5 - Applied Aerodynamics Comes of Age: The Wright Brothers

Summary

Isn't it astonishing that all these secrets have been preserved for so many years just so that we could discover them!

Orville Wright (June 7, 1903)

The year 1896 brought a turning point in the history of aeronautics. Otto Lilienthal was killed in 1896, ending the most promising aeronautical activity up to that time. Samuel Langley's small, steam-powered aerodromes flew in 1896, demonstrating beyond any doubt the technical feasibility of heavier-than-air powered flight. In 1896, prompted in part by Lilienthal's death, Wilbur and Orville Wright decided to join the quest for manned flight: “In 1896 we read in the daily papers, or in some of the magazines, of the experiments of Otto Lilienthal, who was making some gliding flights from the top of a small hill in Germany. His death a few months later while making a glide off the hill increased our interest in the subject, and we began looking for books pertaining to flight” (p. 3). From that beginning, the Wrights came onto the scene representing a new interest, a new group of challengers entering the list at a time when the development of manned, powered flight was viewed by some as just around the comer, and by others as a physical impossibility.

This chapter will attempt to make the case that applied aerodynamics came of age with the work of the Wright brothers. The WrightsL' contributions to applied aerodynamics composed only one part of their overall inventive efforts that ultimately led to the first manned, powered, heavier-than-air flight, December 17, 1903. The unusual nature of the Wrights' inventive methods and the reasons they led to success have been thoroughly discussed by Peter Jakab in Visions of a Flying Machine. Jakab attempted to discover what had been different about the Wrights and their approach to aeronautics: There were “specific personality traits, innate skills, and particular research techniques present in the Wrights' approach that came together in a unique way and largely explain why these two men invented the airplane. In short, the Wrights had a definable method that in very direct terms led them to the secrets of flight” (p. xv).