Assignment-2

SUBJECT TITLE History of Flight and Technology Forecast

SUBJECT TYPE Professional Elective- A
SUBJECT CODE 18AE651
ACADEMIC YEAR 2020 -21 BATCH 2018
SCHEME 18 Scheme
SEMESTER VI

1. Describe the contribution of Wilbur and Orville Wright towards the first
practical airplane.

Amal Sajeev

Before the construction of The Wright Flyer, their first airplane, the Wright brothers
experimented with several glider designs. The tests were done at Kitty Hawk, a vast
empty land with strong winds and multiple places to launch gliders with, which would
give the aircraft more lift.

The glider tests began in 1900, and they flew the gliders just like kites. Sometimes
they were able to fly these craft for distances as long as 300 ft. However, none of the
initial designs achieved the expected amount of lift . So, the Wright brothers built
wind tunnels where they could easily test wing designs in minutes, rather than having
to build new prototypes each time.

They tested over 200 wing configurations, varying the aspect ratios, curves, and
camber, as well as mono-plane and multi-wing designs, and in 1902, they created the
1902 glider, which was also their first glider that could be controlled using Yaw
control, where both wing warping and rear rudder control could be controlled
mechanically. They set a glider endurance record of 43 seconds and another one of 1
minute, 12 seconds in late 1902. After this success, they began working on a practical
airplane in 1903.

Using their experience with building bicycles, they worked with Charlie Taylor, a
mechanic, to create a new lightweight gasoline engine. Their main contribution to it
was the sprocket chain drive, based on their bicycle design, which would power the
twin propellers, and almost all of these parts were made by hand due to their design.
 The chain drive would remedy the issue with torque affecting the handling of the
aircraft by crossing the chains, so that the propellers would rotate in opposite
directions.

The design of the wing was based on one of the airfoils that they had previously tested
(Airfoil no. 9). The plane was controlled through two main instruments, a lever to
adjust the elevation, and a hip cradle which would pull wires, warping the wings and
turning the rudder to twist the plane towards the specified direction.

Other than this being the first practical heavier-than-air aircraft, the Wright brothers
implemented several critical features that are either still used today or led to other
technology that is still used today in aircraft control. The most significant one is the
simultaneous roll and yaw control.

The Wrights also pioneered the use of Roll Control, where the wings could be twisted,
changing the wingtip angle depending on the air-stream. This led to the development
of Ailerons by future engineers such as Glen Curtiss. Their flight control system was
the first to incorporate all three axes during flight, roll, yaw, and pitch.

Their Wind Tunnel designs were updated and increased in scale, and are now used to
test various kinds of aircraft, from airplanes to missiles.

Another area where the Wright brothers made important contributions was in the field
of propeller design. Even though propellers were being used for over a century at that
point, there was still no scientific basis for designing them. So, they started working
on making more efficient propellers, and testing the prototypes in their wind tunnels.
The propellers they used on The Wright Flyer were a lot more efficient and could be
easily replicated, and produced a combined thrust of 500-550N at 330 rpm. They
converted over 66% of the mechanical energy from the motor into thrust.

2. Describe the contribution of Wilbur and Orville Wright towards Flyer

III.

Amal Sajeev

After scrapping The Wright Flyer II, the Wright Brothers began working on their next
airplane, The Wright Flyer III, in 1904. Though the Flyer II was relatively successful
(compared to the Flyer I), making over 105 flights and entire circles, there were still
more improvements to be made, and so they disassembled it and salvaged the engine,
the propeller chain drive, it’s mounts, and burned the rest.
 The two earlier models had problems with stability. The Wrights were more focused
on building a better aircraft control system, and didn’t focus on the stability of the
plane. The initial design of the Flyer III had similar problems as well.

The initial design consisted of a stronger plane, which had a longer tail that provided
better directional stability. It had a larger cylinder bore engine, which provided more
power than the previous design. The new propellers had blades that were wider and
thinner, and a backward sweep was added to the blades to prevent distortion and avoid
the pressures of flight. The horizontal cylinders in the engine were replaced with
vertical cylinders.

