Wright Brothers
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Wilbur and Orville Wright were born in Dayton, Ohio. Wilbur was the oldest of the two, born in 1867, and Orville was the youngest born in1871. As children they became interested in flight around 1878 when their father had brought home for them a toy that could fly. The Wrights were not always pioneers in aviation, at first they were journalists and then owners of the Wright Cycle Company , a bicycle shop. The Wrights used their profits from their bike store to fund their experiments with airplanes. The Wrights first became famous by publishing their research in flight magazines. They are most famous for their design and construction of the first ever successful powered airplane on December 17, 1903. (Moahman 107)
The Wright Brothers began their experiments in the summer of 1899. At first they did not want to build a full size plane so they constructed a kite. They designed the kite in order to test their theories of wing warping, which could allow a plane to be controlled laterally. They constructed the kite out of pine and covered it with shellac to make it airtight. The kite was successful and proved that wing warping was far superior to other designs such as weight shifting and automatic stabilizers. Their next step was to design a glider large enough but light enough to carry a man. (Moahman 108,109)
In order to construct this larger glider, the Wrights had to look seriously into precise wing airfoil, wing-size, type and size of materials, and understanding lift, pressure and gravity. They determined that in order to get their desired lift, they needed to develop a curved wing, in which when rotated could control the direction of airflow. This could allow them to direct the center of air pressure to lift the glider. During the time of these experiments the Wrights used and perfected three of Smeaton s equations. The first was F=kV2S, which was the equation that would allow them to calculate the force of air needed to be exerted. The second was L=kVH, which allowed them to calculate the amount of lift needed. The third was D=kV2SCp, which allowed them to calculate the amount of drag which was needed. These three equations aided them in their first attempts to construct a glider. (Johalo 63, 68)
In the summer of 1900 the Wrights constructed their first glider with their newfound knowledge. The glider showed the most advanced and sophisticated aircraft up to that time. Even though they had the best glider so far, it sill presented aerodynamic and design problems.It took two more years of perfecting their design before they thought it was ready for engine power. (Johalo 80, 83)
By December 1901, the Wrights had accumulated enough data needed to build a successful flier. They developed the glider in 1902. When they tested it, it crashed because Orville had forgotten how to operate the elevator and crashed it. On December 17, 1903, the Wrights had developed another glider. This glider would go down in history as the first successful aircraft. It took flight at 10:35 am in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina for twelve seconds. The Wrights then patented their invention and went on to create bigger