Wright Brothers flight Dec 17 1903

[Will Davis]

115 years ago today , the Wright Brothers  made their hostoric flight at The Outer Banks of North Carolina


 A replica  attempted to fly on the 100 th anniversary  on December 17,2003  Kill Devil Hills NC

Below is a note from Gerry Glier , A control Line flyer from Virginia ,, another Control line flyer , Wayne Robinson from Lexington SC was present as a FAA official  during this event ,

A good day to remember the incredible effort led by Ken Hyde and his team from Warrenton Virginia. Many may not remember this image which I believe reflects the tireless efforts towards accuracy and detail of the original 1903 Wright Flyer. Sadly the front skid displaced water droplets on the rail which made their way over the pilot into the open intake causing a loss of power just as I snapped this photo.

Gerry Glier

[TigreST]

If anybody still reads books these days,  “The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough is a great read.

Here's a link to a, admittedly lengthy, interview between Ken Burns (a fantastic historical videographer in his own right) and David McCullough.  I do not doubt you will watch the whole thing once you give it half a chance.  The Wrights were amazing young men that we have taken for granted in a sense.  I raise my hand as "guilty as charged" for knowing little about them myself.  Such a fantastic story.



I great Christmas gift perhaps for the aeronauts on your list.

[Robert Whitley]

Whoever did something special on the day to commemorate and honour the Wright brother’s achievement please share it with us.

Mine was to bring a student up to first solo standard and have him understand what a special thing it is for him and be thankful of the Wrights for laying the groundwork for the gift we shared.

When I finally got home after a long day of flying Kim and I had a nip of our best scotch in a toast to Wilber and Orville.

I have had the addiction of model size and full size aviation for fifty-five years and never want it to end.

Clear skies everyone.

[Serge_Krauss]

In my view, The Wright Brothers were among the greatest scientists and engineers of the 20th century, despite being self educated in aerodynamics and much else. They were so systematic and disciplined that, despite awareness that Langley was preparing to fly, they refused to take a next step until all problems had been resolved up to that step. They actually invented the propeller, as well as 3-axis control and engineered their power plant to suit the strength, drag, and lift (wing area, airfoil data, and speed) of the "flyer." They re-wrote Lillienthal's air tables through their own research and THEN designed airfoils and computed lift from their own experiments via bicycles and George Spratt's wind-tunnel design. Although they did not know calculus, they created iterative techniques to solve propulsion challenges with their high-school trigonometry, being the first to view the propeller as a rotating wing. Despite one set-back, they were flying closed courses and figure eights around Huffman's prairie for as much as an hour, before the rest of the world's aviators were doing more than hops, with the possible exception of two others who had not mastered full control. You can still access their notebooks on the internet.

[Brett Buck]

In my view, The Wright Brothers were among the greatest scientists and engineers of the 20th century, despite being self educated in aerodynamics and much else. They were so systematic and disciplined that, despite awareness that Langley was preparing to fly, they refused to take a next step until all problems had been resolved up to that step. They actually invented the propeller, as well as 3-axis control and engineered their power plant to suit the strength, drag, and lift (wing area, airfoil data, and speed) of the "flyer." They re-wrote Lillienthal's air tables through their own research and THEN designed airfoils and computed lift from their own experiments via bicycles and George Spratt's wind-tunnel design. Although they did not know calculus, they created iterative techniques to solve propulsion challenges with their high-school trigonometry, being the first to view the propeller as a rotating wing. Despite one set-back, they were flying closed courses and figure eights around Huffman's prairie for as much as an hour, before the rest of the world's aviators were doing more than hops, with the possible exception of two others who had not mastered full control. You can still access their notebooks on the internet.