There improvements in this design were marginal, and Orville ended up in a nose dive
crash in the plane in June of 1905. So, the Wrights began rebuilding the plane.

They doubled the distance between the wings, and the elevator and rudder, and
doubled the size of the elevator and rudder. The rear rudder was disconnected from
the wing warping control, and another lever was added to control it separately. A
larger fuel tank was installed, along with two radiators on the struts so extra coolant
could be passed to the engine. The skid-undercarriage was widened too, giving the
wings a slight dihedral.

Along with these major changes, several smaller changes were also made, correcting
other issues with the Flyer I and Flyer II that contributed to the various crashes, such
as the pitch instability.

These changes were extremely successful, and the plane now crashed rarely. The
plane could now fly in extreme winds even better than all previous prototypes. While
the previous designs could only fly between 5-10 minutes, the Flyer III could reliably
fly for over 20 minutes, and still land safely without getting any damage.

In 1905, Wilbur managed to fly consistently for 39 minutes, longer than the sum of
every flight they made with their previous planes. After this success, the Wrights
wrote a letter to the US War Department proclaiming their success at creating a
reliable airplane design that could fly reliably, and proposing to sell the results of their
work.

3. Explain the Aeronautical Triangle.

Rakshita S, Amal Sajeev
● The historical development of aviation in the United States can be compared to a
triangle, with the Wrights on one apex, Langley at another, and Curtiss at the third.
● This is called the "Aeronautical Triangle ".
● Samuel Langley was an astronomer, physicist, and inventor, who had previously
invented the Bolometer and received multiple awards for his work in astronomy and
solar physics.
● He began his attempts at powered flight, and began by testing rubber band powered
models and gliders.
● Langley was one of the first aviation engineers to realize the effect of thrust on lift,
and understood that a plane with fixed size and weight would require less propulsive
power, the faster it flew.He began working on models powered by miniature steam
powered engines.
● In 1896, he achieved his first public success with Aerodrome No. 5, where his model
managed to make two flights on May 6, first for 700 metres and the second one for
1000 metres, over ten times longer than any previous heavier than air flying
machine. However, this model was unmanned.
● On November 11 the same year, he flew the Number 6, which flew for 1500 metres.
His success earned him multiple grants in 1898, one from the US War Department
($50,000) and another from the Smithsonian ($20,000).
● With the new capital, he began working on a manned Aerodrome. He hired Charles
M. Manly, an engineer, to work on the new internal combustion engine, and to be the
test pilot, and contracted Stephen M.Balzer to begin construction of the engine.
● He had been made aware of the success of The Wright Flyer, and had tried to arrange
a meeting with the Wright brothers, which they declined to attend.
● The manned Aerodrome had tandem wings, and it’s engine was more than three
times more powerful than that of The Wright Flyer.
● Unlike the Wrights, he had only tested the aircraft on calm winds. It had no way to
take off or to land, instead it would be thrust into air by a catapult from a ship, and
descend into water.
● Both of its attempts at flight in October and December of 1903 were public failures,
with the plane crashing on take-off.
● Meanwhile, the Wright brothers had made a much better manned airplane, and
tested it on land, with a control system that could control in all three axes, unlike the
Aerodrome which had no roll control. They tested it in both calm and strong winds,
with consistent success and minimal damage.
● The Wrights were the first to create aircraft that could easily be replicated and were
much better than the Aerodrome in every way except in engine power (until 1908).
● Glenn Curtiss was a genius engineer, inventor and daredevil pilot, and had done
various stunts and innovations in motorbike engine design. His speed records, set in
1911, weren’t broken by anybody until 1930.
● He was introduced to aircraft engines in 1904, when he supplied engines to Tom
Baldwin, a Californian aeronaut.
● In 1907, Alexander Graham Bell, who considered him the greatest motor expert in
the country, invited Curtiss to join his group, the Aerial Experiment Association, or
the AEA.
● Curtiss began working on the AEA aircraft engines, his primary contribution present
in their third aircraft that was initially known as Aerodrom No. 3, or the June Bug.
● With it, he flew for 1550 metres in 1908, in what was known at the time as the first
pre-announced public flight of a heavier-than-air flying machine in America, even
though the Wrights had already accomplished this with The Wright Flyer in 1904.
● He went on to receive the first U.S. Pilot’s License, since the first batch was issued
in alphabetical order, with Wilbur Wright getting Pilot’s license #5.
● Curtiss competed in several national and international flying competitions, such as
the Gordon Bennett Cup, and made multiple long distance flights across America.
● Curtiss purchased the rights to the June Bug, and used it as the basis for his new
Curtiss No.1 series of planes, known as pusher aircraft.
● He also was the inventor of seaplanes, and sold the US Navy their first aircraft, the
A-1 Triad. Curtiss made several innovations over the years and was known as the
father of naval aviation.
● This was the historical development formerly known as the “aeronautical triangle” .

