Working Towards Flight Essay Example for Free

Working Towards Flight Essay Initially, the Wrights relied heavily upon the aeronautical literature of their day, but found errors in the Smeaton Coefficient. They decided to devise their own tables relating air pressure to wing shape by building a wind tunnel and testing two hundred different wing shapes in it. The new understanding they had drawn from these studies; combined with their working with bicycles, gears, shop motors; and knowing how to balance while riding a bicycle, were all critical to their success in creating the mechanical aero plane. Charlie Taylor served as their assistant, who helped them with construction of the engine, while the two focused on creating the design (that would sometimes lead to heated arguments). The brothers alone did all of the theoretical work and most of the aspects of construction. The brothers agree with Lilienthal’s idea and strategy to practice gliding in order to master the art of control before attempting flight with a motor. The death if Percy Pilcher in a hang gliding crash reinforced their theory that a reliable method of pilot control and not the so called built-in stability, was the key to achieving success and safety of flight. Even at the outset of their experiments they had already recognized control as the third unsolved part of â€Å"the flying problem†. They had confidence of possessing sufficient knowledge of the other two issues: wings and engines (T. Crouch. The Bishop Boys). Here in lies the Wright brother’s edge over the other more recognized practitioners of the day such as Ader, Maxim and Langley, who focused on building powerful engines, attaching them to airframes that are equipped with unproven devices, and expecting to take fly to the air without previous piloting experience. And although they agreed with Lilienthal’s idea of practice, the brothers deemed his method of balance and control thru shifting of body weight, terribly inadequate (J. Tobin. To Conquer the Air). They observed birds which led Wilbur to conclude that these birds change the angle of the ends of their wings in order to make their bodies roll to the right or left. They further concluded that this principle could also be applied in making a flying machine turn. They also hoped this method would enable the craft to achieve lateral balance that is, be able to recover when the wind tilted the machine to one side. They wondered how this could possibly be translated to man-made wings. They soon accidentally discovered wing-warping when Wilbur idly twisted a long inner tube box at their bicycle shop. The Wright brothers greatly differed from their predecessors and contemporary inventors since these other aeronautical inventors regarded flight as if it were no different from surface locomotion, except that the surface would be elevated. Their concept of control where no different of a ship’s rudder for steering: as a train or an automobile or a ship is at the surface, so does the flying machine as it stays up in the air. Most of these investigators sought of achieving the ideal of â€Å"inherent stability†; since they believe that the pilot would be unable to effectively use mechanical controls. The brothers on the other hand, wanted the pilot to have absolute control of the machine, as they could probably relate it to riding a bicycle. For these reason, even their early designs were not created for built-in stability like dihedral wings. They purposely designed their 1903 flyer with anhedral wings, which are inherently unstable. Wilbur tested his wing-warping theory by building and flying a five-foot box kite. Warping was controlled by four lines attached to the kite. These lines would lead to two sticks held by the â€Å"pilot† or kite flyer, tilting them in opposite directions in order to twist the wings and make the kite bank left or right. It was successful. By 1900, the brothers journeyed to Kitty Hawk in North Carolina upon Chanute’s suggestion of choosing a sandy coastal area for regular breezes and to have a soft landing surface to launch their manned gliding experiments. Their first full-size glider was based on the design of Chanute-Herring’s â€Å"double-decker†, which was a biplane hang glider braced by wires. Most of these kite tests were unmanned. Wing-warping tests were conducted using control ropes from the ground. Wilbur would often make a dozen free glides in one single day. These tests would take them to walk four miles south to the Kill Devil Hills, where sand dunes up to 100 feet high could be found. Generally, these initial tests were considerably encouraged the brothers seeing the craft’s front elevator working well without any accidents, even though the glider’s lift was less than expected. The second glider was built with much larger wing areas. In the months of July and August of 1901, it was flown 50 to 100 times covering a distance of 20 to 400 feet (See â€Å"Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company†).