   

   They were indeed. What had gone before was nearly useless, they had the necessary insight to actually test and then question the previous results and were the first to  grasp the rudiments of control and maneuvering. And, incredibly, that it was going to take actual skill and practice to learn to fly.  Langley strapped Charles Manley onto the Aerodrome, said "Good Luck" and then catapulted him into the Potomac. Langley/Manley had no concept of what was required, and what was he supposed to do - learn to fly in the 3 seconds before he was going to otherwise crash? Even the accursed French "pioneers" knew that they wanted to be able to control the airplane, although they had no notion how to go about it nor did they ever make any serious effort to understand the issue.

   I would add that they didn't fully grasp all the concepts of control, particularly, pitch stability, until later. This is why none of the replicas flew very well- because they, like the original, were wildly unstable. Only having controlled similarly unstable gliders gave them the ability to tickle it right at the edge of disaster for a few seconds. The fact that they were pretty careful probably saved them many times, if they had ever managed to get to 50 feet, the chance of allowing it to diverge and fatally crashing were astronomical. They really didn't get a fully stable airplane until 1905 by greatly increasing the "tail moment" so they could (and had to) move the CG forward. An even better solution was arrived at with the Model B, which had a conventional layout instead of a canard.

     Brett

[Dan McEntee]

   I got to see the display of Wright engines at Oshkosh in 2003 and they ran one of their original engines, (#10 I think) at scheduled demonstrations all week. learning how they designed and made the engines is pretty impressive for what most would call very primitive working conditions and equipment. I recently read an article on line that credited Wilbur with being the real brains of the outfit. I have tried to find the article again to re-read it but haven't been able to so I can verify that. After reading a lot of stuff over the years on the question of 'who was first" in regard to powered flight, others may have accidentally gotten in the air first, but by distinguishing true controlled powered flight, I'll still stick with the Wright brothers.
  I have wondered about one thing. Every collector has their "holy grail" that they are looking for. Where does Wright brothers bicycles fall into that category? I don't think I have ever read anything about their bikes, and are any left in existence and how valued and desirable they might be?
   Type at you later and
   HAPPY NEW YEAR!
    Dan McEntee
   

[Norm Faith Jr.]

I was teaching Aviation School for Southern Arkansas University Tech in Camden Arkansas. On the 100th anniversary, my son, a fellow instructor and myself climbed in our 172 Cutlass RGII and as close to 10:35, I eased the yoke back took to the air. We flew around for a little while, enjoying the moment and expressing our feelings about the magic of flight. I rolled out of the left bank and lined up with the numbers, determined to "grease it on." Just as the plane started to entered ground effect...one of my passengers yelled "LOOK OUT!" Three deer ran right in front of me from the right side of the runway. There is no doubt in my mind that I missed the third deer by inches as it passed under me. When we got parked, we all looked the plane over, amazed that we didn't find any evidence of hitting one. I do believe that the Wright's didn't have to worry about deer. 
Norm   

[Dan McEntee]

I was teaching Aviation School for Southern Arkansas University Tech in Camden Arkansas. On the 100th anniversary, my son, a fellow instructor and myself climbed in our 172 Cutlass RGII and as close to 10:35, I eased the yoke back took to the air. We flew around for a little while, enjoying the moment and expressing our feelings about the magic of flight. I rolled out of the left bank and lined up with the numbers, determined to "grease it on." Just as the plane started to entered ground effect...one of my passengers yelled "LOOK OUT!" Three deer ran right in front of me from the right side of the runway. There is no doubt in my mind that I missed the third deer by inches as it passed under me. When we got parked, we all looked the plane over, amazed that we didn't find any evidence of hitting one. I do believe that the Wright's didn't have to worry about deer. 
Norm

    That sounds scary. But given the location of their first efforts, they may have experienced the first bird strikes!. In 2003 Microsoft had a simulator at Oshkosh that replicated flying the Wright Flyer. Right before we left, the line was finally short enough for me to take a crack at it. After a couple of dorks, I finally achieved flight and flew longer and farther than a lot of people did. it had the same control layout as the original airplane, including moving your hips to affect role control. It was not easy, and I wondered if it would have been any easier or more difficult in the real thing? No "seat of the pants" feel. 
     Type at you later and
  HAPPY NEW YEAR!
    Dan McEntee

