January 2004 69
D.B. Mathews
F l y i n g f o r F u n
909 N. Maize Rd., Townhouse 734, Wichita KS 67212
THE DECEMBER COLUMN’S theme
was the use of model aircraft by the Wright
brothers, and others, in the development of
the first man-carrying, heavier-than-air
aircraft. Since submitting that text I’ve
noticed a need to clarify what I see as two
separate but interrelated and extremely
essential developments by the brothers that
made manned, powered flight possible.
First, throughout the earlier years of
building and flying gliders, model and
manned, the Wrights read every printed
word they could find on the subject (sound
and fanciful) to develop a planform that
was capable of sustained flight yet stable
enough to allow for safe operation. The
bulk of these theories and their adaptations
were first tried on model aircraft, for
obvious reasons.
As I mentioned last month, several
other pioneers had arrived at admittedly
primitive guidelines that allowed an object
to glide down a hill or into the wind, albeit
inconsistently. However, the Wrights were
the first to succeed with repeatable
extended flights of their gliders.
The second component was every bit as
essential as the first: the ability to control
the aircraft in all three planes and even
change its trajectory. All of the mentioned
pioneers’ earlier gliders depended on
shifting the pilot’s weight to affect the
aircraft’s attitude in flight.
By 1902 the brothers, through hundreds
of hours of calculations and discussion, had
progressed to a pilot laying on top of a
Lew Galati built this Kenhi Wildcat in 1953. The spinner is a Froom from the same era.
Judging from appearance, CL Stunt has not changed too much in 50 years.
Lew Galati enlarged this Stanzel Tiger Shark to 60 inches in span and powered it with a
SuperTigre .35. This classic 1940s CL design converts nicely to RC.
biplane’s bottom wing while operating
movable elevator, rudder, and wing-warp
controls. In the early versions, wing warp
(ailerons) was activated through a harness
around the pilot’s hips while the elevator
and rudder were controlled by the pilot
moving vertical sticks with his hands.
The Wright brothers had essentially
succeeded in creating a flying machine that
was sufficiently inherently stable to be safe
to fly, then they added movable controls to
destabilize the aircraft so that it could be
turned and climbed.
In 1890 Octave Chanute delivered a
speech at Cornell University in which he
prophesied that the solution to manned
flight would be hastened if an association
were formed to devote itself to the task. He
insisted no one man could be an inventor to
imagine new shapes and new motors, a
mechanical engineer to design the
arrangement of the apparatus, a
mathematician to calculate strength and
stresses, a practical mechanic to construct
the parts, or a syndicate of capitalists to
furnish the needed funds.
Chanute was correct; no one man was
able to satisfy all of those requirements,
but two men were: the Wright brothers.
The facts that they were never married, so
they had no responsibilities to families;
that they had a maiden sister to watch after
them like a mother; and that although not
formally educated they had read and
assimilated everything written on the
subject, had taught themselves
mathematics and engineering, and had the
natural mechanical skills to convert ideas
into realities enabled these brothers to
accomplish manned flight while bettereducated
and -funded competitors could
not.
You may be aware of the Wrights’
development of the first practical wind
tunnel (which is on display in the US Air
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 2:28 pm Page 69
Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio), but do
you know that they developed a
mathematical expression of the volume of
lift generated by specific airfoils still in use
today as Reynolds numbers?
The legend of the twisted inner-tube
box to lock onto wing warping is a wellknown
story, but the significant thing is
their discovery of the need for wing
warping to control the roll axis of the
airplane, not in figuring out how to do it.
Did you know that among the large
number of test flights with unmanned
tethered gliders, the Wrights developed a
system to alter the horizontal stabilizer’s
angle of attack using a stick with lines
attached top and bottom to move the
elevator up and down from the ground? So
who invented Control Line flying?
Another thing to consider is that the
Wright brothers had much more flying
time tethered to a hill and gliding into the
wind down a hill than anyone else.
Considering the need for instinctive
corrections required in flight, this
accumulated time was a significant factor
when they finally succeeded in getting a
powered airplane into the air.
The Power System: In chatting with
others who have historical interest in the
1903 Wright Flyer, we all seem to know
the least about the power system. The
following is an excerpt from Fred
Howard’s Wilbur and Orville.
