Flying for Fun
D.B. Mathews
“THE WRIGHT brothers were right” is a line from a song in some forgotten musical. However, considering this is being written for the December 2003 issue, the sentiment is most appropriate. On December 17 at 10:35 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first powered man-carrying flight.
You are probably aware of that event and the story behind it, so I’ll see if I can relate some history you may not know. Most of what follows is from a magnificent biography of the Wright brothers: Wilbur and Orville by Fred Howard. This is the sixth biography of the brothers written for adults, and, unlike the previous works I’ve read, this is not an “authorized” (sanitized) work. “Authorized” biographies always seem to be complimentary and free of any “warts or bumps.” That’s probably because the person being written about or the immediate survivors retain the right to edit what has been written. Fred Howard’s writing is less “glitz and glamour” and more hard facts, yet it presents the subject in a precise, factual, and entertaining manner. I highly recommend this book to those with an interest in the development of manned flight and the role that model airplanes played in that process.
When I was young the term “preacher’s kid” (PK) was derogatory, implying that somehow such children had to behave more sedately and virtuously than the rest of us. I grew up next door to a United Brethren parsonage and became sensitive to these unrealistic expectations of my playmates.
Wilbur and Orville Wright were PKs. Their father, Milton Wright, was first a minister and later the Midwest bishop of the United Brethren church (which was later absorbed into the United Methodist Church). As a result, the boys grew up with those same expectations pressed upon them, except they did have the advantage of living in the large town of Dayton, Ohio.
I was unaware that the Wright family church was the same denomination as the one I (and Dwight Eisenhower) grew up in and that Orville, Wilbur, and their sister Katharine stopped attending church as adults.
Milton returned home from a church-related visit in 1878 and brought a toy helicopter for the boys. It was made from cork, bamboo, and paper, and it was powered with windup rubber bands, in the style of Alphonse Penaud of France. As Bill Hannan has been telling us for years, these Penaud toys flew well, and the Wright boys were charmed by theirs.
Subsequently they designed and built several variations of the Penaud models, and they learned that the larger the helicopter, the worse it flew. Thus two kids became fascinated with the concept of flight through rubber-powered model airplanes. Model aircraft became much more significant to the Wrights in the following 25 years.
Definition, Please:
As I researched for and prepared this month’s material, I continually searched for a clear definition of what a model airplane is. Does the term imply a miniature representation of a full-scale prototype, an unmanned flying device, or perhaps a cheap, toylike, fake airplane?
A visit to the Joe Nall event I wrote about in the October column, a look at contemporary missile development, or a look at the model aircraft flown around us quickly debunks the previous three attempts at definition. So what exactly is a model airplane?
Late AMA President Johnnie Clemens championed the use of the term “miniature aircraft,” and it’s easy to understand why. The sufficiently documented work of Otto Lilienthal in Germany and Octave Chanute, Samuel Langley, and Alexander Graham Bell in the US involved the use of miniature-aircraft gliders that were successfully flown into the wind and downhill, tethered and via free flight. Some even carried a man hang-glider style.
There are other pioneers I didn't mention in the previous paragraph, and they have remained controversial figures in the history of flight. Fred Howard wrote:
"What the Wright brothers did was not accomplished in a vacuum and their story is incomplete without accounts of the efforts of other men who tried to solve the problem of flight—not only the honorable men (Chanute, Langley, Bell, etc.) but also the sometimes self-deluded experimenters, mountebanks, and outright fakirs and liars whose fraudulent claims have resulted in the survival into the present decade of belief in such mythical exploits as the 'lost flight' of Gustavo Whitehead and the very elastic 100-foot glide made by John Montgomery of California in 1883—or was it 1884?"
In the cases of Otto Lilienthal, Octave Chanute, Samuel Langley, and the Wrights, photographs exist of the claims of successful flights in those late years of the 19th century. The roll-film camera (box Brownie, if you will) had yet to be developed by Eastman, but glass-plate cameras were fairly common and not that expensive.
However, no photos have ever been found to prove the flights of Gustavo Whitehead and others. Surely those experimenters knew someone with a camera or could easily have hired someone to take documentation photos. The Wrights clearly understood this need for photographic documentation, and they carried a plate camera to the Outer Banks of North Carolina each year as part of their supplies.
Almost all record attempts or important scientific moments require the presence of a person or people of recognized honor to be witness(es). Surely a judge or educator could have been found to certify their witnessing these events. Although it may seem hard-hearted to prick the balloon of Gustavo Whitehead's (and others') supporters, there is simply no valid proof of the claims made.
Not only did the Wrights see a need for authenticating photos, but they also arranged a signal system to alert the coastal rescue squads and nearby fishermen when they were ready to fly, and welcomed them to watch. If you've seen the photos of their early flights, did you notice how many spectators and witnesses are in the pictures?
I find interest in the photo of Samuel Langley's steam-powered, unmanned flying machine ascending from the top of a barge in the Potomac River. He had designed and built more than 30 light model airplanes powered with twisted rubber to determine the best wing arrangement for larger models. He settled on a tandem-winged—one behind the other—design with propellers and a small steam power unit between.
Samuel was secretive—hence his use of a workshop/launching platform in a river 35 miles from Washington, D.C., with no press allowed—but he did invite his friend Alexander Graham Bell to take pictures from a small boat while Samuel observed from shore.
