Replica Flyer Foiled By Weather 238
An anonymous reader submits: "A replica of the Wright Brothers' 1903 flyer failed to fly yesterday afternoon at a demonstration in Chicago. Organizers blamed the measly 5 MPH winds. Kitty Hawk had 25 MPH back on December 17, 1903. IIRC, isn't Chicago the 'Windy City?'" Here's an earlier story about the various groups attempting to re-enact the Wright brothers' pioneer flight.
Windy (Score:5, Informative)
Too much wind? (Score:1, Informative)
Windy City (Score:3, Informative)
MT. WASHINGTON, NH 35.3
ST. PAUL ISLAND, AK 17.4
COLD BAY,AK 16.9
JOHNSTON ISLAND, PC 15.8
BLUE HILL, MA 15.4
DODGE CITY, KS 14
WAKE ISLAND, PC 13.8
AMARILLO, TX 13.5
KWAJALEIN, MARSHALL IS., PC 13.3
BARTER IS.,AK 13.2
ROCHESTER, MN 13.1
KOTZEBUE, AK 13
CASPER, WY 12.9
CHEYENNE, WY 12.9
BETHEL, AK 12.8
KAHULUI, HI 12.8
GREAT FALLS, MT 12.7
GOODLAND, KS 12.6
BOSTON, MA 12.5
LUBBOCK, TX 12.4
LIHUE, HI 12.3
WICHITA, KS 12.3
FARGO, ND 12.3
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 12.3
CONCORDIA, KS 12.2
NEW YORK (LAGUARDIA AP), NY 12.2
BRIDGEPORT, CT 12
CORPUS CHRISTI, TX 12
website (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Windy (Score:5, Informative)
ANOTHER BITE FROM THE APPLE
Back to Barry Popik. Having gotten Big Apple squared away, Barry turned his attention to Chicago's nickname, the Windy City. The average mope believes Chicago was so dubbed because it's windy, meteorologically speaking. The more sophisticated set (including, till recently, your columnist) thinks the term originated in a comment by Charles Dana, editor of the New York Sun in the 1890s. Annoyed by the vocal (and ultimately successful) efforts of Chicago civic leaders to land the world's fair celebrating Columbus's discovery of America, Dana urged his readers to ignore "the nonsensical claims of that windy city"--windy meaning excessively talkative.
But that may not be the true explanation either. Scouring the magazines and newspapers of the day, Popik found that the nickname commonly used for Chicago switched from the Garden City to the Windy City in 1886, several years before Dana's comment. The earliest citation was from the Louisville Courier-Journal in early January, 1886, when it was used in reference to the wind off Lake Michigan. In other words, the average mope was right all along! However, when Popik attempted to notify former Chicagoan but soon-to-be New Yorker Hillary Rodham Clinton of his findings, she blew him off with a form letter--and this from a woman facing a campaign for the Senate. Come on, Hill, quit worrying about the Puerto Ricans and pay attention here. You want to lose the etymologist vote?
Full article here. [straightdope.com] There's also info on the origins of the "Big Apple." Neat.
Taft
Re:Windy (Score:2, Informative)
You could also be wrong.
According to Barry Popik [islandnet.com], a word-sleuth and consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, that is a common urban legend. He has found evidence that Chicago was called The Windy City in newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, in the early 1880's.
The failure to fly is not surprising. (Score:5, Informative)
Give'm a break (Score:4, Informative)
1) Came up with the idea of what we call "Lift"
2) Created the first propeller as we use it today
3) Invented the wind tunnel for testing
All on their own! They also developed the way modern planes "stear"...as in angle and yaw are connected (i believe that's what they are).
The worked very very hard on this plane and left tons of notes...however...we do not have that plane. That's why the "Wright Experience" set out to build a replica based on the brothers notes...to the T! They knew they could make improvements, fixes...but then they wouldn't be building a replica.
Gives these guys a break...it took years to put this thing together as accuratly as possible...from the fabric to even the damn engine !
Thanks for playing
Re:Catapults (Score:3, Informative)
It would be absolutely accurate, on the other hand, to assert that navy jets don't 'take off' so much as they're thrown in to the air by a giant slingshot. Once aloft, however, they can stay in the air as long as fuel is available.
Re:For the record (Score:3, Informative)
Engine powered flight dates back from... (Score:5, Informative)
For some reason it was decided that only the Wright brothers' attempt really counted and was worth teaching in schools, however. Go us, we invented the plane, etc.
Not that this one wasn't overly dependant on weather conditions either, of course (the plane exposed in this museum crashed in 1897 after a flight in bad weather conditions).
First Recorded Flight in New Zealand (Score:2, Informative)
HERE [monash.edu.au]
Re:Trouble for the Wrights? (Score:1, Informative)
"The Wrights flew into a 25-mile-per-hour wind. I think we could have flown if we had that," said Mike Gillian, pilot of the replica.
The wind in downtown Chicago, where today's three flights were attempted, was barely 5 mph.
The small four-cylinder engine, also an exact replica of the original, did not have the power to lift the craft."
The Wright Flyer was more like a glider with a sustaining engine - not enough to launch, but enough to stay up.