“In the fall of 1902, they had sent
letters to a number of motor manufacturers,
hoping to purchase a relatively
vibrationless motor weighing not more
than 180 pounds. Ten replied, but none
could deliver, so the Brothers decided to
build a motor themselves with Charlie
Taylor’s help.
“When finished the motor was a
simplified version of a contemporary
automobile motor, with four water cooled
The Vibra-tac’s handle less the rubber band allowed the top line to rotate to the bottom,
and vice versa, to supposedly help pilots learn inverted flight.
Dave Stevenson has built five Ole Reliables from the author’s construction article in the
June 1978 Model Aviation. This version is electric.
horizontal, in line cylinders, but without
fuel pump or carburetor. Fuel was injected
directly into the cylinders by gravity from a
tank with a capacity of about a quart and a
half.
“There were no spark plugs. Opening
and closing two contact points in each
cylinder created the spark. The cylinders
were primed in advance with a few drops
of gasoline. Dry batteries provided the
spark until after starting, when a throw
knife switch bought at a local hardware
store was thrown to switch the current from
batteries to a low tension magneto driven
by a twenty six pound fly wheel.
‘The speed of the motor could be
regulated by retarding or advancing the
spark, but it was impractical for the
operator to alter speed in flight.”
At first glance, the propellers seemed to
be a simple project. The Wrights presumed
that a large volume of data would be
available on designing ship propellers.
They also presumed that theirs would
simply be operating in a more liquid
environment.
After numerous trips to the Dayton
library, they concluded that the data
available for ship propellers was almost
entirely empirical and the result of cutand-
try engineering rather than any solid
formula or experimental work. They then
concluded that their own data on lifting
surfaces passing through air was much
more scientific and that they should apply
it to propeller design.
The result was two 8-foot units with an
airfoil-like shape front and back, fabricated
from three layers of spruce glued together
then shaped with a hatchet and a
spokeshave.
The Wrights decided to use two
propellers instead of one mounted behind
the wing rather than in front to ensure that
the flying surfaces would be moving
though air stirred up by the whirling
blades. Not only would two propellers act
on a greater quantity of air, but by running
one clockwise and one counterclockwise,
any twisting effect (torque) on lateral
control would be eliminated.
Power was transmitted from motor to
propellers through a series of chains and
sprockets. The chains were not from
bicycles; they were purchased from the
Diamond Chain Company of Indianapolis,
Indiana, and were a larger, heavier version
used in early automobile transmissions.
The contrarotation of the propellers was
achieved by crossing the chain in a figure
eight and enclosing it in a metal tube to
avoid flapping.
No Walk in the Park: Biographical
material that I’ve read about the Wrights
has glossed over the problems they
70 MODEL AVIATION
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 10:02 am Page 70
72 MODEL AVIATION
encountered in the fall and early winter of
1903. A few days after their arrival, the
Outer Banks of North Carolina was struck
by a violent hurricane which severely
damaged the old tar-paper hangar/living
quarters. A replacement hangar had to be
constructed, and the old unit had to be
repaired. Fortunately the Flyer had not
arrived from the railhead yet.
The hollow metal shafts originally used
to turn the propellers proved to be too
weak, necessitating Wilbur to return to
Dayton for repairs, then another wait for
shipment of solid metal shafts. These
delays pushed them well into the cold of
December, making their stay on the cape
most uncomfortable.
Did You Know? Neither brother had a
middle name. They had two older brothers:
Reuchlin, who lived and worked in Kansas
City, Kansas, first as an accountant then
later as a farmer in Tonganoxie, Kansas,
and Lorin, who settled in Dayton and
worked as a bookkeeper. Both had
children, and Orville and Wilbur were
reportedly doting uncles.
The glider wings were covered with
muslin on the top surfaces only, but the
1903 Flyer had muslin on both surfaces of
the wings. Only the outer quarter of each
wing could be warped on the 1903 Flyer,
and the center-sections were rigid for
added strength.
Samuel Langley used a $50,000
payment from the War Department,
$10,000 from Smithsonian funds, and
another $13,000 from a grant to develop
the Aerodrome, which flopped into the
Potomac River so ingloriously. The
Wrights, on the other hand, used only their
own funds, causing them to be frugal to a
fault. Orville totaled up all expenses
incurred for the 1903 flights, including
transportation, at $1,000. For instance, the
“wheels” used to roll the aircraft down the
launching ramp were hub sections of
bicycle wheels.