[Steve Helmick]

The thought of somebody who didn't really know how to fly...the airplane they had invented and built...that they didn't really know if it would fly or not...brave!! How many adults...with no experience...can fly even a proven and trimmed CL plane their first try...without crashing? Seems unlikely. That's telling me that Wilbur and Orville were talented, skilled, and with huevos the size of grapefruit.  Steve

[Brett Buck]

The thought of somebody who didn't really know how to fly...the airplane they had invented and built...that they didn't really know if it would fly or not...brave!! How many adults...with no experience...can fly even a proven and trimmed CL plane their first try...without crashing? Seems unlikely. That's telling me that Wilbur and Orville were talented, skilled, and with huevos the size of grapefruit.  Steve

   That's just it, they *didn't* just jump on and figure it out before it got to the end of the rail. They had learned to fly extensively with gliders and manned "kites". They were almost the only people who considered that an important part of the process.

      Brett

[Mike Ferguson]

I highly recommend obtaining (or at least reading) "The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright", if you can find it. It's a collection of their correspondences, journals, and design notes. You can see the approach they took in designing their gliders and airplanes essentially in their own "real time". It's terrific reading.

[Skip Chernoff]

Thanks for sharing,great post.

[Steve_Pollock]

On topic?

[Steve Helmick]

   That's just it, they *didn't* just jump on and figure it out before it got to the end of the rail. They had learned to fly extensively with gliders and manned "kites". They were almost the only people who considered that an important part of the process.

      Brett

Yes, I know all that. But their airplane still wasn't easy to fly, and I'm pretty sure they knew it wasn't going to be easy to fly, but they did it anyway. I'm still impressed with their bravery.  Steve

[FLOYD CARTER]

I was tempted to read David McCullough's book, but he tends to "whisper" a lot, and his speech is slurred so that he is hard to understand.

[TigreST]

I was tempted to read David McCullough's book, but he tends to "whisper" a lot, and his speech is slurred so that he is hard to understand.

Yes. You must read real close to hear everything. A good read but difficult !

[EddyR]

  I waited till Dec 17th 1957 to get my ticket signed Glider Pilot. 54 years after the Wright flight I qualified in Sept 57 but waited so two other students and I could all get our tickets at the same date. The next year I held the US  endurance record for a under  2000 ft tow  and land on the same field  for those under 18 years old. I used a 1-23 very early model with just under the 15 meter rule wing. Schweizer sponsored me for several record flights.  I had been in gliders since 1955 so getting a ticket was easy. I just waited untill a free program came up. Later flew the world famous  Schweizer-Burr SGS 1-24 as it was on loan from the owner to  Schweizer.
 EddyR

[wwwarbird]

If anybody still reads books these days,  “The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough is a great read.

Here's a link to a, admittedly lengthy, interview between Ken Burns (a fantastic historical videographer in his own right) and David McCullough.  I do not doubt you will watch the whole thing once you give it half a chance.  The Wrights were amazing young men that we have taken for granted in a sense.  I raise my hand as "guilty as charged" for knowing little about them myself.  Such a fantastic story.



I great Christmas gift perhaps for the aeronauts on your list.

 Thanks for the heads-up on this video, definitely going to have to give it a watch. Any of Ken Burn's work that I've ever seen has been extremely well done and chock full of very interesting detail, the guy is a master.

[Serge_Krauss]

A couple thoughts upon viewing the Burns/McCullough discussion, a real treat to view:

First, the instability of the gliders and 1903 "Flyer" was intentional. The brothers had corresponded with and respected Lillienthal, even though they had to redo his "pressure" tables, and were deeply affected by his death, due to inadequate weight shift control to overcome aerodynamic upset. So they "control configured" their plane, intending that the craft's pitch control be capable of overcoming any  gust upsets. Rightly or wrongly, they overdid it some, probably at least partially due to having learned over three years how to manage the canard with piloting skills. In another part of their notebooks, you find too that their concern with gusts led them to anhedral the wings so that any side gust would press the windward wing down, causing it to turn the plane into the wind, probably in a ground loop, at least closer to the ground and slower, rather than raising the wing and sending it faster downwind in a turn away from the gust.