Why the Wrights needed the 25mph wind. (Score:5, Informative)
But their biggest contribution was that the Wrights recognized that existing aerodynamic theory was wrong. Using their wind tunnel and full size models, they literally re-wrote the book on aerodynamic theory of the time. Unlike other attempts at flight of the time, the Wright flyer was a product of sound scientific research rather than throw-it-together-and-hope-it-flies which was so common a the time. For that, they deserve to be recognized as the fathers of flight.
Composite Wright Flyer (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/plane-100-03a.ht
Re:Why the Wrights needed the 25mph wind. (Score:5, Informative)
The F-4 Phantom's wings don't even have an airfoil shape. To compensate, they have huge engines mounted with a different angle of attack than the wings, so the wings act as lifting bodies because they're tilted up, as opposed to any help from Bernoulli.
Like several other modern fighters, F-4 proves that you can put enough power behind a brick and it will fly.
So the Wright Brothers needed 25mph headwinds. Is that any less an airplane than an F-4?
Some info from a "witness" (Score:3, Informative)
The plane they made was an exact replica of the 1903 Wright Flier, and slightly different to the more famous 1904 version. The replica, including the "pilot" weighs around 830lb, but the 4 cynlinder 12-hp engine which maxes at 1200 rpm only has something like 160lb of thrust.
I only stayed to watch the first failed attempt (they said they would have multiple attempts), but it was an exhilirating sight nonetheless. As it accelerated down the tracks, you could almost see it become light on the skids. Just the uncertainty made it more exciting than watching a modern plane take off (which, I think, is pretty exciting enough).
Re:Discovery channel? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Windy (Score:3, Informative)
Wright brothers didn't invent the airplane (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Other conditions (Score:1, Informative)
Believe it or not, with a glider, as long as you are above the stalling speed (wing stops producing lift) and the angle of attack is below the critical angle (causes stalling due to turbulence on wing surface) you will always have the same glide ratio for that aircraft. (if wind speed changes, the glide in relation to the ground will differ)
Variables are obviously drag (not induced, but all others), air density (a result of air temperature and air pressure) and of course the aircraft in question.
If the variables above stay constant, the glider *should* always glide to the same spot. Add weight, it glides faster. Remove weight, glides slower. Nose up = more lift, slower speed but same impact point. Nose down = less lift, faster speed but same impact point.
Re:Other conditions (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Engine powered flight dates back from... (Score:3, Informative)
All modern aviation has evolved from the Wright Brothers Flyer.
The Wright Brothers evolved there flyer from known glider designs and experimentation they did on lift, drag, weight and thrust. They created a lot of the mathmatical models that are still used in aviation today.
While the case can be made that a couple of people (an Englishman and an Austrialian I believe) could have achieved controled powered flight before the Wright Brothers, the case CANNOT be made that modern aviation evolved from those people.
What's more in the case of the people that produced working aircraft before the Wright Brothers none of them followed through with better models.
It took the wright Brothers only a couple of years to get to the point that they were flying there Flyer well enough to make a case of it's usefullness to the military.
As far as the head wind controversy, please.
One of the innovations that the Wright Brothers had to come up with was a modern aluminum lightweight internal combustion engine. They had to build one from scratch, none of the engines at that time that were available were light enough and powerful enough to meet the Brothers needs.
In modern aviation head winds are still critical. You always take off and land into the wind (well whenever that is an option anyways). It is possible to use a shorter runway and load up your plane with a bit more weight if you have a headwind.
One of the reasons that passenger jets fly so high is to use the high speed winds aloft to there advantage, they get places quicker and use less fuel in the process.
Too short, too late (Score:3, Informative)
Others had done similar semi-motor-driven "flights" too, but they did not have the advantage of as much press coverage and American chauvinism, which is probably the main reason why Wright's flight is in the books of history instead of similar attempts by others. The first recognized motor-driven flights without catapults and strong winds, which met the already established criteria for what was to be considered a successful flight, were done in Brazil and France, but that wasn't as interesting to the press and American public.
The Wright brothers might indeed have been the first to perform controlled sustained flight over a period of time longer than a glide, or what we would reasonably call flying, but not until 1905.
Full honour to the Wright brothers -- they were pioneers, even if they (by their own admission) built their avionics on the works of Lilienthal and the flyer more directly on the works of Octave Chanute. Chanute was a sporty chap, and supported the Wright brothers and had no qualms with them building their flyers based on his blueprints and earlier plane attempts -- all that mattered back then was to get someone flying!
All in all, it's hard to say who was "first" in flight -- but Wilbur and Orville Wright deserve their part of the honour, along with Otto Lilienthal, Alberto Dumont, Alexander Moshaisky, Leonardo daVinci, Clement Ader, Octave Chanute, Marquee de Arlandes and others.
Regards,
--
*Art
Not Kitty Hawk (Score:3, Informative)
The Wright brothers did not make their "historic" (and somewhat debated) flight at Kitty Hawk, NC, they made it at Kill Devil Hills, a few miles to the south. This misconception was started because they sent the telegram to their mother from Kitty Hawk, which was the nearest town with a telegram station.
The only museum I've ever seen this info correct is the Wright Brothers National Memorial which is located where the flight occurred. Even the National Air & Space Museum has it wrong.
Re:Why the Wrights needed the 25mph wind. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Catapults (Score:2, Informative)
The Wright brothers couldn't repeat that flight, so that wasn't accepted by the world's scientific society that recognizes Santos Dumont the creator of the airplane. But "if you (holywood) say i lie thousand of times it becames true"