>The Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics.
True, but they were much more, and having decided to tackle the problem of flight, they made themselves into scientists and engineers second to none in their own time.
Before commenting further on this, I'll say that in my opinion, Brad's T-Rex is probably a very good - perhaps top echelon - stunt ship. He has the experience, awareness of previous technology in the field, and the wit to use it in producing top level performers. He has shown cleverness in other designs. No doubt, his designs fit well within the parameters of what has worked for others and what has worked for himself. Certainly, one need not have won titles to produce superior stunt ships. It has been done too many times before, and all one has to do is look for the examples.
Edit: Just re-reading my post, it seems as though I may have slighted Brad's originality. Just to clarify my own opinion - "from afar": Brad's designs have shown original thinking too, and he has flown successfully with his earlier designs. While he and I don't always agree, he certainly has posted enough personal design opinions on this and other forums to claim originality. I'd certainly expect his plane to fly quite well - as claimed. I think he's "paid his dues".
Still, I do have a problem with this recurrent theme about the Wrights. Yup, in addition to scholars, writers, printers, publishers, and other things, they were indeed bicycle mechanics. But Insisting that the Wrights were
just good mechanics, “proving,” as one host maintains, that engineering was neither needed nor employed in achieving sustained, controlled flight does not just miss the mark, but is simply and utterly untrue. Anyone who has read the excellent biographies available and especially the Wright’s notebooks knows that they were self-made engineers and scientists of the first rank, who used mathematics to analyze, predict, and proportion their “flyer.” They literally
invented the first aircraft propellers, configuring and sizing them and an engine of their own design to produce precisely the thrust they computed to be necessary for a machine with drag and wing loadings computed from their own experimentally determined “pressure tables” and airfoil data. Designed with clever use of their high-school trigonometry, their propellers boasted modern efficiencies. Their celebrated invention of 3-axis control was a major and key factor, but only one of many things that they methodically developed in as great an example of scientific method and discipline as has ever been demonstrated. Anyway, the Wrights’ notebooks (as pictured below) are among the worthwhile things posted in their entirety on the internet and easily accessible via Google. The best source is the Library of Congress site,
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wrighthtml/wrightSeries1.html, where you’ll find their entire papers and photos. Look them up and be pleasantly impressed with some of the best works in aviation.
So let's cease mis-characterizing the Wrights, without at least understanding what they actually did. It's publically accesible.
It probably wouldn't hurt - IMHO - to stop talking negatively about each other too.
SK
Topic: The T-Rex is here (Read 28039 times)