1. GES 131 Foundations of Engineering What did it take to get the first airplane to fly?

2. Fascination: That’s Really Cool! In 1878 the father of Wilbur and Orville Wright went on a trip on behalf of his church and brought back a flying toy made of cork and bamboo that was driven by rubber bands, and flew like a helicopter.

3. Initiative and Ingenuity Wilbur and Orville started a print shop using a damaged tombstone and buggy parts. Later they started a bicycle shop and made their own lines of bicycles. They heard about a German glider pilot who was killed in a crash, and decided to try to fly.

4. Research They wrote to the Smithsonian and read everything they could on flight. The corresponded with other flight researchers.

5. Start Simple Although the goal was powered flight, they started with the easier problem of flying a glider. The glider must generate enough lift to remain in the air, and have a mechanism to control three axes of rotation. The Wright brothers’ use of wing-warping to control their glider is considered one of the key factors in the success of their powered airplane, and a major patent. They also learned how to fly on the glider. There were no flight schools.

6. Have a Good Team “The ability to do this (build the engine) so quickly was largely due to the enthusiastic and efficient services of Mr. C. E. Taylor, …” “While Mr. Chanute was with us, a good deal of time was spent in discussion of the mathematical calculations upon which we had based our machine.” O. Wright

7. Experimental Testing They found the existing data on the lift produced by a wing was incorrect, and did their own wind-tunnel testing to find correct values. “The flights of the 1902 glider had demonstrated the efficiency of our system for maintaining equilibrium, and also the accuracy of the laboratory work upon which the design of the glider was based. We felt then we were prepared to calculate in advance the performance of machines with a degree of accuracy that had never been possible with the data and tables possessed by our predecessors.” Orville Wright

8. Creative Analysis To design the propeller, they tried to study the theory of marine propellers and extend it to the air. However the pubished results they found on marine propellers had no theory, only data. “As we could afford neither the time nor the expense of a long series of experiments to find by trial a propeller suitable for our machine, we decided to rely more on theory than was the practice with marine engineers.” “It was apparent that a propeller was simply an aeroplane travelling in a spiral course.” O. Wright

9. Checking Their Work “While we were being delayed by weather we arranged a mechanism to measure automatically the durations of a flight from the time the machine started to move forward to the time it stopped, the distance travelled through the air in that time, and the number of revolutions made by the motor and propeller. … From data thus obtained we expected to prove or disprove the accuracy of our propeller calculations.” O. Wright

10. Persistence “After a 35-40 foot run it lifted from the rail. But it was allowed to turn up too much. It climbed a few feet stalled, ant then settled to the ground near the foot of the hill, 105 feet below.” Orville Wright Wilbur used up his ‘turn’ on this flight.

11. Reflection “With all the knowledge and skill acquired in thousands of flights in the last ten years, I would hardly think today of making my first flight on a strange machine in a twenty-seven mile wind, even if I knew that the machine had already been flown and was safe.” Orville Wright

12. Conclusions Building the first airplane required considerable background research, detailed scientific experiments, critical mathematical calculations, problem solving, teamwork and creativity. Most significant engineering projects require most of these.