Orville contracted typhoid fever and
nearly died in 1896. After his recovery, the
family became extremely careful about the
water they drank and always insisted that it
be boiled before their use when they were
away from home. In spite of that, Wilbur
contracted typhoid and died in 1912.
When the AMA Nationals was
scheduled to be held in Dayton in 1976,
my oldest son and I put the Wright
brothers’ bicycle shop at the top of our
want-to-see list. When we arrived at the
counter to pick up a rental car, we inquired
about the route to the shop. The response
from the young ladies at the counter was
one of total confusion; they had no idea
what we were talking about.
Come to find out, the entire thing had
been acquired by the Ford Motor Company
many years before and moved to
Greenfield Village in Michigan. Do you
figure the Dayton Tourism Board would
like to have it back?
Space limitations leave me no choice but
to end this inside look at the Wright
brothers with their successful flight on that
December day. Many more events
occurred after that first group of flights. I
strongly recommend interested readers to
obtain a copy of Wilbur and Orville by
Fred Howard.
I hope this overview of the events
leading to that first manned flight have
added to your knowledge, engendered
some pride in the role that model aircraft
played in that achievement, and dispelled
some of the prevailing myths regarding the
eccentricity and “stuffiness” of the
brothers Wright. MA
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 10:02 am Page 72
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 69,70,72
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 69,70,72
January 2004 69
D.B. Mathews
F l y i n g f o r F u n
909 N. Maize Rd., Townhouse 734, Wichita KS 67212
THE DECEMBER COLUMN’S theme
was the use of model aircraft by the Wright
brothers, and others, in the development of
the first man-carrying, heavier-than-air
aircraft. Since submitting that text I’ve
noticed a need to clarify what I see as two
separate but interrelated and extremely
essential developments by the brothers that
made manned, powered flight possible.
First, throughout the earlier years of
building and flying gliders, model and
manned, the Wrights read every printed
word they could find on the subject (sound
and fanciful) to develop a planform that
was capable of sustained flight yet stable
enough to allow for safe operation. The
bulk of these theories and their adaptations
were first tried on model aircraft, for
obvious reasons.
As I mentioned last month, several
other pioneers had arrived at admittedly
primitive guidelines that allowed an object
to glide down a hill or into the wind, albeit
inconsistently. However, the Wrights were
the first to succeed with repeatable
extended flights of their gliders.
The second component was every bit as
essential as the first: the ability to control
the aircraft in all three planes and even
change its trajectory. All of the mentioned
pioneers’ earlier gliders depended on
shifting the pilot’s weight to affect the
aircraft’s attitude in flight.
By 1902 the brothers, through hundreds
of hours of calculations and discussion, had
progressed to a pilot laying on top of a
Lew Galati built this Kenhi Wildcat in 1953. The spinner is a Froom from the same era.
Judging from appearance, CL Stunt has not changed too much in 50 years.
Lew Galati enlarged this Stanzel Tiger Shark to 60 inches in span and powered it with a
SuperTigre .35. This classic 1940s CL design converts nicely to RC.
biplane’s bottom wing while operating
movable elevator, rudder, and wing-warp
controls. In the early versions, wing warp
(ailerons) was activated through a harness
around the pilot’s hips while the elevator
and rudder were controlled by the pilot
moving vertical sticks with his hands.
The Wright brothers had essentially
succeeded in creating a flying machine that
was sufficiently inherently stable to be safe
to fly, then they added movable controls to
destabilize the aircraft so that it could be
turned and climbed.
In 1890 Octave Chanute delivered a
speech at Cornell University in which he
prophesied that the solution to manned
flight would be hastened if an association
were formed to devote itself to the task. He
insisted no one man could be an inventor to
imagine new shapes and new motors, a
mechanical engineer to design the
arrangement of the apparatus, a
mathematician to calculate strength and
stresses, a practical mechanic to construct
the parts, or a syndicate of capitalists to
furnish the needed funds.
Chanute was correct; no one man was
able to satisfy all of those requirements,
but two men were: the Wright brothers.