4. What was the relationship in the Aeronautical Triangle?

Rakshita S, Karteek Kulkarni
● Wrights had discontinued flying one year earlier at the time of their meeting with
Curtiss, Orville and Wilbur were actively trying to interest the United States, as well
as England and France, in buying their airplane.
● The Wrights had become very secretive about their airplane and allowed no one to
view it. Curtiss and Baldwin were no exceptions. The Wrights were relatively free
with Curtiss, giving him information and technical suggestions about powered flight.
● This claim was probably not entirely unjustified, for by that time Curtiss had a vested
interest in powered flight, a few months earlier he had supplied Alexander Graham
Bell with a 15-hp motor to be used in propeller experiments, looking toward eventual
application to a manned, heavier-than-air, powered aircraft. The connection between
Bell and Curtiss is important.
● Bell, renowned as the inventor of the telephone, had an intense interest in powered
flight. He was a close personal friend of Samuel Langley and, indeed, was present for
Langley's successful unmanned Aerodrome flights in 1896. By the time Langley died.
● In1906, Bell was actively carrying out kite experiments and was testing air
propellers on a catamaran at his Nova Scotia coastal home. Experiment Association, a
group of five men whose officially avowed purpose was simply "to get into the air."
The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) consisted of Bell himself, Douglas
McCurdy, Frederick W.Baldwin a mechanical engineer, Thomas E. Selfridge, a
lieutenant with knowledge of aeronautics, and Glenn Curtiss.
● Curtiss was soon doing much more than just designing engines. The plan of the
AEA was to conduct intensive research and development on powered flight and to
build five airplanes-one for each member.
● On March 12, 1908, the Red Wing was flown at Hammondsport for the first time,
with Baldwin at the controls. It covered a distance of 318 ft and was billed as ''the first
 public flight" in the United States. However, the Wrights' growing apprehension about
the publicized activities of the AEA, after the flight of the Red Wing.
● Beginning on May 18, 1908, the White Wing successfully made a series of flights
piloted by various members of the AEA.
● Two days later, with an inexperienced McCurdy at the controls, the White Wing
crashed and never flew again.
● Wilbur and Orville genuinely felt that the AEA had pirated their ideas and was
going to use them for commercial gain.
● On July 19th, Wrights also intended to call attention of the Scientific American to
the fact that the Curtiss machine was a poor copy of theirs, that they had furnished to
them the information as to how their older machines were constructed, and this
construction was followed very closely, but had failed to mention the fact in any of
their writings.
● During the trials at Fort Myer, the relationship between the Wrights and the AEA
took an ironic twist. One member of the evaluation board assigned by the Army to
observe Orville's flights was Lt. Thomas Selfridge. Selfridge had been officially
detailed to the ABA by the Army for a year and was now back at his duties of being
the Army's main aeronautical expert.
● On September 17, The Wright type A went out of control and crashed. Selfridge
was killed, and Orville was severely injured. As Bell quoted, The A.E.A. was now a
thing of the past and It has made its mark upon the history of aviation and will live on.
● By August 1909, Curtiss designed and built a new airplane, improved over the June
Bug and named the Golden Flyer. Curtiss won this trophy with his Golden Flyer,
averaging a speed of 75.7 km/h (47.09 mi/h) over a 20-km course and defeating a
number of pilots flying the Wrights' airplanes.
● This launched Curtiss on a meteoric career as a daredevil pilot and a successful
airplane manufacturer.
● By 1911 a Curtiss airplane had taken off from and landed on a ship. Also in that
year, Curtiss developed the first successful seaplanes and forged a lasting relationship
with the U.S. Navy. In June, the Aero Club of America issued its first official pilot's
license to Curtiss in view of the fact that he had made the first public flight in the
United States.
● In 1914 an event occurred that simultaneously involved all three sides of the triangle
in which the Langley Aerodrome failed for the second time in 1903 , the wreckage
was simply stored away in an unused room in the back of the Smithsonian Institution.
When Langley died in 1906. Dr. Charles D. Walcott. Over the ensuing years,
Secretary Walcott felt that the Langley Aerodrome should be given a third chance.
Finally, in 1914 the Smithsonian awarded a grant of $2000 for the repair and flight of
the Langley Aerodrome to none other than Glenn Curtiss.
● Curtiss added pontoons to the Langley Aerodrome and on May 28, 1914,
personally flew the modified aircraft for a distance of 150ft over Keuka Lake. Later
the Aerodrome was shipped back to the Smithsonian, where it was carefully restored
to its original configuration and in 1918 was placed on display in the old Arts The
Problem of Propulsion Industries Building.
● Underneath the Aerodrome was placed a plaque reading that said the original
Langley flying machine, 1903, the first man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the
world capable of sustained free flight.The plaque did not mention that the Aerodrome
demonstrated its sustained flight capability only after the 93 modifications made by
Curtiss in 1914.This is why Orville Wright did not give Wright flyers to the
Smithsonian institute until 1924(the last among the brothers died).
● Thus making Curtiss, the best pilot with the most sophisticated plane at that time
period.
● This ends with two ironies. In 1915 Orville sold the Wright Aeronautical Corporation
to a group of New York business people. During the 1920s this corporation became a
losing competitor in aviation. Finally, on June 26, 1929, in a New York office, the
Wright Aeronautical Corporation was officially merged with the successful Curtiss
Aeroplane and Motor Corporation, forming the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.
● Thus, ironically, the names of Curtiss and Wright finally came together after all those
earlier turbulent years. The Curtiss-Wright Corporation went on to produce numerous
famous aircraft, perhaps the most notable being the P-40 of World War II fame.
Unfortunately the company could not survive the lean years immediately after World
War II, and its aircraft development and manufacturing ceased in 1948.
● This leads to the second irony. Although the very foundations of powered flight rest
on the work of Orville and Wilbur Wright and Glenn Curtiss, there is not an airplane
either produced or in standard operation today that bears the name of either Wright or
Curtiss.

