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Years ago, I read a Scientific American article about the Wright Brothers. (Probably in the 80s or 90s.) According to the article, the main purpose of the kits was to solve safety problems. They discovered the conditions that would cause wings to stall, and figured out how to prevent or recover from this, with their kites. Their commitment to safety came out of their decision to fly the planes themselves. So their decision to work out safety issues with unmanned kites before they ever built a full size plane was central to their success. But this article doesn't make that point It only mentions kites as a means of studying controls. (If I get a more accurate date for the article, I'll post it here.) — MiguelMunoz (talk) 02:12, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
The two viewpoints are not mutually exclusive. Control and safety end up being the same thing in terms of results. If you can't control a plane it is unsafe. I'm not against someone adding more about safety, though. Binksternet (talk) 03:08, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
The New York Times, December 17, 1951. Page 30
WRIGHT TRIBUTE TODAY
Airmen to Mark Anniversary of Kitty Hawk Flight
KITTY HAWK. N.C, Dec.16 (U P) – Modern airmen will pay tribute here tomorrow to the forty-eighth anniversary of the Wright Brothers' pioneering airplane flight, but an old-timer who watched the first take-offs said the celebrators have picked the wrong day.
Wilbur and Orville Wright are credited with making their first powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine on Dec. 17, 1903. But Alpheus W. Drinkwater, 76 years old, who sent the telegraph message ushering in the air age, said the brothers only "glided" off Kill Devil Hill that day.
Their first real flight came on May 6, 1908, he said. It was on that day, that Wilbur Wright declared the airplane was a mighty fine contraption, but predicted it would never carry enough gasoline to span an ocean.
Regardless of his quibble with aeronautics historians; Mr. Drinkwater will be on hand for the celebration tomorrow. The first flight will be marked by flights of jet planes, helicopters and huge cargo planes.
I'd be interested in seeing that article or a verifiable summary. My understanding from Wright biographies and Smithsonian articles is that the 1899 kite was intended to test control (wing warping in particular); I'm not aware that the brothers had much if any concept about "stall" at that early stage. Binksternet makes a good point that safety and control are closely linked. DonFB (talk) 05:28, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
The Wrights certainly had some concept of stalling, as is evident from Wilbur Wright's address to the Western Society of Engineers in 1901 Consider this description of a Lilienthal glider mishap:
In one glide the machine rose higher and higher till it lost all headway. This was the position from which Lilienthal had always found difficulty to extricate himself, as his machine then, in spite of his greatest exertions, manifested a tendency to dive downward almost vertically and strike the ground head on with frightful velocity. Wilbur goes on to describe in some detail what he saw as the cause of this phenomenon (movement of the centre of pressure with changes in angle of attack, to use modern terminology - see also the numbered summary statements at the end of the address).
As for the purpose of kite experiments, Wilbur explicitly states in the same address that manned kites were seen as a means of gaining experience:
We figured that Lilienthal in five years of time had spent only about five hours in actual gliding through the air. The wonder was not that he had done so little, but that he had accomplished so much. It would not be considered at all safe for a bicycle rider to attempt to ride through a crowded city street after only five hours' practice, spread out;in bits of ten seconds each over a period of five years; yet Lilienthal with this brief practice was remarkably successful in meeting the fluctuations and eddies of wind gusts. We thought that if some method could be found by which it would be possible to practice by the hour instead of by the second there would be hope of advancing the solution of a very difficult problem. It seemed feasible to do this by building a machine which would be sustained at a speed of 18 miles per hour, and then finding a locality where winds of this velocity were common. With these conditions, a rope attached to the machine to keep it from floating backward would answer very nearly the same purpose as a propeller driven by a motor, and it would be possible to practice by the hour, and without any serious danger, as it would not be necessary to rise far from the ground, and the machine would not have any forward motion at all.
Note however that Wilbur begins his address by describing how earlier unmanned kite experiments had demonstrated that certain assumptions regarding lift generated made by previous experimenters were incorrect, and that further experimentation was needed in order to determine the optimum aerofoil profile, wing planform etc - which eventually led to the Wright's building their wind tunnel. I'm not sure it is particularly useful to assert definitively what the purpose of the Wright kite experiments was - they saw achieving successful powered flight as something to be achieved through practical experimentation, and the kites were a part of this ongoing process. AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:13, 19 March 2023 (UTC).
There might be some confusion here over terminology. MiguelMunoz may be referring not simply to the 1899 kite, but to the subsequent gliders, which the brothers did fly unmanned as big kites before climbing in and piloting them. But the 1899 kite, which was truly the size of a kite, was not, I believe, intended to investigate much about lift and stall, but only to see if wing warping could be a workable method of lateral control. DonFB (talk) 10:41, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
The New York Times, December 17, 1951. Page 30
WRIGHT TRIBUTE TODAY
Airmen to Mark Anniversary of Kitty Hawk Flight
KITTY HAWK. N.C, Dec.16 (U P) – Modern airmen will pay tribute here tomorrow to the forty-eighth anniversary of the Wright Brothers' pioneering airplane flight, but an old-timer who watched the first take-offs said the celebrators have picked the wrong day.
Wilbur and Orville Wright are credited with making their first powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine on Dec. 17, 1903. But Alpheus W. Drinkwater, 76 years old, who sent the telegraph message ushering in the air age, said the brothers only "glided" off Kill Devil Hill that day.
Their first real flight came on May 6, 1908, he said. It was on that day, that Wilbur Wright declared the airplane was a mighty fine contraption, but predicted it would never carry enough gasoline to span an ocean.
Regardless of his quibble with aeronautics historians; Mr. Drinkwater will be on hand for the celebration tomorrow. The first flight will be marked by flights of jet planes, helicopters and huge cargo planes.
KITTY HAWK. N.C, Dec.16 (U P) – Modern airmen will pay tribute here tomorrow to the forty-eighth anniversary of the Wright Brothers' pioneering airplane flight, but an old-timer who watched the first take-offs said the celebrators have picked the wrong day.
Wilbur and Orville Wright are credited with making their first powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine on Dec. 17, 1903. But Alpheus W. Drinkwater, 76 years old, who sent the telegraph message ushering in the air age, said the brothers only "glided" off Kill Devil Hill that day.
Their first real flight came on May 6, 1908, he said. It was on that day, that Wilbur Wright declared the airplane was a mighty fine contraption, but predicted it would never carry enough gasoline to span an ocean.
Regardless of his quibble with aeronautics historians; Mr. Drinkwater will be on hand for the celebration tomorrow. The first flight will be marked by flights of jet planes, helicopters and huge cargo planes.
there would be no flight for these two. Their sister was the key element for them to understand any of the German engineering and physics they were trying to implement, and the article appears to near-intentionally omit her presence vis-a-vis importance in the factual progress.
We have a full biography of Katharine Wright Haskell, and she is discussed quite a bit in this article. If you have a source which suggests that her knowledge of German played a significant part in the events described, cite it, and we can consider adding it, both here, and to her biography. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:02, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This 2007 promotion contains significant uncited material, including 24 completely unsourced paragraphs; this means the article does not meet GA criterion 2b).
At over 12,000 words of prose (not counting lengthy quotes or captions), this article might also contain "excessive detail" and breach criterion 3b); considering the important subject matter, this is up for discussion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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