The facts that they were never married, so
they had no responsibilities to families;
that they had a maiden sister to watch after
them like a mother; and that although not
formally educated they had read and
assimilated everything written on the
subject, had taught themselves
mathematics and engineering, and had the
natural mechanical skills to convert ideas
into realities enabled these brothers to
accomplish manned flight while bettereducated
and -funded competitors could
not.
You may be aware of the Wrights’
development of the first practical wind
tunnel (which is on display in the US Air
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 2:28 pm Page 69
Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio), but do
you know that they developed a
mathematical expression of the volume of
lift generated by specific airfoils still in use
today as Reynolds numbers?
The legend of the twisted inner-tube
box to lock onto wing warping is a wellknown
story, but the significant thing is
their discovery of the need for wing
warping to control the roll axis of the
airplane, not in figuring out how to do it.
Did you know that among the large
number of test flights with unmanned
tethered gliders, the Wrights developed a
system to alter the horizontal stabilizer’s
angle of attack using a stick with lines
attached top and bottom to move the
elevator up and down from the ground? So
who invented Control Line flying?
Another thing to consider is that the
Wright brothers had much more flying
time tethered to a hill and gliding into the
wind down a hill than anyone else.
Considering the need for instinctive
corrections required in flight, this
accumulated time was a significant factor
when they finally succeeded in getting a
powered airplane into the air.
The Power System: In chatting with
others who have historical interest in the
1903 Wright Flyer, we all seem to know
the least about the power system. The
following is an excerpt from Fred
Howard’s Wilbur and Orville.
“In the fall of 1902, they had sent
letters to a number of motor manufacturers,
hoping to purchase a relatively
vibrationless motor weighing not more
than 180 pounds. Ten replied, but none
could deliver, so the Brothers decided to
build a motor themselves with Charlie
Taylor’s help.
“When finished the motor was a
simplified version of a contemporary
automobile motor, with four water cooled
The Vibra-tac’s handle less the rubber band allowed the top line to rotate to the bottom,
and vice versa, to supposedly help pilots learn inverted flight.
Dave Stevenson has built five Ole Reliables from the author’s construction article in the
June 1978 Model Aviation. This version is electric.
horizontal, in line cylinders, but without
fuel pump or carburetor. Fuel was injected
directly into the cylinders by gravity from a
tank with a capacity of about a quart and a
half.
“There were no spark plugs. Opening
and closing two contact points in each
cylinder created the spark. The cylinders
were primed in advance with a few drops
of gasoline. Dry batteries provided the
spark until after starting, when a throw
knife switch bought at a local hardware
store was thrown to switch the current from
batteries to a low tension magneto driven
by a twenty six pound fly wheel.
‘The speed of the motor could be
regulated by retarding or advancing the
spark, but it was impractical for the
operator to alter speed in flight.”
At first glance, the propellers seemed to
be a simple project. The Wrights presumed
that a large volume of data would be
available on designing ship propellers.
They also presumed that theirs would
simply be operating in a more liquid
environment.
After numerous trips to the Dayton
library, they concluded that the data
available for ship propellers was almost
entirely empirical and the result of cutand-
try engineering rather than any solid
formula or experimental work. They then
concluded that their own data on lifting
surfaces passing through air was much
more scientific and that they should apply
it to propeller design.
The result was two 8-foot units with an
airfoil-like shape front and back, fabricated
from three layers of spruce glued together
then shaped with a hatchet and a
spokeshave.
The Wrights decided to use two
propellers instead of one mounted behind
the wing rather than in front to ensure that
the flying surfaces would be moving
though air stirred up by the whirling
blades. Not only would two propellers act
on a greater quantity of air, but by running
one clockwise and one counterclockwise,
any twisting effect (torque) on lateral
control would be eliminated.
Power was transmitted from motor to
propellers through a series of chains and
sprockets. The chains were not from
bicycles; they were purchased from the
Diamond Chain Company of Indianapolis,
Indiana, and were a larger, heavier version
used in early automobile transmissions.
The contrarotation of the propellers was
achieved by crossing the chain in a figure
eight and enclosing it in a metal tube to
avoid flapping.
No Walk in the Park: Biographical
material that I’ve read about the Wrights
has glossed over the problems they
70 MODEL AVIATION
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 10:02 am Page 70
72 MODEL AVIATION
encountered in the fall and early winter of
1903. A few days after their arrival, the
Outer Banks of North Carolina was struck
by a violent hurricane which severely
damaged the old tar-paper hangar/living
quarters. A replacement hangar had to be
constructed, and the old unit had to be
repaired. Fortunately the Flyer had not
arrived from the railhead yet.