5. What were problems with Propulsion, and what developments were made?
Karteek Kulkarni
● It was just a matter of developing an engine having enough horsepower while at the
same time not weighing too much-that is, an engine with a high horsepower-to-weight
ratio.

The steam engine simply did not fit the bill. Then, in 1860, the Frenchman Jean
Joseph Etienne Lenoir built the first practical gas engine. It was a single-cylinder
engine, burning ordinary street-lighting gas for fuel. By 1865, 400 of Lenoir's engines
were doing odd jobs around Paris.

Both Benz and Daimler put their engines in motorcars, and the automobile industry
was quickly born. After these "horseless carriages" were given legal freedom of the
roads in 1896 in France and Britain, the automobile industry expanded rapidly.

This development of the gasoline-fueled internal combustion engine was a godsend to

aeronautics, which was beginning to gain momentum in the 1890s. In the final
analysis, it was the Wright brothers' custom-designed and custom[1]constructed
 gasoline engine that was responsible for lifting their Flyer I off the sands of Kill Devil
Hills that fateful day in December 1903. A proper aeronautical propulsion device had
finally been found.

It is interesting to note that the relationship between the automobile and the aircraft
industries persists to the present day. For example, in June 1926 Ford introduced a
very successful three-engine, high-wing transport airplane-the Ford 4-AT Trimotor.
During World War II virtually all the major automobile companies built airplane
engines and airframes. General Motors maintained an airplane engine division for
many decades-the Allison Division in Indianapolis, Indiana-noted for its turboprop
designs.

