Sometimes all I want to do is break some rules. And I am in good company, if we consider that 109 years ago two brothers – Orville and Wilbur Wright – hopped in a heavier-than-air contraption and took control of North Carolina airspace at Kitty Hawk. Those mavericks who decided to fly like birds in cages made of metal…
The Wright brothers, working with kites, had worked out the key issue for flight: control. While other aviators searched in vain for “inherent stability,” Orville and Wilbur created a method for the pilot to control the airplane. The breakthrough was their ingenious invention of “wing-warping.” If the pilot wanted to bank a turn to the left, the wings could be warped to provide more lift on the wings on the right side of the biplane.
D3000: f/11; Exposure Time 1/500sec; ISO-100; 7PM
The brothers worked out a system for 3-axis control that is still used today on fixed-wing aircraft: left and right like a car or boat (a rudder), up and down, and banking a turn as birds do (like leaning to one side while riding a bicycle). Conducting experiments with gliders at Kitty Hawk, and then in their wind tunnel, they found that the formula for lift-the “Smeaton coefficient” that everybody had been using for over 100 years – was wrong.
By the time they built their 1902 glider, they had worked out all the problems and they knew it would fly.
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