
The Wright Brothers Defeated Gravity and the Government Machine - TheSpine
https://medium.com/dialogue-and-discourse/the-wright-brothers-defeated-gravity-the-government-machine-8dc249a85274
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WalterBright
When you look at the engineering of the Wright Flyer:

1\. propeller nearly double the efficiency of flat blades other contemporary
experimenters used

2\. a special engine that had about double the horsepower to weight ratio of
any other engine at the time

3\. a wing shape designed in a wind tunnel rather than seat-of-the-pants "bird
shapes"

4\. a 3 axis control system that worked

5\. a research and development program that first identified the problems and
solved them one by one with a series of prototypes

6\. every modern airplane can trace its design back to the Flyer, and no other

7\. the Flyer exists and can be examined

8\. exact replicas of the Flyer have been made, and they fly like the Wrights
documented the way theirs flew

it's pretty clear that none of the other "first flight" claimants have much of
a case (especially since none of their alleged machines exist and can be
examined).

~~~
marktangotango
I’ve often wondered if there are any other examples of “scientific
engineering” the Wright brothers pioneered. I’m not familiar with any. My
feeling is Edison was a lot more random trial and error for example.

~~~
Theodores
The Wright Brothers started out in a bicycle shop, their engineering was based
on what they knew from bicycles. There are things like the CV joint that is
not bicycle engineering but the nuts and bolts of how so many things that are
put together can be worked out by people fluent in how bicycles work. All
engineering on a bike is at human scale and can be related to, all of it is
exposed and not hidden in magic black boxes.

The Wright Brothers also added to the canon of bicycle design and engineering,
with the left-hand and right-hand thread. They deeply understood how 'nuts and
bolts' worked in order to solve a problem of the pedal and chainset of a
bicycle falling out over prolonged usage, even if the bolts are done up
tightly.

Try and service a modern bicycle and when it comes to taking the pedals off
you will only be able to do so if you appreciate left-hand and right-hand
threads. The pedal on the left-hand side of a bike unscrews normally, the
pedal on the right hand side needs you to unscrew it by turning the other way
to expected, clockwise removes the pedal instead of securing it.

Although a small innovation compared to building a whole plane, this left-
hand/right-hand thread could have been devised by others, however it is the
Wright Brothers that got there first, demonstrating their deeper understanding
of how things are made and put together.

Practically every auto manufacturer got started with bicycles instead of
'horseless carriages with horses'. The bicycle workshop is not recognised for
what it is, the cradle of innovation and lightweight engineering (that
contrasts with the 'big iron' of steam engines and what went before in the
Industrial Revolution). Some of this innovation is just in little things like
having standards, e.g. the 9/16" diameter of the screw on bicycle pedals. A
lot of these things needed to be sorted out so that other things could be
made.

~~~
sopooneo
Excellent post and I learned a lot. One tiny quibble is that it is the left
side pedal on a bicycle that is "reverse threaded".

And as an exercise to the reader, if you think carefully through relative
rotations of each pedal compared to its shaft, _shouldn 't_ it be the right
side pedal that goes on/off wrong!? Why on earth is it the left one?

answer here:
[https://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=2655](https://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=2655)

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rmason
Professor Langley wasn't the only well known individual trying to be the first
to fly. I visited the Nova Scotia workshop of Alexander Graham Bell who also
was trying to become the first to fly. He enlisted the help of one Glenn
Curtiss, a motorcycle racer who built him an engine.

When news of the Wright Brothers flight was confirmed Bell suspended all
operations. Glenn Curtiss thought there was excellent potential for a business
competitor to the Wright's but Bell wasn't interested. So Curtiss went back to
Illinois and started his own airplane company now known as Curtiss-Wright.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Curtiss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Curtiss)

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sethrin
This is ludicrous anti-government propaganda that ignores the government's
role in developing air power. Yes, the Wrights made the first one on their
own. The Army and USPS provided a raison d'etre for quite a long time before
commercial air traffic caught on. The idea that only private tinkerers can
innovate is a lie. In the modern era, government-sponsored research has been
responsible for the majority of innovation, but especially in the aerospace
industry.

~~~
WalterBright
Jet engines were developed independently twice by private investment, and the
government was not interested until presented with flying aircraft.