The hollow metal shafts originally used
to turn the propellers proved to be too
weak, necessitating Wilbur to return to
Dayton for repairs, then another wait for
shipment of solid metal shafts. These
delays pushed them well into the cold of
December, making their stay on the cape
most uncomfortable.
Did You Know? Neither brother had a
middle name. They had two older brothers:
Reuchlin, who lived and worked in Kansas
City, Kansas, first as an accountant then
later as a farmer in Tonganoxie, Kansas,
and Lorin, who settled in Dayton and
worked as a bookkeeper. Both had
children, and Orville and Wilbur were
reportedly doting uncles.
The glider wings were covered with
muslin on the top surfaces only, but the
1903 Flyer had muslin on both surfaces of
the wings. Only the outer quarter of each
wing could be warped on the 1903 Flyer,
and the center-sections were rigid for
added strength.
Samuel Langley used a $50,000
payment from the War Department,
$10,000 from Smithsonian funds, and
another $13,000 from a grant to develop
the Aerodrome, which flopped into the
Potomac River so ingloriously. The
Wrights, on the other hand, used only their
own funds, causing them to be frugal to a
fault. Orville totaled up all expenses
incurred for the 1903 flights, including
transportation, at $1,000. For instance, the
“wheels” used to roll the aircraft down the
launching ramp were hub sections of
bicycle wheels.
Orville contracted typhoid fever and
nearly died in 1896. After his recovery, the
family became extremely careful about the
water they drank and always insisted that it
be boiled before their use when they were
away from home. In spite of that, Wilbur
contracted typhoid and died in 1912.
When the AMA Nationals was
scheduled to be held in Dayton in 1976,
my oldest son and I put the Wright
brothers’ bicycle shop at the top of our
want-to-see list. When we arrived at the
counter to pick up a rental car, we inquired
about the route to the shop. The response
from the young ladies at the counter was
one of total confusion; they had no idea
what we were talking about.
Come to find out, the entire thing had
been acquired by the Ford Motor Company
many years before and moved to
Greenfield Village in Michigan. Do you
figure the Dayton Tourism Board would
like to have it back?
Space limitations leave me no choice but
to end this inside look at the Wright
brothers with their successful flight on that
December day. Many more events
occurred after that first group of flights. I
strongly recommend interested readers to
obtain a copy of Wilbur and Orville by
Fred Howard.
I hope this overview of the events
leading to that first manned flight have
added to your knowledge, engendered
some pride in the role that model aircraft
played in that achievement, and dispelled
some of the prevailing myths regarding the
eccentricity and “stuffiness” of the
brothers Wright. MA
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 10:02 am Page 72
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 69,70,72
January 2004 69
D.B. Mathews
F l y i n g f o r F u n
909 N. Maize Rd., Townhouse 734, Wichita KS 67212
THE DECEMBER COLUMN’S theme
was the use of model aircraft by the Wright
brothers, and others, in the development of
the first man-carrying, heavier-than-air
aircraft. Since submitting that text I’ve
noticed a need to clarify what I see as two
separate but interrelated and extremely
essential developments by the brothers that
made manned, powered flight possible.
First, throughout the earlier years of
building and flying gliders, model and
manned, the Wrights read every printed
word they could find on the subject (sound
and fanciful) to develop a planform that
was capable of sustained flight yet stable
enough to allow for safe operation. The
bulk of these theories and their adaptations
were first tried on model aircraft, for
obvious reasons.
As I mentioned last month, several
other pioneers had arrived at admittedly
primitive guidelines that allowed an object
to glide down a hill or into the wind, albeit
inconsistently. However, the Wrights were
the first to succeed with repeatable
extended flights of their gliders.
The second component was every bit as
essential as the first: the ability to control
the aircraft in all three planes and even
change its trajectory. All of the mentioned
pioneers’ earlier gliders depended on
shifting the pilot’s weight to affect the
aircraft’s attitude in flight.
By 1902 the brothers, through hundreds
of hours of calculations and discussion, had
progressed to a pilot laying on top of a
Lew Galati built this Kenhi Wildcat in 1953. The spinner is a Froom from the same era.
