyer taking off from that very rail.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoEchoing my other comment on patents elsewhere in the thread, Edison's innovations had big, direct and lasting impact on the world. For example, his work is responsible for creating Hollywood as a place and symbol of US film industry - specifically because he owned most of the patents critical for movie production, and was so litigious that the filmmakers decided to all literally move to the other side of the continent to be able to infringe on those patents without consequences.
- kragen 2y agoTo be fair, #6 and I think #7 were true of Santos Dumont as well, and for years after 01903 (which did have witnesses, who were disbelieved, but AFAIK no public photos) the Wrights were very secretive. Santos Dumont himself favored crediting the Wrights, since he had achieved sustained flight but not controllable sustained flight.
- WalterBright 2y agoI don't think 6 and 7 were done by Dumont before 1903. Insufficient documentary information is available, like a detailed description of the design.
- P4u1 2y agoWhile airplanes are catapulted from carriers due to the limited runway length available onboard, it's worth noting that they are fully capable of taking off from standard runways. On the other hand, a glider can only be launched using a catapult or by gliding off a cliff.
- ninjagoo 2y agoThese days, gliders/sailplanes are commonly launched using winches or tow planes. Motor gliders self-launch.
- tshaddox 2y agoOr into an intense headwind.
- lupusreal 2y agoWhen you catapult a plane that can't fly, it still can't fly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langley_Aerodrome#/media/File:Samuel_Pierpont_Langley_-_Potomac_experiment_1903.jpeg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langley_Aerodrome#/media/File:... The Wright flyer could and frequently did do circles around the field for several minutes after being catapulted. It was no glider.
- maxlybbert 2y agoThe Wright brothers did create a glider ( https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/1900-wright-glider-reproduction/nasm_A20050452000 https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/1900-wright-gl... ). They also created a powered airplane a gasoline engine and propellers ( https://www.nps.gov/articles/wrightflyer.htm https://www.nps.gov/articles/wrightflyer.htm ). They also continued to develop their planes after that first flight. I'm amused by the number of people I've met who seem to think that they flew around a little, then stuck everything in the barn and went back to bicycle making.
- DevelopingElk 2y agoAs with many inventions, the Wright brothers weren't the first inventors of the airplane but the last ones. Everyone else built off them.
- evanfrommaxar 2y agoThey were also the first ones to truly understand the relationship between pitch, roll & yaw.
- sandworm101 2y ago>> All modern aircraft can trace their lineage back to the 1903 Flyer, and no other claimant. All heavier-than-air powered aircraft. Balloons and unmanned gliders have a different history, them having existing long before the 1900s.
- WalterBright 2y agoI'd give an exception for helicopters. About the only thing they have in common with airplanes are the prop contours.
- bee_rider 2y ago> 2. First propellor theory that was twice the efficiency of other airscrews > 3. First aircraft engine that had twice the power/weight of other engines The other points seem good but I’m a little skeptical of these—“the first 2x improvement” generally seems like a less impressive metric in the sense that when a field is early and thing are just getting started, large-multiplier improvements are pretty common, right? The first 2x improvement to engine power/weight in an airplane could just be the result of being the first ones to seriously look at the problem. As a field matures, the multipliers might get much smaller as the low hanging fruit is picked out. The last 2x improvement might be more impressive actually.
- wtallis 2y ago"being the first ones to seriously look at the problem" is what makes the Wright Brothers so historically significant. They tackled flight as an engineering problem and put serious work into a lot of the important sub-problems. Their superior methodology is a big part of what led to their overall success and being first to achieve other less arbitrary milestones.
- WalterBright 2y agoThe Wrights looked into marine screws, and were astonished to discover they were all designed by trial and error. The Wrights made a breakthrough in realizing that a propellor was a rotating wing, and developed the first theory of propellors enabling them to build one that was 90% efficient. This is as opposed to the flat bladed screws used by other experimenters which were 50% efficient. This means a near doubling of power for the same weight of engine and drive train. The Wrights could not find an existing engine with the desired power/weight, and the engine makers refused to design/build one. Hence they hired a machinist to help design/build a custom engine, with double the power/weight ration of existing engines. The Wrights developed the very first practical aviation gas engine. This was an enormous factor in creating a successful airplane. P.S. Fun fact: Santos Dumont was a rather tiny man. In the movie "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" they created several flying replicas of early machines, including Dumont's "Demoiselle". But the Demoiselle wouldn't fly, it just ran around the field nailed to the ground. Finally, the engineers realized that Dumont was a tiny man, and located a tiny pilot, and then the Demoiselle flew delightfully. So, Dumont had his own peculiar advantage in power/weight.