Finally, jet and rocket engines today provide enough thrust to propel aircraft at
thousands of miles per hour-many times the speed of sound. So, throughout the
history of manned flight, propulsion has been the key that has opened the doors to
flying faster and higher.

6. Explain the concept of Faster and Higher in the history of flight.

M. Saileysh Kumar

The advancement of flying, and aeronautical engineering specifically, developed

dramatically after the Wrights' significant public demonstrations in I908, and has kept
on being so to the current day. It is trusted that the accompanying equal introductions
of the basics of aeronautic design and a portion of their authentic starting points will
be synergistic and that, in mix with the current section, they will give the peruser a
specific appreciation for the legacy of this calling.

As a last note, the driving way of thinking of numerous headways in air transportation
since I903 has been to fly quicker and higher. The Schneider Cup races were begun in
1913 by Jacques Schneider of France as an improvement to the advancement of rapid
buoy planes. They incited some early progress into the advancement of rapid
airplanes.

Note that the practically remarkable speed up that happened from 1903 to 1970 has
not proceeded as of late. Truth be told, the maxlln.um speed of present day military
contenders has really been diminishing since 1970.

This isn't because of a corruption in innovation, but rather is an impression of the way
that other plane exhibition boundaries (not speed) are directing the plan. For instance,
aerial battle between contradicting contender planes prepared to do high supersonic
rates rapidly ruffians to flying at subsonic or close sonic paces as a result of improved
mobility at these lower speeds. Today contender planes are being streamlined for this
 lower-speed battlefield. On the business side, most vehicle planes are subsonic, even
the freshest (at the hour of this composition, for example, the Boeing 787.

Regardless of whether a financially suitable supersonic vehicle could be planned, its

speed would be restricted to about Mach 2.2 or less. Over this Mach number,
streamlined warming becomes serious enough that titanium instead of aluminum
would need to be utilized for the airplane skin and for some inside structure. Titanium
is costly and difficult to machine; it's anything but a favored decision for another
supersonic vehicle.

7. Who are the Wright Brothers? What knowledge and skill enabled them to
build the first aircraft?
Anitta Ann Raju

● Wright brothers were the first to conduct a manned, controlled, sustained, and
powered heavier-than-air flight.
● The two brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, were born in Ohio, USA.
● In 1892, they opened a bike shop together. The shop helped pay their bills. But their
dream was to build a machine that could fly.

How the Wright Brothers Succeeded in the First Flight:

● The knowledge and skills the brothers used were the ones they acquired through their
various experiences with the Unmanned box kite and then the gliders. And finally, it
led to the development of a manned, powered aircraft.
● The Wrights choose a glider as their starting point. They began in July 1899 with an
unmanned box kite. Between 1900 and 1902, the brothers built three gliders - first,
flying them like a kite, then putting a man aboard.
● The early glider experiments taught the brothers three important things:

~ How to control climb and descent

~ The best design for the shape of the wing
~ How large the wing area had to be to sustain lift
● Once the Wrights had resolved questions about control and lift, they set out to fit their
plane with an engine.
● On 17 December 1903, Orville made the first controlled, sustained, heavier-than-air
human flight with a powered aircraft. The brothers controlled their craft through three
main means:

~ The forward elevator

~ The use of wing warping
~ A single, movable rear rudder.
 ● The brothers set out to fit their plane with an engine; their bicycle mechanic, Charles
E. Taylor built them a four-cylinder, 12-horsepower engine.
● On 17 December, Orville took the controls. The Flyer rose into the air and stayed aloft
for 12 seconds then travelled 120 feet.
● Orville had made the first controlled, sustained, heavier-than-air human flight with a
powered aircraft. The brothers took turns piloting the Flyer for three more flights.
● The fourth and final launch lasted 59 seconds, and the craft travelled 852 feet.