Judging from appearance, CL Stunt has not changed too much in 50 years.
Lew Galati enlarged this Stanzel Tiger Shark to 60 inches in span and powered it with a
SuperTigre .35. This classic 1940s CL design converts nicely to RC.
biplane’s bottom wing while operating
movable elevator, rudder, and wing-warp
controls. In the early versions, wing warp
(ailerons) was activated through a harness
around the pilot’s hips while the elevator
and rudder were controlled by the pilot
moving vertical sticks with his hands.
The Wright brothers had essentially
succeeded in creating a flying machine that
was sufficiently inherently stable to be safe
to fly, then they added movable controls to
destabilize the aircraft so that it could be
turned and climbed.
In 1890 Octave Chanute delivered a
speech at Cornell University in which he
prophesied that the solution to manned
flight would be hastened if an association
were formed to devote itself to the task. He
insisted no one man could be an inventor to
imagine new shapes and new motors, a
mechanical engineer to design the
arrangement of the apparatus, a
mathematician to calculate strength and
stresses, a practical mechanic to construct
the parts, or a syndicate of capitalists to
furnish the needed funds.
Chanute was correct; no one man was
able to satisfy all of those requirements,
but two men were: the Wright brothers.
The facts that they were never married, so
they had no responsibilities to families;
that they had a maiden sister to watch after
them like a mother; and that although not
formally educated they had read and
assimilated everything written on the
subject, had taught themselves
mathematics and engineering, and had the
natural mechanical skills to convert ideas
into realities enabled these brothers to
accomplish manned flight while bettereducated
and -funded competitors could
not.
You may be aware of the Wrights’
development of the first practical wind
tunnel (which is on display in the US Air
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 2:28 pm Page 69
Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio), but do
you know that they developed a
mathematical expression of the volume of
lift generated by specific airfoils still in use
today as Reynolds numbers?
The legend of the twisted inner-tube
box to lock onto wing warping is a wellknown
story, but the significant thing is
their discovery of the need for wing
warping to control the roll axis of the
airplane, not in figuring out how to do it.
Did you know that among the large
number of test flights with unmanned
tethered gliders, the Wrights developed a
system to alter the horizontal stabilizer’s
angle of attack using a stick with lines
attached top and bottom to move the
elevator up and down from the ground? So
who invented Control Line flying?
Another thing to consider is that the
Wright brothers had much more flying
time tethered to a hill and gliding into the
wind down a hill than anyone else.
Considering the need for instinctive
corrections required in flight, this
accumulated time was a significant factor
when they finally succeeded in getting a
powered airplane into the air.
The Power System: In chatting with
others who have historical interest in the
1903 Wright Flyer, we all seem to know
the least about the power system. The
following is an excerpt from Fred
Howard’s Wilbur and Orville.
“In the fall of 1902, they had sent
letters to a number of motor manufacturers,
hoping to purchase a relatively
vibrationless motor weighing not more
than 180 pounds. Ten replied, but none
could deliver, so the Brothers decided to
build a motor themselves with Charlie
Taylor’s help.
“When finished the motor was a
simplified version of a contemporary
automobile motor, with four water cooled
The Vibra-tac’s handle less the rubber band allowed the top line to rotate to the bottom,
and vice versa, to supposedly help pilots learn inverted flight.
Dave Stevenson has built five Ole Reliables from the author’s construction article in the
June 1978 Model Aviation. This version is electric.
horizontal, in line cylinders, but without
fuel pump or carburetor. Fuel was injected
directly into the cylinders by gravity from a
tank with a capacity of about a quart and a
half.
“There were no spark plugs. Opening
and closing two contact points in each
cylinder created the spark. The cylinders
were primed in advance with a few drops
of gasoline. Dry batteries provided the
spark until after starting, when a throw
knife switch bought at a local hardware
store was thrown to switch the current from
batteries to a low tension magneto driven
by a twenty six pound fly wheel.
‘The speed of the motor could be
regulated by retarding or advancing the
spark, but it was impractical for the
operator to alter speed in flight.”
At first glance, the propellers seemed to
be a simple project. The Wrights presumed
that a large volume of data would be
available on designing ship propellers.
They also presumed that theirs would
simply be operating in a more liquid
environment.
