Historical note: The Wright Brothers
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Fleet Owner
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From: Drummonds, TN USA
Historical note: The Wright Brothers
(reprint from another post. I thought it deserved to be looked at seperately)
The kites I own and keep mostly came from Kitty Hawk Kites in North Carolina. The original flying machine the Wright brothers developed started out as a kite with two wings at the turn of the century before last, and evolved into a glider before becoming a powered machine.
- The whole history of the project is absolutely fascinating, and the real value of the work they did was not that they made a heavier than air machine fly - it had already been done....
The DIFFERENCE that the Wrights made - was that they figured out how to make such machines controllable.
They were the inventors of the concept of flight controls based upon all three axis of movement:
Pitch (angle up, and down)
Roll (Level wings -vice- one or the other wingtips dipping)
-and-
Yaw. (swerving off course)
Once they had been explained, aircraft were possible. Until then, they were widow makers....
"Aeroplanes" were once made of hardwood slats and coarse cloth fabric because that was all that was imaginable. Wire made for good strong braces. Engines were cast iron...
The original Wright engine had an oil splash lubrication system - oil got where it was needed sort of by hit or miss. Carbuerettors were a brand new idea, it didn't have much of one.
One added fuel in various amounts, hoping it would work...
There was no such thing as a science of "Aerodynamics". They invented it as they went along, and "Bernoulli's law" was an afterthought.
The concepts they had to jump through are a triumph not to technology, but to the thought of individuals and the creative abilities of humankind as a whole!!!
Their's was a brainstorm the like of which is rare and awesome when we see such a thing take form....
I recommend reading up on their true story. I really do...
It speaks with a raw authoritativeness of a core and heart tradition in our society of looking at new things, new ways, new possibilities, and bringing what were once only dreams to reality in the day to day world. And also describes how spectacular the things we now take for granted once were in the eyes of those who first saw such things become possible.
I love stories like those....
~Wolf
The kites I own and keep mostly came from Kitty Hawk Kites in North Carolina. The original flying machine the Wright brothers developed started out as a kite with two wings at the turn of the century before last, and evolved into a glider before becoming a powered machine.
- The whole history of the project is absolutely fascinating, and the real value of the work they did was not that they made a heavier than air machine fly - it had already been done....
The DIFFERENCE that the Wrights made - was that they figured out how to make such machines controllable.
They were the inventors of the concept of flight controls based upon all three axis of movement:
Pitch (angle up, and down)
Roll (Level wings -vice- one or the other wingtips dipping)
-and-
Yaw. (swerving off course)
Once they had been explained, aircraft were possible. Until then, they were widow makers....
"Aeroplanes" were once made of hardwood slats and coarse cloth fabric because that was all that was imaginable. Wire made for good strong braces. Engines were cast iron...
The original Wright engine had an oil splash lubrication system - oil got where it was needed sort of by hit or miss. Carbuerettors were a brand new idea, it didn't have much of one.
One added fuel in various amounts, hoping it would work...
There was no such thing as a science of "Aerodynamics". They invented it as they went along, and "Bernoulli's law" was an afterthought.
The concepts they had to jump through are a triumph not to technology, but to the thought of individuals and the creative abilities of humankind as a whole!!!
Their's was a brainstorm the like of which is rare and awesome when we see such a thing take form....
I recommend reading up on their true story. I really do...
It speaks with a raw authoritativeness of a core and heart tradition in our society of looking at new things, new ways, new possibilities, and bringing what were once only dreams to reality in the day to day world. And also describes how spectacular the things we now take for granted once were in the eyes of those who first saw such things become possible.
I love stories like those....
~Wolf
Last edited by Greywolf; Feb 29, 2004 at 02:33 PM.
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