8. Write a brief account of Samuel Langley and Glen Curtis in the early
development of the flying machine.
Anitta Ann Raju

Samuel Pierpont Langley

● Samuel Pierpont Langley started a serious investigation into aerodynamics at what is
today the University of Pittsburgh.
● In 1891, he published Experiments in Aerodynamics detailing his research and then
turned to build his designs. He hoped to achieve automatic aerodynamic stability, so
he gave little consideration to in-flight control.
● On 6 May 1896, Langley's Aerodrome No. 5 made the first successful sustained flight
of an unpiloted, engine-driven heavier-than aircraft of substantial size.
● On 28 November 1896, another successful flight was made with the Aerodrome No. 6
(just a modified version of Aerodrome No. 4)
● With the successes of the Aerodrome No. 5 and No. 6, Langley was granted by the
U.S. government - $50,000 to develop a man-carrying flying machine.
● Langley planned on building a scaled-up version known as the Aerodrome A and
started with the smaller Quarter-scale Aerodrome, which flew twice on 18 June 1901,
and then again with a newer and more powerful engine in 1903.
● For Aerodrome A, he contracted Stephen Balzer to build the engine but was delivered
one with just an 8hp (6.0 kW) instead of the 12hp (8.9 kW) he expected. Langley's
assistant, Charles M. Manly, then reworked the design into a five-cylinder
water-cooled radial that delivered 52 hp (39 kW) at 950 r.p.m.
● Now with both power and a design, Langley put the two together but to his dismay,
the resulting aircraft proved to be too fragile. Simply scaling up the original small
models resulted in a design that was too weak to hold itself together.
● Two launches in late 1903 both ended with the Aerodrome immediately crashing into
the water. The pilot, Manly, was rescued each time.
● Also, the aircraft's control system was inadequate to allow quick pilot responses, and
it had no method of lateral control, and the Aerodrome's aerial stability was marginal.
● Langley's attempts to gain further funding failed, and his efforts ended. Nine days
after his second abortive launch on 8 December, the Wright brothers successfully flew
their Flyer.
Glen Curtis
● Glen Curtis sped onto the aviation scene in the early 1900s, through his passion for
speed, which began with bicycles. In 1901, he incorporated an engine to his bicycle
and became an avid motorcycle racer, establishing his motorcycle factory in 1903.
● With the summer of 1904, came his huge break into aviation in the form of Thomas
Baldwin, who requested him to build a two-cylinder engine for his Dirigible. The
Baldwin Dirigible with the highly successful Curtis engine soon became famous.
● In the summer of 1907, Curtis joined the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA)
formed by Alexander Graham Bell. The inventors who belonged made some
important design breakthroughs. They built the first American plane equipped with
ailerons, The White Wing, with Baldwin as chief designer.
● Later, with Cutis as chief designer, the AEA built the June Bug, which won Cutis
$3000 from the Aeroclub of America, as the first he became the 1st aviator to make a
straight flight of 1km.
● After the disbandment of AEA, Curtis built a new aeroplane, improved after the June
Bug, called The Golden Flyer. This won him the fastest flight as it averaged a speed
of 47.09 mi/hr over a 20km course, which also launched him as a daredevil pilot and a
successful aeroplane manufacturer.
● His motorcycle factory was converted to an Aircraft manufacturing factory.
● Glenn Curtiss made 93 modifications to the Aerodrome and flew this very different
aircraft in 1914. Without acknowledging the modifications, the Smithsonian
Institution asserted that Langley’s Aerodrome was the 1st machine capable of flight.
● Later, with Cutis as chief designer, the AEA built the June Bug, which won Cutis
$3000 from the Aeroclub of America, as the first he became the 1st aviator to make a
straight flight of 1km.
● After the disbandment of AEA, Curtis built a new aircraft, improved after the June
Bug, called The Golden Flyer. This won him the fastest flight as it averaged a speed
of 47.09 mi/hr over a 20km course, which also launched him as a daredevil pilot and a
successful aeroplane manufacturer.
● His motorcycle factory was converted to an Aircraft manufacturing factory.
● Glenn Curtiss made 93 modifications to the Aerodrome and flew this very different
aircraft in 1914. Without acknowledging the modifications, the Smithsonian
Institution asserted that Langley’s Aerodrome was the 1st machine capable of flight.