After numerous trips to the Dayton
library, they concluded that the data
available for ship propellers was almost
entirely empirical and the result of cutand-
try engineering rather than any solid
formula or experimental work. They then
concluded that their own data on lifting
surfaces passing through air was much
more scientific and that they should apply
it to propeller design.
The result was two 8-foot units with an
airfoil-like shape front and back, fabricated
from three layers of spruce glued together
then shaped with a hatchet and a
spokeshave.
The Wrights decided to use two
propellers instead of one mounted behind
the wing rather than in front to ensure that
the flying surfaces would be moving
though air stirred up by the whirling
blades. Not only would two propellers act
on a greater quantity of air, but by running
one clockwise and one counterclockwise,
any twisting effect (torque) on lateral
control would be eliminated.
Power was transmitted from motor to
propellers through a series of chains and
sprockets. The chains were not from
bicycles; they were purchased from the
Diamond Chain Company of Indianapolis,
Indiana, and were a larger, heavier version
used in early automobile transmissions.
The contrarotation of the propellers was
achieved by crossing the chain in a figure
eight and enclosing it in a metal tube to
avoid flapping.
No Walk in the Park: Biographical
material that I’ve read about the Wrights
has glossed over the problems they
70 MODEL AVIATION
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 10:02 am Page 70
72 MODEL AVIATION
encountered in the fall and early winter of
1903. A few days after their arrival, the
Outer Banks of North Carolina was struck
by a violent hurricane which severely
damaged the old tar-paper hangar/living
quarters. A replacement hangar had to be
constructed, and the old unit had to be
repaired. Fortunately the Flyer had not
arrived from the railhead yet.
The hollow metal shafts originally used
to turn the propellers proved to be too
weak, necessitating Wilbur to return to
Dayton for repairs, then another wait for
shipment of solid metal shafts. These
delays pushed them well into the cold of
December, making their stay on the cape
most uncomfortable.
Did You Know? Neither brother had a
middle name. They had two older brothers:
Reuchlin, who lived and worked in Kansas
City, Kansas, first as an accountant then
later as a farmer in Tonganoxie, Kansas,
and Lorin, who settled in Dayton and
worked as a bookkeeper. Both had
children, and Orville and Wilbur were
reportedly doting uncles.
The glider wings were covered with
muslin on the top surfaces only, but the
1903 Flyer had muslin on both surfaces of
the wings. Only the outer quarter of each
wing could be warped on the 1903 Flyer,
and the center-sections were rigid for
added strength.
Samuel Langley used a $50,000
payment from the War Department,
$10,000 from Smithsonian funds, and
another $13,000 from a grant to develop
the Aerodrome, which flopped into the
Potomac River so ingloriously. The
Wrights, on the other hand, used only their
own funds, causing them to be frugal to a
fault. Orville totaled up all expenses
incurred for the 1903 flights, including
transportation, at $1,000. For instance, the
“wheels” used to roll the aircraft down the
launching ramp were hub sections of
bicycle wheels.
Orville contracted typhoid fever and
nearly died in 1896. After his recovery, the
family became extremely careful about the
water they drank and always insisted that it
be boiled before their use when they were
away from home. In spite of that, Wilbur
contracted typhoid and died in 1912.
When the AMA Nationals was
scheduled to be held in Dayton in 1976,
my oldest son and I put the Wright
brothers’ bicycle shop at the top of our
want-to-see list. When we arrived at the
counter to pick up a rental car, we inquired
about the route to the shop. The response
from the young ladies at the counter was
one of total confusion; they had no idea
what we were talking about.
Come to find out, the entire thing had
been acquired by the Ford Motor Company
many years before and moved to
Greenfield Village in Michigan. Do you
figure the Dayton Tourism Board would
like to have it back?
Space limitations leave me no choice but
to end this inside look at the Wright
brothers with their successful flight on that
December day. Many more events
occurred after that first group of flights. I
strongly recommend interested readers to
obtain a copy of Wilbur and Orville by
Fred Howard.
I hope this overview of the events
leading to that first manned flight have
added to your knowledge, engendered
some pride in the role that model aircraft
played in that achievement, and dispelled
some of the prevailing myths regarding the
eccentricity and “stuffiness” of the
brothers Wright. MA
01sig3.QXD 10/27/03 10:02 am Page 72