The US government even ordered Lockheed to cease work on their jet engine and
concentrate on piston engines:

"Lockheed had tried to produce a turbojet in 1940. Research engineer Nathan
Price designed the startlingly advanced L-1000 with two-spool axial
compressors aimed at a p.r. of 17 plus an afterburner, but when President
Robert E. Gross took the brochures for the L-1000 and the L-133 canard fighter
to be powered by it to Wright Field in 1942 he was told 'Forget it, keep
building P-38s'."

"The Development of Jet and Turbine Aero Engines", Gunston, pg. 143

The DC-3, privately developed, was foundational for Army Air transport in WW2.
The 707 was also entirely privately developed, and was foundational for all
jet transport since. The Supermarine Spitfire of WW2 came from technology
developed for Schneider Trophy races in the 1930's.

~~~
petermcneeley
By that logic the apollo program wasnt really government innovation because
government employees didnt actually design or build the spacecraft.

~~~
WalterBright
The Apollo program was government funded. The examples I gave were not.

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jsanford
I've read a first person account of early automobiles and automobile racing,
Charles Jarrott's 1906 book "Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing"
[https://books.google.com/books?id=iPRKAAAAYAAJ](https://books.google.com/books?id=iPRKAAAAYAAJ)

Does anyone know if there is a similar, first person, written in the period,
book about early aviation?

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theothermkn
> The Wright brothers are a timeless example of how private enthusiastic
> entrepreneurs can outperform heavily financed and government backed
> organizations. They’re also a prime example that a degree or title in itself
> doesn’t qualify you for success in an endeavor. Experience, imagination, and
> courage will generally be the currency that pays for success.

You sort of knew that bit was coming, but you can't really be prepared for
that much hogwash that quickly.

First, they're obviously not a timeless example. A distinguishing feature of
their time, compared to ours, is that there were no qualified aerospace
engineers. Another feature is that the scientific and analytic culture was far
more disjointed, immature, and parochial at the time. Consider, for example,
fusion research today. No amateur will produce a burning plasma. ITER will.
Because the scientific environment is more sophisticated, and is able to take
on challenges outside of what amateurs can.

Second, they are not a prime example about the efficacy of a degree regarding
"success," not least because n=1 in an endeavor riddled with variation. It's
equally likely that they got very, very lucky, in spite of their apparent
rigor.

Third, and finally, "[e]xperience, imagination, and courage" are not
dichotomous with a "degree or title." It's not really apparent to me that,
outside of the imaginations of sophomoric libertarians, that anyone believes
that the world is stuffily dismissing outsiders who clearly have the facts on
their sides in scientific and technical endeavors. Focusing on this fair-tale
split between imagined elitists in their ivory towers and the pragmatic and
gritty masses betrays a fascination with a staple of corny Americana, the
garage workshop and its ilk. It's trite, predictable schlock.

~~~
WalterBright
> It's equally likely that they got very, very lucky, in spite of their
> apparent rigor.

I recommend reading a detailed account of their R+D program. They were not
lucky. They did not randomly produce a flying airplane. They first identified
each of the problems, and set about building prototypes directed at solving
each of the problems one by one.

You could say that the Wrights invented the directed research and development
process.

~~~
theothermkn
Whether one is able to settle on a working solution involves luck. The article
says they "noticed" that birds warp their wings. They were unlucky, for a
time, in that they experienced adverse yaw. Then they were unlucky, for a
time, when a fixed tail arrangement did not work. Then they made the tail
assembly steerable.

They were also unlucky in that they killed a passenger, but lucky that it
wasn't rather than one, or both, of themselves. I realized that luck-
minimizing framings are popular within entrepreneurial settings, and
particularly in cultures where we're all "temporarily embarrassed
millionaires," but it would be far healthier if we took on board the role that
fortune plays in success. We would be, for example, far more heroic if we were
facing odds, rather than a grind with a guaranteed success at the end.

~~~
WalterBright
Examining birds and noticing how they fly is not "luck".

Langley had 70 times as much money to spend, and his Aerodrome failed because
it was underpowered, did not have enough lift, did not have an adequate
control system, the wings were too flexible and would not hold their shape,
the airframe was not strong enough for the loads, and the catapult tangled
with the airplane and pulled it to pieces.

That's not bad luck, that's bad engineering from start to finish.

