Who knows when a human first dreamed of flying
like a bird . It is important to
recognize flying,
its effect on people and their communication has changed because of
flight. I
believe that the
invention of airplanes just enhanced the way people communicate and how they
relate. Literature as a form of communication, was one of the many
things that was only
improved by the
invention of the airplane, because of several reasons.
Who invented the airplane? Orville Wright (1871 - 1948) and Wilbur
Wright (1867 -
1912) American airplane inventors, brothers. "Their interest in flying aroused by
Lilienthal's
glider flights of
1890's."(Rosenblum 7). In addition
to Lilienthal's influence, between the time
Langley flew his
scale models and the time his full-size Aerodrome plunged into the Potomac
River, the two
bicycle builders from Dayton, Ohio were busy experimenting with gliders. Wilbur
and Orville
Wright had first becomed interested in flying machines as children when their
father
brought home a
whirling toy . Fascinated, they wound up
the rubber band on the cork and paper
toy to watch it
fly again and again. They built and flew
their own versions. "Throughout
their
lives, the
brothers experimented with mechanical things Wilbur would come up with the
ideas
and Orville would
analyse and implement them." (McMahon 23).
The two brothers opened a shop in 1896 to build
and repair bicycles. The same year,
Otto Lilienthal
was killed when his glider crashed and the Wrights began to search the problems
of human
flight. After reading all the
information they could find in Dayton, Wilbur wrote to the
Smithsonian
Instituion to ask for all the
information it had on aeronautics. The
brothers showed
pure
dedication. They read books, works by Lilienthal's The Problem of
flying, Practical
Experiments
in Soaring, Chanute's
Process in Flying Machines, and
Langley's writings,
among
others. They discovered that no one had
successfully dealt with the basic need for
controlling a
flying machine. Their conclusion came
from a simple yet important part of
communication
that simply evolved with their invention : Literature.
In 1899, Wilbur and Orville Wright built their
first small biplane glider and flew if on a
string, like a
kite. On this glider, they used a system of "wing warping" which,
like in ailerons on
modern airplanes,
changed the angles of the wings.
Combined with a stabilizing tail, warping
the wings
resulted in relatively controllable aircraft.
"In 1900, they built a much larger glider with
17-foot
wings. Instead of a tail, it had a
rubber, or moveable horizontal surface,
in front of the
wings, which
would control the up-and-down movement of the nose." (Williams 34). "The
Wright brothers
took this glider out to Kitty Hwak, Noth Carolina, where a strong, steady wind
blew over a low
hill of bare sand." (Walsh 56). In October, they began to test it, first
flying it
controlled from
ground without a pilot, then piloted but tethered, and finally as a free-flying
glider.
After many
flights, and a few crashes, they discovered the rubber helped the horizontal
control to
such an extent
that the pilot could easily land the glider.
By the end of October, the Wrights had
learned all they
could from their 1900 glider and returned
to Dayton to desing another with
improvements. "The Wright's 1901 glider was, like
others, a wrire-braced biplane, but was
larger, with a
wingspan of 22 feet and almost twice as much lifting surface as the others they
had built before."
(Hobbs 42). They began flying it at Kill
Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, in July, and
it flew so well
they were able to make flights of almost
400 feet. in winds up to 27 miles per
hour. They were learning to fly and were well along
the way of becoming the first skilled pilots.
Even so, as soon
as they attempted to make turns, they ran into problems, which persisted in
August. Discouraged, the brothers returned to
Dayton. The Wrights began to desing
their
number 3 glider,
which was the largest yet, after extensive
laboratory research and
experimentation
using a wind tunnel (a long box with a fan at one end) used to stimulate the
movement of a
wing through the air. "The number 3 glider included the front elevator to
control
pitch, the nose
moving up and down, the wing warping system to control rolling, tipping from
side to
side. They added a tail, two fixed
vertical fins at the rear to prevent turns from becoming
spins."
(Hobbs 67). The Wrights returned to
Kitty Hawk in August 1902 to test it.
Beggining in
September, the
brothers made almost 1,000 flights with their number 3 glyder. It continued to
have problems
with turns, so they changed its pair of fixed fins to a single, movable ,
vertical
rubber to control
yaw, turning right and left. This solved
the problem and the brothers continued
to test the
glider, making flights of over 600 feet.
It may have been that no one else in the world
realized that the
Wrights had built an aircraft that could be fully controlled and thus genuinely
flown. They had learned all of this in no more than
one hour of actual piloting. The Wright
brothers' next
step was obvious: add an engine and turn a fine glider into an airplane. Of course,
others had tried
this and failed badly. But no one had been as carefully and as scientific as
Orville and
Wilbur Wright . The Wrights had figured
out what the problems were, had solved
them one by one,
and were ready to move ahead now that they new where they were going.
"The 1903
Wright Flyer was not a powered version of the 1902 glider, but a completely new
machine! It had
40 - foot wings and a 12 - horse power egine designed and built by the Wrights
and mechanic
Charlie Taylor. Constructed mainly from
spruce and ash and covered with linen,
the Flyer weighed
750 pounds with its pilot on board. Its tow propellors were behind the
wing
and driven by
bycycle chains." (Hobbs 77).
Because of bad weather, the Wright brothers did't
attempt to fly
the aircraft until December 14. Wilbur
won the coin toss and climbed aboard as
the two
propellors were swung by hand and the engine started. The Flyer raced down the
track
and shot up into
the air so steeply that it stalled and smashed into the sand. Wilbur was not
accustomed to
working the front rubber with the extra power of the engine and had over-
controlled the
plane. But they both knew that, and with
little practice , they could make their
machine fly. Wilbur and Orville packed up thier airplane,
dragged it back to their simple
workshop, and
made the needed repairs. "On
December 17, the weather was again
suitable or
flying. Since Wilbur had made the first
try, it was now Orville'sturn. Five
observers
from the
lifesaving station at Kitty Hawk had arrived to watch." (Walsh 23). The engine was fired
up and Orville
shook hands with, as mexicans would say "tocayo", before he climbed
into the
pilot's
position. The Flyer moved foward along the track, as Wilbur ran
beside it to steady the
right
wingtip. Orville pulled up on the front
rubber and the Flyer lifted up into the
air and flew
120 feet in 12
seconds. "As Orville later wrote,
that flight was "the first in the history of the world
in which a
machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full
flight,
had sailed foward
without reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that
from which it
started." (Berliner 81).
It is incredible to see the results in today's
aeronautics that began much time ago.
Technically,
there were and are no materials strong enough to build a strong, light aircraft
that
could lift both
itself ans a pilot. There were no light,
powerful engines to pull an aircraft
through
the air without
adding so much weight that it could get off the ground in the first place. On a
personal level,
most people were convinced that humans would never fly. I believe that the
invention of the
airplane changed and only improved literature in the most unique way. The
airplane proved all those people who had a "If we
were meant to fly, we would have been born
with wings"
mentallity along with that western world who ridiculed the few who tried to
fly,
wrong! Even though Orville and Wilbur Wright were
not the only ones who participated in the
great experiment
to get human beings off into the sky, we must recognize them for the advances
in science,
technology and communication they have brought to us, giving humans the ability
to
change our way of
thinking, and making the entire world more accesible bringing all sorts of
people and
literature closer together. "The
Wrights made an age-old dream, which had always
seemed
impossible, possible." (Crouch 91).
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