I think Mr. McCullough mis-spoke when he said that full control was only attained at Huffman's Prairie. The Wrights had spent a year completing 3-axis control at Kitty Hawk (overcoming adverse yaw), and only after developing it, did they take the next step, which was to apply power to the glider. While not fully developed by any means, the 1903 "Flyer" could have flown fully coordinated turns, if that had been their purpose that day and if it had had more power and had chosen to fly in lower winds (they were very conscious of safety and launching advantages of low ground speeds). Because of the instability, as Brett says, catastrophic consequences were possible for any mistake or "upset at higher altitude, but the control was there. We should not get carried away by descriptions of the short distances they flew. These flights were many seconds long into stiff winds, and the fact that gusts did not crash the craft is proof enough that they were able to maintain a course, maneuvering with balanced enough turns to avoid crashing due to side gusts.

[Gary Dowler]

Its interesting to note that while their over ground distances were short, they flew into a head wind estimated at 27mph.  Flight 1 lasted 12 seconds, covering 120 feet on the ground.  The aircraft then produced an airspeed of a fraction under 34 mph, and covered an air distance of 545 feet.
Their longest flight that day was 852 feet on the ground in 59 seconds. This works out to a air distance of 3,188 feet at just under 37mph. 
They gained enough experience in a few hours to virtually quadruple their initial effort.

Gary

[goozgog]

  Thank you Serge for showing us some of their
calculations. My brother had a Smithsonian book
that might have been titled " An engineering analysis
of the Wright Flyer". He lost it but it contained about
a hundred pages of painstaking math.

  For some reason , when someone insists that
someone "flew" before the Wrights, it offends me
personally.  All modelers know that if we take a
big enough surface and jump off a barn roof that
it will slow our fall into the pile of hay at the bottom.
" I flew! Just like the Wright Brothers!"

   I'm sure that someone , somewhere managed
to float a few feet before December of 1903,
but prove it.
Where are their calculations?  Photos?  Credible
witnesses?
    Wilbur in France 1908 demonstrated what real
flight is and silenced the cranks.

  Maybe I get offended because people who deny
the Wrights accomplishments insult my intelligence.

Cheers! - K.

[Paul Smith]

I saw the documentaries on the both the Wright & Bleriot replica failures.  It's amazing that even with modern advantages & knowledge, neither was successful.  The old timers got it right all by themselves.

The key element of the Wright Brothers' success was Horsepower.   They invented an engine that could power a less-than-optimum airframe.  And also a 1600-pound dropweight catapult attached to a 400-pound airplane.  WOW!  4-G acceleration.

The Bleriot monoplane had a basic modern airframe layout & crossed the English Channel.  The modern copy crashed in France before it even got to The Channel.

[qaz049]

I saw the documentaries on the both the Wright & Bleriot replica failures.  It's amazing that even with modern advantages & knowledge, neither was successful.  The old timers got it right all by themselves.

The key element of the Wright Brothers' success was Horsepower.   They invented an engine that could power a less-than-optimum airframe.  And also a 1600-pound dropweight catapult attached to a 400-pound airplane.  WOW!  4-G acceleration.

The Bleriot monoplane had a basic modern airframe layout & crossed the English Channel.  The modern copy crashed in France before it even got to The Channel.

I believe that the key elements in the Wright Brother's success were four fold. Firstly adequate Aerodynamics, secondly an effective (but not excessive) power to weight ratio via their own four cylinder Aluminium Alloy engine, very efficient propellers, and finally a practical working control system.  That they were able to integrate all four aspects and achieve controlled flight was amazing especially since they did it in four years and spent under $1000.