- ant6n 2y agoWhat's also interesting is the story after 1903. The big aircraft builder today isn't the Wright Company, it's Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The Wright brothers got embroiled in patent lawsuits (in particular against Curtiss), instead of continuing their developments. They eventually won, but Wilbur died in 1912 (possibly related to all the traveling done as part of the patent fights). Actually, initially they even fought to have people believe in their success. They weren't that great at public relations, and it took a while for people to believe they had a working airplane. There was also a feud with the Smithsonian. Until the forties, the Smithsonian considered a competing aircraft to be the first airplane (also related to Curtiss). In 1948 the Wright estate sold the first plane to the Smithsonian for a dollar, but the agreement stipulated that "Neither the Smithsonian Institution or its successors, nor any museum or other agency, bureau or facilities administered for the United States of America by the Smithsonian Institution or its successors shall publish or permit to be displayed a statement or label in connection with or in respect of any aircraft model or design of earlier date than the 1903 Wright Aeroplane, claiming in effect that such aircraft was capable of carrying a man under its own power in controlled flight." I guess this partially explains why the Americans only know about the Wright brothers as the original inventors of the airplane, as opposed to various national heroes in other countries. Oh an btw, talking about companies. The company the Wright brothers founded still exists - it's now Curtiss-Wright, I guess Wright eventually merged with their worst enemy (and a bunch of other companies). Too bad the Wright brothers didn't continue their developments as successfully as they started, and struggled to make it big on top of their invention. At least they got the recognition eventually. Btw, the Smithsonian has a cool exhibit on the Wright brothers, really encourages to you read up on them. [1] [1] e.g. here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers)
- WalterBright 2y agoWilbur tied of typhoid contracted from bad food.
- mapmeld 2y agoThis detail about the Smithsonian was news to me so I went reading up on it. Curtiss had been involved in supporting Samuel Langley as the key breakthrough in aircraft, and it happened that Langley had been director of the Smithsonian up until his death in 1906, so the museums had direct access to his papers and prototypes. The Smithsonian changing position and conceding to the Wright brothers' version of events is more of a story of institutional memory rather than them making unreasonable demands
- andikleen2 2y ago> 4. First design that used a wind tunnel to get an efficient wing shape The Wrights based their wing on Lilienthal's who used a variant of a wind tunnel (as well as actual gliders) for optimizations. You could also argue he ran a coherent research program too, just it was sadly stopped by his fatal flying accident. https://www.lilienthal-museum.de/olma/ewright.htm https://www.lilienthal-museum.de/olma/ewright.htm
- WalterBright 2y agoLilienthal's lift/drag numbers turned out to be off by a factor of 2, which is why the Wrights developed their wind tunnel and did exacting experiments to get the correct numbers, and developed the shape of their wing from it.
- andikleen2 2y agoIf you read Anderson "A history of Aerodynamics" it disagrees on this point. It states that the Wright's didn't have a good way to calculate drag, and they didn't understand many of the side effects from real wings (like flow separation) which caused wrong measurements initially. Later on they apparently came back to something that was closer to Lilienthal's numbers, even though the problem simply wasn't fully understood at the time. This paper has a similar conclusion: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=following https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi... "When the Wright brothers compared their results with those of Lilienthal, they found some disagreement, but not as much as they expected. As Wilbur states in his diary for October 16, 1901: "It would appear that Lilienthal is very much nearer the truth then we have heretofore been disposed to think." [Wolko, 21]. 17 The formulas were still not producing the lift and drag that were actually being produced. The only other possible source of error in these equations was the Smeaton coefficient of air pressure."
- WalterBright 2y agoThanks for the information. The bottom line was the Wrights needed a considerably bigger wing than that predicted by Lilienthal's numbers.
- WalterBright 2y agoFun fact: multiple pretender defenders have attempted to prove their case by building a sort of replica based on very incomplete drawings/photos, and proved they would fly. Never mind they increased the wing area, installed modern flight controls, and used a modern engine and propellor. The Smithsonian's version of the Langley flyer is a hilarious example of this kind of fraud.
- brudgers 2y agoSantos-Dumont flew in public for an assembled group of experts. The Wright’s did not. There is no sense in which he was a pretender. He had been “open source” flying for years.
- WalterBright 2y agoThis article says it better than I can: https://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/History_of_the_Airplane/Who_Was_First/Santos_Dumont/Santos_Dumont.htm https://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/History_of_the_... Not mentioned, though, is Dumont could not turn his airplane. The Wrights could, from the first one.
