Lesson 8: A History of Aerodynamics – Part II
Section 4 - The Quest Continues
OCTAVE CHANUTE
Octave Chanute, born in 1832, was a French railroad engineer who later emigrated to the United States. He became fascinated with aviation at the relatively late age of sixty.
He published a book called “Progress in Flying Machines in 1894.” The Wright brothers read his book and befriended him.
A.M. Herring, who was an American follower of Otto Lilienthal, joined Chanute as his co-worker and pilot. They flew and owned a Lilienthal glider, and designed and built their own gliders, taking to the skies on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Herring added a compressed-air engine and a propeller to his hand glider. In 1898, he successfully performed short flights barely above the ground.
SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY
Before covering the Wright Brothers’ Kitty Hawk, it is important to note their American competitor, Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley.
Langley was born in 1834, and studied astronomy after graduating from high school in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
He later became a professor of physics at the Western University of Pennsylvania, now the University of Pittsburgh, in 1866. He made major contributions to astronomy including measurements of the spectral energy distribution of sunlight, the invention of an instrument, called the bolometer used to record the measurements, and studies of solar and lunar spectra.
His scientific achievements lead to his becoming head of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in 1887. It was here that he established an astrophysical observatory and the National Zoo.
In 1886, aviation peaked Langley’s attention, after he heard a lecture on flight at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As a result, he began to study powered model airplanes and the design of light engines. Langley went on to build more than a hundred models with rubber-band motors.
He then constructed larger steam-powered models with wingspans up to 14 ft (4.3 m) and garnered further financial support from the Smithsonian Institutition.
In 1896, the year Otto Lilienthal died, he demonstrated incredible flights of up to 4,200 ft (1.3 km) with two of his models.
With a grant from the War Department, Charles M. Manly, Langley’s chief assistant and pilot, constructed a light radial engine with cylinders arranged in a star pattern, running on 52 horsepower (39 kilowatts). Unfortunately, Langley could not control his craft named the Aerodrome during flight an the remaining years of his life were overshadowed by failure.
However, the 1915 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution claimed that Langley had succeeded in building the first airplane capable of sustaining the free flight of man. This invalid claim led to continued disagreement with the Wright brothers. This dispute continued until 1948 when the Smithsonian exhibited the original Wright Flyer I.
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS
The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were two bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, who converted themselves into brilliant engineers full of original ideas on all aspects of flight.
Their first glider was built after intense laboratory work and calculations in advance of the performance of flying machines with a certain degree of accuracy.
It was a simple biplane with wings 18 feet wide and 5 feet deep. It had no tail, but carried a novel front “elevator” that was rigged to give horizontal control and prevent nose dives. This was an original feature courtesy of the Wrights.
The brothers first flew this glider as a kite with cables looping down to an operator on the ground, rigged in such a manner that the operator could raise or lower the nose elevator, controlling the horizontal altitude of the machine.
In the next trial, they used a pilot aboard and the glider was sent sailing down the hill into the prevailing wind. The Wrights later modified some of their previous designs and built a second glider which they took to Kitty Hawk.
This model was larger than the first with a wingspan of 22 feet and chord of 7 feet. In testing this glider, they found that it was difficult to control, so they re-rigged the wings and made a glide of 398 feet with perfect glider control.
After perfecting a wing device, they were then able to use their glider against a 27-mile-an-hour wind.
In 1902, the Wrights built a third glider, with a 32-foot wingspan and a chord of 5 feet. It was fitted with an advanced wing control device and a an elevator and rudder. They made more than a thousand flights at Kitty hawk with this glider.
It was now time to try powered flight. In 1903, the Wrights built their 4th glider, Model A. This time with power. This machine was a biplane equipped with a forward elevator structure and double tail rudders.
Space for an engine had been built on the lower main spars, and twin pusher propellers were set up on suitable spider supports mounted on rear wing struts. Their only need now was an engine.
Going by what automobile manufacturers were putting in their cars, the Wrights designed an engine, and Charles E. Taylor, their bicycle shop machinist, built it in six years.
The 4-cycle engine with four cylinders was installed, tested, and revised. After several attempts at flight, in December 1903, Orville Wright took to the air in the Wright Flyer. He stayed in the air for twelve seconds, covering 120 feet at a speed of 31 miles per hour. In a third flight of 15 seconds, Orville covered 205 feet at a height of 12 to 14 feet. During the fourth, the flight mark was 852 feet in 59 seconds, during which time their engine had made 1071 revolutions.
The Wrights had won the great air-powered race for the United States on December 17, 1903.
Early advance in the field of aerodynamics and aviation later made it possible for the development of such famous airplanes as the Douglas D-3, and the entry into the field of rocketry.
We can even trace it to the beginnings of space exploration with the launch of the first artificial satellite by the Soviets, Sputnik, on October 4, 1957.
Advancements in aerodynamics have been responsible for us landing a man on the moon with Apollo, the launching of many successful planetary probes, scientific analysis of Mars, exploration of Jupiter and its moons, and the launch of the United States Space Shuttle into orbit.
Bibliography
Wegener, Peter P. What Makes Airplanes Fly? New York: Springer-Verlag, 1991.
Whitehouse, Arch. The Early Birds: The Wonders and Heroics of the First Decades of Flight. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1965.
Wright, Orville. How We Made the First Flight. www.aero-web.org/history/wright/first.htm.
This course is dedicated to the memory of the crew of Columbia STS-107 who lost their lives in the quest for space, February 1, 2003.