I've argued for quite awhile that the edge they had over their competitors was a mastery of bicycle technology. The latter was the first personal transport innovation since the horse was tamed about 5000 y/o. The fact that Wilbur was an active bike rider would have given him an added insight into the turning mechanism large birds used  for motion in the roll axis, warping their wingtips in opposite directions. Not too different to how a bike rider (or skier) changed direction by rolling into a turn. None of their competitors ever considered this aspect till shown.

In contrast Sam Langley's contemporary aircraft was modeled on a very successful two Metre span steam powered freeflight model that his technicians built for him. It was catapult launched from a row boat, and climbed away gently in a big LH circle (about 1/2 Mile) and almost returned to the launch spot just as the water in the engine ran out. It glided down to a safe and reliable landing on the river surface. The Department of the Navy became very interested in a larger version to be used for Artillery spotting on its warships. This was just after the Spanish American War, and in the midst of a Worldwide Naval Arms Race. He was given about $50000. But certain specifications were imposed on the design of the gas powered man carrying version.  The engine was designed and built by a bright young engineer from an Ivy League University, and so was the catapult. Both worked very well. In contrast the propellers were crude paddles, and the wing airfoils were equally agricultural . Unfortunately testing had to be done in public. Also each test was of the complete aircraft. A successful flight would have had a good launch, followed by a climb to altitude. The pilot had a throttle I believe, but otherwise relied on the aircraft trim for direction like a FF model. The landing was on the water. It has been argued that the strength of the launch and the power of the engine combined with a weak airframe caused the two launch failures. In contrast the Wrights chose to test their aircraft in private, where they could make errors and modify till correct, out of public view.

Their mastery of the Scientific Method was so good that their story now usually appears in textbooks on innovation.

[Brett Buck]

First, the instability of the gliders and 1903 "Flyer" was intentional. The brothers had corresponded with and respected Lillienthal, even though they had to redo his "pressure" tables, and were deeply affected by his death, due to inadequate weight shift control to overcome aerodynamic upset. So they "control configured" their plane, intending that the craft's pitch control be capable of overcoming any  gust upsets. Rightly or wrongly, they overdid it some, probably at least partially due to having learned over three years how to manage the canard with piloting skills. In another part of their notebooks, you find too that their concern with gusts led them to anhedral the wings so that any side gust would press the windward wing down, causing it to turn the plane into the wind, probably in a ground loop, at least closer to the ground and slower, rather than raising the wing and sending it faster downwind in a turn away from the gust.

I think Mr. McCullough mis-spoke when he said that full control was only attained at Huffman's Prairie. The Wrights had spent a year completing 3-axis control at Kitty Hawk (overcoming adverse yaw), and only after developing it, did they take the next step, which was to apply power to the glider. While not fully developed by any means, the 1903 "Flyer" could have flown fully coordinated turns, if that had been their purpose that day and if it had had more power and had chosen to fly in lower winds (they were very conscious of safety and launching advantages of low ground speeds). Because of the instability, as Brett says, catastrophic consequences were possible for any mistake or "upset at higher altitude, but the control was there. We should not get carried away by descriptions of the short distances they flew. These flights were many seconds long into stiff winds, and the fact that gusts did not crash the craft is proof enough that they were able to maintain a course, maneuvering with balanced enough turns to avoid crashing due to side gusts.

      There has been a lot of revisionist intrpretations on the stability issue, mostly, the invented term "control canard", as opposed to "stabilizer". I think they understood it only to the point that they knew that they had to control it, and had to provide sufficient authority. The anhedral, for example, was not intended to turn it into the wind on a side gust (although, it may have actually done that), it was intended to make the response to side gusts neutral, i.e. no reaction. That is definitely not the case in pitch, it definitely diverged and only extreme efforts could outthink it.

