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Wilbur and Orville built a machine that lacked all of the things that you mentioned. There wasn't a fuselage, just a bunch of sticks ( so to speak); there were no ailerons because they twisted the wings to achieve assymetrical lift so there were no articulated flaps on the trailing edge; their pitch controls weren't at the tail of the airplane, they were in front in a canard arrangement ( Canard is French for backwards, I guess); their engine was exposed and they didn't think of covering it with anything. In the five or six years after the Wrights demonstrated their airplane in Europe, the French literally took off in airplane design while the Americans stagnated. The French devised and named everything as they did it and the rest of the world sort of just followed their lead including the backward Americans. Our congress wouldn't provide funds for anymore than ONE airplane for the Signal Courps and said that they should share the flying machine with those who wanted to try it. During WW1 the U.S. was unable to produce ONE airplane design of its own thus our pilots flew French SPADS, Nieuports, and Salmsons. And now the Europeans are doing again in their advances in engineering and education.
Things haven't changed much in 100 years, have they.

 

Wilbur and Orville built a machine that lacked all of the things that you mentioned. There wasn't a fuselage, just a bunch of sticks ( so to speak); there were no ailerons because they twisted the wings to achieve assymetrical lift so there were no articulated flaps on the trailing edge; their pitch controls weren't at the tail of the airplane, they were in front in a canard arrangement ( Canard is French for backwards, I guess); their engine was exposed and they didn't think of covering it with anything. In the five or six years after the Wrights demonstrated their airplane in Europe, the French literally took off in airplane design while the Americans stagnated. The French devised and named everything as they did it and the rest of the world sort of just followed their lead including the backward Americans. Our congress wouldn't provide funds for anymore than ONE airplane for the Signal Courps and said that they should share the flying machine with those who wanted to try it. During WW1 the U.S. was unable to produce ONE airplane design of its own thus our pilots flew French SPADS, Nieuports, and Salmsons. And now the Europeans are doing again in their advances in engineering and education.
Things haven't changed much in 100 years, have they.

 

Boilerman, those are good questions and few people even think about it. I apologize for my soapbox oratory , I uased to teach this stuff and it was nice to go back to it again. Thanks.
Swtches

 

It's not where you start, it's where you finish. I can speak about the health of general aviation in Europe: in its' last throes, the only thing left are the heavy jets, from the Citations to the Gulfstreams. The smaller planes have gotten so expensive to fly that almost no one flys them anymore over there. While the French may have made developments in the 1910s, wanna tell me about their new airplanes? We have active manufactures, and are building the Very Light Jets VLJ(s), what are they doing?

Art

 

Can't argue with you on your observations and what I read in the av magazines. I was referring to their educational programs in the schools and their progress in research and devlopments in the aerospace field. Their students are better trained and they are outproducing us in engineers, so are the Asian countries. Airbus is building a good enough airplane but Boeing is still tops in large jet aircraft but the competition is getting tighter as they develop better technology and people.
Bob

 

For what it's worth,

Aileron is derived from the French word "aile" and means "little wing"

Fuselage is derived from the French verb fuseler, which means "to taper" (literally: to shape like a spindle, spindle is "fuseau" in French)

Empennage is derived from empenner, which is the French verb "to feather" or "to fletch" - as in provide arrows with their feathers.

Nacelle is a French word taken from Latin. It means "little boat" (navicella), and was adopted by French ballooners to identify the baskets hung beneath their airships/balloons before becoming the housing for motors.

 

I knew dat, thanks Boffin. I was going to mention that the foil in " airfoil" comes from the French word fuler which refers to something thin or a sheet. How about LONGERON , MONOCOQUE, OLEO, and the most misspelled word of them all--- BUNGEE--- as in bungee cord.. How about tailskid ? OOPS! where did that come from ?
Bob

 

Can't have A/P talk without a Monique thrown in.

 

My pleasure, Bob. I hope you won't mind a bit of touch up on your French. "Feuille" is the word you were looking for. It is the Frenchification of the Latin folim (leaf or page).

Longeron - literally "one that runs the length of" (long is the french for "length," longer is "to run along"), which kinda makes sense.

Monocoque - mono = one, coque = shell (from the latin coccum)

Oleo is could be quasi-French for "oil" - huile - but is more likely derived from the latin "oleum" ... which makes sense.


Bungee I have no clue about!

 

Thanks for all that good stuff, Chris. I got that FULER from a dictionary explaining foil. Bungee was simply the name that the FRench gave to the shock cords that were lashed around the axles of the landing wheels mounted to the fixed struts of the old types of airplanes. Are you a linguist? A teacher ? AN Episcoplian ? Or something? Good stuff !

 

Hi Bob. It was absolutely my pleasure to add a bit to the discussion. I'm sort of all those things you mentioned (not so much Episcopalian, though). I'm finishing my PhD, so I teach, I've had to take a few languages, and done my bit of classical studies, and, of course, attended an Episcopal service or two along the way.

 

I find it very interesting to find someone who cares about the origin of the language that we use. Not that I'm an expert or a student of such disciplines, I am a bit inquisitve. I have taught aircraft familiarization courses in which I covered the derivation of terms and the origin of components. What are you finishing you PHD in ? What school( if I'm not too inquisitive)?
Bob