The Wright brothers did not invent the airplane: change my mind

I is even more amazing that they went from this to what they had in 1943, just 40 years later. Two world wars helped especially the second one that boosted aviation from 1930-1950 more than any other time other than from 1955-1970 with the space program. Now we have been a lot slower to develop new ideas even with many more people inhabiting the earth compared to 115 years ago. I think I know the answer but why do you all think that is the case?

 

Discovered in their homemade wind tunnel, no doubt...

 

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I don't know a lot about this topic. But from what little I do know....I believe it was the Wrights who really put the riddle of the 3 axis of flight to practical use first.

To my mind, that was the real discovery of controlled flight. The first airplane as we know it.

Trophy goes to the Wrights.

 

Under the heading “everything old is new again” - at Oshkosh last week NASA was demonstrating flexible wing structures (scale models) that would enable wing warping in flight.

 

They did it on real ones with an AFTI F-111 with Mission Adaptive Wing.



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Gawd that was a long time ago. AF was looking at doing some structural testing on that at WPAFB in the early 80's. I was co-oping at the Structures Test Facility at that time (AFWAL/FIBT, Bldg 65).

 

Jim- Yup, was done with hydraulic rams and pretty crude software. The F-111 made an excellent platform for the work since the only movable, non high drag controls on the wing were spoilers and those locked out at aft wing sweeps. Differential slabs provided roll control mixing with the spoilers and alone when the wings were aft.

The MADCAT program is the latest using composite structures on subscale aircraft..

 

Precisely what NASA was showing off, and interesting how flight control has come full circle: from the Wrights looking at how bird wings changed shape during flight, to modern aircraft designers having the same inspiration a century (plus) later.

The lattices were interesting to watch move and react. For folks interested, here’s a good overview:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/madcat