Yes, it could *hypothetically* make coordinated turns; it certainly had suffiicient control authority. By the same token, you can hypothetically balance pencil on your finger. It's not practical and won't happen for long, however. And practicality is really their breakthrough. Their forward CG shift and longer canard moment arm slowed it down to the point it was practical  - probably still unstable but now you are balancing a broom on your finger instead of a pencil.

   Point being, they had a conceptual breakthrough in that they realized they needed to actively control all three axes. The attempted to make them all neutrally stable, also a conceptual breakthrough. They may have managed it to some extent in roll and yaw, but missed by a mile in pitch, because they just didn't understand it. It was good enough to be the first fully-realized airplane, but it wasn't really practical until they slowed the poles down sufficiently. That they didn't really get it until 2 years later doesn't take away anything from their accomplishment, but they still had a pretty long way to go.

     Brett

[Dave Hull]

Here is a good AIAA scientific article from Cal Tech that covers, among other things, the pitch stability issues.

     https://authors.library.caltech.edu/11239/1/CULaiaaj03.pdf

I have an article around here somewhere that is essentially an engine performance review (a la Peter Chin for us modelers) of an early Wright engine. Possibly the Flyer. I don't see it out on the web.  I think it was sponsored by the SAE. It was fascinating reading....

Dave

[Chuck_Smith]

Brett and Serge,

You might find this interesting:

Like all AE grad students back in the day we (grudgingly) did a Bode plot on the Wright Flyer and it a first glance, by traditional standards comes out as unstable. Then Dr. Bill Rae at SUNY Buffalo rocked our world and put the mass of the affected air in the flow field around the airplane into the analysis. Turns out, the structure is so light compared to its volume that when you consider the "apparent mass" of the air that moves when you roll, pitch or yaw the Flyer that it becomes controllable. I have the math around here somewhere.

This has been proven out in modern models with planes like the Crack Yak that are so light that the CG becomes almost irrelevant.

Cool stuff.

[Bob Heywood]

What isn't talked about much was how close the world came to losing the Wright's work to the 1913 Dayton Flood.

According to one of the National Park Rangers at the Wright Memorial, Orville had only a matter of minutes to salvage plane parts from their back yard shed before the flood waters rose. The records were stored on the 2nd floor of the bike shop but fires from ruptured gas lines were a big problem. Thankfully, we have their work.

[Serge_Krauss]

I may remember wrong, but I THINK that I read in their notebook that the anhedral was intended for what I typed. I don't remember whether they calculated anything much regarding pitch, but I have to think from other things I read that they only reluctantly reduced the touchiness of their pitch control later. They seem to have had enough practical experience and feel for leverages that they could have slowed down the pitch motions, had they wanted to. When life allows, I'd like to re-read their notes with those issues in mind.

[Brett Buck]

Brett and Serge,

You might find this interesting:

Like all AE grad students back in the day we (grudgingly) did a Bode plot on the Wright Flyer and it a first glance, by traditional standards comes out as unstable. Then Dr. Bill Rae at SUNY Buffalo rocked our world and put the mass of the affected air in the flow field around the airplane into the analysis. Turns out, the structure is so light compared to its volume that when you consider the "apparent mass" of the air that moves when you roll, pitch or yaw the Flyer that it becomes controllable. I have the math around here somewhere.

This has been proven out in modern models with planes like the Crack Yak that are so light that the CG becomes almost irrelevant.

    That's interesting, but the replicas, and the original, all ended up retired or broken due to crashes arising from apparent instability, and the failure of the pilots (including Orville and Wilbur) to deal with it for long. So I would say the ground truth doesn't necessarily support the simulation in this case. Of course, my chosen medium involves mean free paths of a thousand miles, rather than a micron, so I have an open mind.

     I can envision how increasing the effective damping can move the poles nearer the origin and with much lower angle, the point you can deal with it, but I am skeptical that this would move them from one side to the other. I envision that the effect is to make the unstable poles so slow and so damped that it's easy to deal with. I have a similar situation where we have unstable poles, but with frequencies so low that they can safely be ignored. Say your pilot is the equivalent of a 2 Hz low-pass filter, it doesn't matter if you have an unstable pole at .001 Hz, that sort of thing.