- brudgers 2y agoThe evidence of the Wrights first flight consists solely of what the Wrights provided. And of course their first flight report did not describe any turning. The only public evidence of anything is their patent application for the control method…which does not prove the veracity of their claims.
- WalterBright 2y agoThe first flight had witnesses, and that famous photograph taken by a non-Wright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer#/media/File:First_flight2.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer#/media/File:First... Take a look at the wings - no dihedral. That means it was unstable in roll, and would require constant turning control being applied to keep it from crashing. > The only public evidence of anything The Smithsonian has their design notebooks. Also, more than one exacting replica has been made, and they fly and turn.
- basisword 2y ago>> If you look at other contenders, they were all lacking these points. I'm not saying you're wrong but that's not really proving your point.
- amrocha 2y agoIf you postfacto cherry pick the criteria by which to credit the inventor of a plane then yes, the wright brother unequivocally invented the plane.
- WalterBright 2y agoIt's not hard to pick out the factors that enabled their success. Multiple breakthroughs were needed. What is hard is to find convincing proof that anyone beat them to it.
- amrocha 2y agoThe Wrights were successful and influential, yes. But they were not the first. Unless you cherry pick criteria to disqualify everyone else. Which is what you’re doing.
- lupusreal 2y agoThe amount of documentation provided by the Wrights makes denial of their claim to being the first tauntamout to Moon landing denialism. Even several years later and with the benifit of knowing of the Wright's innovations, Santos-Dumont was barely able to get off the ground for a few hundred meters while the Wrights were flying tens of kilometers.
- crazygringo 2y agoBut that's the point -- it's all about the definition of what constitutes the first airplane, which is kind of arbitrary. If you get off the ground for a few hundred meters, why isn't that enough to be first? Why does it need to be tens of kilometers? Are you establishing a 1km distance minimum? Based on what? I'm not taking any position either way. But the idea that it's "Moon landing denialism" is ludicrous. It's not about whether the Wright brothers flew. It's about how you draw the definition of "flying" as opposed to e.g. an "assisted jump", which is non-obvious.
- 2y ago
- brudgers 2y agoNone of this seems to be evidence that the Wrights were first. But I won’t be so cynical to suggest the list is the kind of things that make second systems second systems. The Wrights are giants in the history of aviation for reasons like those you describe whether or not they were first. From the perspective of their patents and the multi-year monopoly that they exploited with everything from aircraft sales to the military to flying schools being first is certainly critical. Don’t get me wrong, I have been taught the Wrights were first all my life. But I live in the US.
- WalterBright 2y agoThe Wrights demonstrated what was needed to fly, and there's no evidence the pretenders had solved those problems. For example, they had flat propellors without an airfoil. This means they needed nearly twice the power. Their engines would have been twice as heavy, too. They didn't have useful flight controls. Their wings looked smaller than the Flyer's. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The Wrights had every bit of evidence needed. None of the others did.
- brudgers 2y agoI had never thought to critically consider the story of the Wright brothers until reading your earlier comment and thinking “that’s not evidence they were first.” Sure I had been aware that patents and monopolies were involved in part from reading a book about their flying school[1] when I lived in Alabama. But I didn’t connect the follow the money importance of being first until earlier today. And now I have gone down a bit of rabbit hole. To me, it is clear why Santos=Dumont is worth celebrating in Brazil. Because he was the first person to fly in front of a body of independent experts, we don’t have to accept claims that align with self interest and local newspapers. It seems that the Wright brothers did not fly in public until well after Santos-Dumont had. What really fascinates me is not who was first, but the way in which I always experienced the Wright brothers story. When I read about their flying school, it seemed odd that the planes at the school were “so old fashioned” compared to those of Europe in the 1910’s…and at the larger scale how the Wright brothers story conventionally stops in 1903. So thanks. [1] https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/wright-brothers-flying-school/ https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/wright-brothers-fl...
- sitkack 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Taylor_(mechanic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Taylor_(mechanic) needs to get more credit for designing and building the engine in the Wright Flyer.
- m463 2y agoNobody thinks of folks like the guy holding the camera, or the sherpas, or...
- sitkack 2y agoI now think of myself as being the lucky one who gets to be at the right place and the right time, experiencing the act of creation is a gift from everything and everyone else that helped make it possible.
- WalterBright 2y agoI always felt bad for Buzz Aldrin. He landed on the moon at the same moment Armstrong did. But Armstrong was "first".
- jakubmazanec 2y agoDon't feel bad. It is better to be the second person on the moon then to never land on the moon. And it's better to orbit the moon than to never leave the Earth.