When Samuel successfully free-flighted a large steam-powered model from the barge to a reported altitude of nearly 100 feet, Alexander Graham Bell snapped away. Only one plate turned out, but there is a photo.
The Wrights learned of Otto Lilienthal's gliding flights from articles in the September 1894 McClure's magazine. They were illustrated with 10 halftone photos and nine illustrations. Otto Lilienthal crashed and died of a broken back in 1896.
Samuel Langley, who had the full backing and financial support of the Smithsonian Institution, of which he was executive secretary, announced publicly that he would discontinue his experiments after a series of failures with his designs. He resumed research toward a man-carrying unit under the financial auspices of the War Department at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War.
Octave Chanute
Octave Chanute was another experimenter who took a scientific approach to developing a man-carrying airplane. Of French birth, he was a respected civil engineer. He designed the Chicago stockyards in 1867 and the first bridge over the Missouri River at Kansas City in 1870.
As a young man, Octave collected whatever information he was able to find on human flight. At 32 he found that this hobby was interfering with his work, so he tied a ribbon around the information and did not return to it until 1890, when he published a series of articles in The Railroad Engineering Journal from October 1891 through December 1893.
Those articles earned Octave the status of senior statesman for aerial navigation, as flying was called at that time. This helped lighten the stigma of lunacy that had been attached to the subject. Octave designed and constructed several models that had been successfully glided and flown tethered in the wind.
Octave was also extremely helpful and encouraging to the Wright brothers via a huge volume of correspondence on the subject, visits to their facilities in Dayton, Ohio, and trips to the Outer Banks on several occasions. He "loaned" the Wrights an accurate anemometer to measure wind speeds and an inclinometer for plotting angles of attack.
In later years, perhaps as a result of age, Octave left the impression with the public that he had been the teacher and mentor of the Wright brothers, which is totally in error. His design concepts were impractical and have no relationship to the brothers' work.
Octave's offers of financial help, and guidance to charitable underwriters, were rejected out of hand by the Wrights. This refusal may have been motivated by the brothers' conservative background and concern about getting distracted from their regular work in their bicycle shop.
The Brothers Wright
The Wright brothers' methodical approach combined with their practical skills in mechanics set them apart. They built wind tunnels, measured lift and drag, and developed control systems that allowed for the pilot to manage pitch, roll, and yaw. Their invention of wing-warping for lateral control was crucial.
Their public demonstrations in Europe in 1908 and 1909 convinced many skeptics. Yet even then, controversies over priority, patents, and recognition continued for years. The Smithsonian's recognition of the primacy of the Wrights was long delayed due to disputes, but eventually, the importance of their achievements was acknowledged.
As young boys the Wrights were interested in printing, and they built several workable press units from scrap. They published a neighborhood newspaper, then later a citywide weekly. This evolved into a successful printing business.
The brothers sold the printing shop and joined the national bicycle craze that swept the country in the last part of the 19th century. The invention of the "safety" (with a small front wheel and chain drive) cycle led to thousands of riders circulating the streets of every city daily. The Wrights not only sold and repaired bikes, but they also manufactured them.
Business at the shop was seasonal in Ohio, so when fall arrived, the Wrights were devoted to their research full time. This explains why they located themselves and their equipment on the coast of North Carolina in the fall and winter; it's hardly tourist season.
During the brothers' absences from the bicycle shop in Dayton, Cord Ruse worked part time to take care of the bicycle repairs at the shop. He is credited with developing the first horseless carriage to be seen on the streets of Dayton in 1896.
The Outer Banks
The Outer Banks of North Carolina was ideal for testing because of continuous and strong winds blowing from the sea onto the shore over treeless, tall sand dunes.
Conversely, the area was less than hospitable in the colder months since no permanent housing was available and the Wrights were forced to camp out in tents.
It was also interesting to read about the almost totally isolated nature of the Outer Banks at the turn of the 20th century. The only residents were fishermen and coastal rescue squads. The population was so sparse that no ferry went from the eastern shore of North Carolina to the Cape. That required Orville and Wilbur to hire someone with a small sailboat to cross and haul their aircraft and assorted camping gear.
It would be three-quarters of a century before the pristine sand dunes of Cape Hatteras would be covered with summer homes and resort hotels. My wife and I visited Kitty Hawk (more accurately, Kill Devil Hill) with our children in 1969, then again in 1998; the changes were startling and depressing.
What had been a wondrously wild and open group of sand dunes was crowded with summer homes, hamburger joints, and tourist traps. It's no place to be when the next major hurricane hits that area.
Model of the 1903 Wright Flyer
The model in the photos is a Pat Tritle–designed Dare Design & Engineering kit of the 1903 Wright Flyer. Built and flown by Shawn Strunk here in Wichita, the model spans 40 1/2 inches and weighs 14 ounces as flown.
Power is provided by two GWS EXA indoor power systems using eight 800 mAh Nickel Metal Hydride cells. The Flyer is covered with Japanese tissue and three coats of clear Sig Lite Coat dope.
Flight times in calm air run to approximately 15 minutes. The model is remarkably stable, particularly after Shawn added a bit of washout (tip-up) in both upper wing panels. The Flyer lands smoothly on mowed grass, with minimal damage. This is a remarkably consistent-flying model that most of us speculated would barely fly, if at all. It was a pleasant surprise.
George Sauer took the photos using a Minolta 5.0-megapixel 7X optical-zoom digital camera.
I will continue with this topic next month. MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