    I would be very curious about that paper, and I was unable to find it in a brief search. Could you point me (and probably Howard and Serge) to the analysis?

     Brett

p.s. I re-read the classic Caltech paper by Culick, et. al and they certainly considered the "virtual mass" of the air that had to be involved dynamically, so I am not sure what discrepancies were (perhaps) found later.

[skyshark58]

Let us not forget the man that hand built the engine and put the whole aircraft together so the Wrights could attempt to make that first flight. Charles Taylor

[qaz049]

Let us not forget the man that hand built the engine and put the whole aircraft together so the Wrights could attempt to make that first flight. Charles Taylor

Yes, an interesting man. Without him they wouldn't have succeeded.  I love how he cut the Flyer engine crankshaft from a flat billet of medium Carbon Steel by hand and then turned up the bearing journals between centres.  He had a pretty tragic life and died in poverty.

[Chuck_Smith]

    That's interesting, but the replicas, and the original, all ended up retired or broken due to crashes arising from apparent instability, and the failure of the pilots (including Orville and Wilbur) to deal with it for long. So I would say the ground truth doesn't necessarily support the simulation in this case. Of course, my chosen medium involves mean free paths of a thousand miles, rather than a micron, so I have an open mind.

     I can envision how increasing the effective damping can move the poles nearer the origin and with much lower angle, the point you can deal with it, but I am skeptical that this would move them from one side to the other. I envision that the effect is to make the unstable poles so slow and so damped that it's easy to deal with. I have a similar situation where we have unstable poles, but with frequencies so low that they can safely be ignored. Say your pilot is the equivalent of a 2 Hz low-pass filter, it doesn't matter if you have an unstable pole at .001 Hz, that sort of thing.

    I would be very curious about that paper, and I was unable to find it in a brief search. Could you point me (and probably Howard and Serge) to the analysis?

     Brett

p.s. I re-read the classic Caltech paper by Culick, et. al and they certainly considered the "virtual mass" of the air that had to be involved dynamically, so I am not sure what discrepancies were (perhaps) found later.

Bret, you're bang on. The damping term goes so high that the period becomes manageable.  I'll scrounge around as see if I can find it. It's in a white binder here somewhere.

[Chuck_Smith]

I may remember wrong, but I THINK that I read in their notebook that the anhedral was intended for what I typed. I don't remember whether they calculated anything much regarding pitch, but I have to think from other things I read that they only reluctantly reduced the touchiness of their pitch control later. They seem to have had enough practical experience and feel for leverages that they could have slowed down the pitch motions, had they wanted to. When life allows, I'd like to re-read their notes with those issues in mind.

Makes sense. For a biplane with no fuselage they didn't do it for dutch roll stability.

[Brett Buck]

Makes sense. For a biplane with no fuselage they didn't do it for dutch roll stability.

    The Culick/Jex paper indicated that the biggest problem with it in roll/yaw was severe spiral instability, and the Wrights themselves found (in their final major breakthrough) that you couldn't reliably generate a turn with a fixed coupled ratio between rudder and wing-warping/aileron. The Dutch Roll mode was unusual, too, slow but with low damping (because of the short and small rudder).

      Brett

[Serge_Krauss]

I think the rainy 100th anniversary worked against the duplicate "flyer" too. I wonder how much weight it gained and whether the c.g. shifted. I felt bad for them; they seem to have worked very hard.

[Brett Buck]

I think the rainy 100th anniversary worked against the duplicate "flyer" too. I wonder how much weight it gained and whether the c.g. shifted. I felt bad for them; they seem to have worked very hard.

    Maybe, but that 30% negative static margin seems like a pretty good reason to fly as it did, rain or shine. Making it -25 or -35 isn't going to make much difference, you are going to have rapidly-diverging PIO in short order and lose it - which is pretty much what happened in both 1903 and 2003.

    Brett