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The Wrights also did considerable wind tunnel research on air foils until they got the right shape of wing. The exhibit at the Smithsonian taught me a lot, of w

The Wrights also did considerable wind tunnel research on air foils until they got the right shape of wing. The exhibit at the Smithsonian taught me a lot, of which I remember only vague bits. It went something like this. In the 19th C, some airflow work led to a constant, having a value of N; the Wrights used that constant for years, and their craft would not fly. Eventually, having made every adjustment they could think to make, they began to question some of the expert work upon which they relied. In the end, they built their own wind tunnel, ran many of the classic 19th C. experiments, and discovered that errors had been made, and that the constant in question had an actual value of 2N (might even have been 10N, it's late, I'm lazy and on my way to bed). Important work. They were extremely methodical....

WalterBright 12y ago
Quite right. Consider also the design of the wings of the Wright Flyer. This was a design deduced from principles. The Whitehead design is copied from birds, indicating a lack of understanding how wings worked. Look at the size of Whitehead's wings. They're just too small, compared with that of the Flyer. The Wrights calculated the necessary wing size, and it was barely enough. Do you believe those small and inefficiently shaped Whitehead wings would fly with the likely engine power he had? I don't. The replicas probably had far more powerful engines - you can make anything fly given enough power. Maybe Whitehead's machine did fly - down a sufficiently steep hillside. I don't think that counts as flying under its own power, though.