| 1903 | |
 |
Plans/Diagrams |
|
Construction |
|
Photos |
|
Engine |
|
Specifications |
|
Wind Tunnel Tests |
| |
|
| 2003 | |
|
Rediscovering Secrets |
|
Construction |
|
Photos |
|
Wind Tunnel Tests |
The Wright Stuff:
Rediscovering the Secrets of the Wright Brothers' Success
BY: Barbara A. Schmitz
 |
|
Bill
Haden (right) and Greg Cone roll out the original Wright Bros.
Engine for a spectator start up. Photo by Phil Weston. |
A May 13, 1900, letter from Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute, an engineer and bridge builder in Chicago.
The challenge to fly didn’t cost Wilbur Wright his life. However, it did take his time and money, as well as that of his brother Orville.
Today researchers are working to rediscover some of the secrets the Wrights originally discovered. While neither brother had any formal training, they worked methodically and creatively designing and building a myriad of kites, gliders, powered flyers, wind tunnels and other test devices from 1900 to 1912.
Unfortunately, many of their discoveries were lost or destroyed in their unending effort to protect their secrets from competitors.
“Our goal is to recreate what they did by reverse engineering so we can fully understand the secrets of the Wright Brothers,” explained Ken Hyde, executive director of The Wright Experience, where a team of aircraft builders are constructing authentic re-creations of all the Wright Brothers’ kites, gliders and powered aircraft. “They left a great paper trail with writings and letters.”
 |
|
Ken Hyde
explains the specifications of the original Wright Bros. engine
before it is started in front of the EAA Pavilion at EAA
AirVenture Oshkosh 2000. |
In 1928 it got so bad that Orville packed up his 1903 glider and sent it to England’s science museum, Hyde said. “He wrote that historians will have to sort it out later. That’s really the purpose of the Wright Experience—to sort it out.”
“We know how to put the man on the moon, but we have not been successful in flying a true Wright airplane,” Hyde said. “The last time a Wright airplane flew was in 1934.” That Model B is now at the Franklin Institute, a museum in Philadelphia.
The Warrenton, Va.-group hit the jackpot when it found and then restored an original Wright Brothers engine, the 1910 Wright Engine Serial. No. 20. That engine is on display at the EAA Action Pavilion, along with Wright bicycles, a 1900 glider, video glider flight footage, letters and more. This rare old engine will be run during demonstration at noon today.
The Wright Experience has shared its work with universities, which are involving students in the work. “Engineering students are looking at the data and scratching their heads (about) how they did it,” Hyde said. “Give them formulas from Orville Wright and they’ll sit up and listen.”Students have also been actively
involved in the testing. Old Dominion students,
for example, tested the Wright propeller in NASA’s Langley Wind Tunnel.
Wichita State and Old Dominion students will be doing wing analysis.
He is also submitting a grant to the National Science Foundation, aimed at students in grades six through 12. The project, if funded, would use the achievements of the Wright Brothers as a tool to motivate students in the aeronautical and mechanical fields of engineering. Using reproduction aircraft, media and instructional tools, the work of the Wrights would introduce students to the concepts of problem definition and problem solving as it applies to aircraft system design.
Hyde thinks the Wright Brothers
would be delighted to see the work they’re doing.
“They would really get upset when people tried to duplicate their
airplanes and if people would do things inaccurately,” he said. “One
museum had the remains of a Wright 1911 glider and they modified it.
Orville was so upset that he forbid them to show it to the public and
ordered that it be set on fire.”
For more information, visit their Web site at www.wrightexperience.com.
