BUT WILL IT FLY, ORVILLE?...
With
the 100th anniversary of powered flight now come and gone (17 Dec
03), while nearly everyone knows about the first successful flight of the Wright
Model 03 Flyer aircraft, surprisingly few are aware of the fact that a prior fascination with
bicycles contributed directly to the Wright Brothers’ aeronautical achievements.
Interestingly, this is also true of many other early aviation pioneers
(including Glenn Curtiss).
Wilber
(born 1867) and Orville (born 1871) Wright were sons of a Christian minister and
his bright, gifted wife. Neither graduated from high school, but together they
went on to further characterise the reputation of Americans as intuitively
clever and inventive tinkerers…men who were able to substitute native
intelligence, intuitive thought, and instinctual logic for the conventionally
acquired prowess of formal education to achieve greatness.
In
the late 1800s, the invention of the ‘safety bicycle’ (similar in appearance
to the present bicycle and vastly different from the old ‘ordinary’
bicycle) prompted a public fascination with the new two-wheeled, human-powered
devices. Orville himself became a bicycle racer, upon acquiring his first
bicycle in 1891. Three years after the brothers opened a job printing business
(1889), they decided to go into the bicycle business; at first repairing
bicycles for others (1892), they finally went into the actual business of making
their own ‘custom built’ bicycles in 1896 in a shop in Ohio (the US Air
Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB has one of these rare bicycles on display).
‘The Wright
Cycle Exchange’ (later titled ‘The Wright Cycle Company’, in Dayton)
thrived, thanks to the excellence of their bicycles and keen public interest at
that time in
bicycling; the substantial income from their custom bicycle business would
provide the wherewithal for their later work in rudimentary aeronautical
engineering. Three times they relocated the shop, expanding their business due
to success with bicycles. Before finally discontinuing the bicycle business to
devote full attention to aviation interests, they manufactured several hundred
of their bicycles.
It was their bicycle business that afforded them sufficient funds and leisure time to carry out their experiments in aviation, but it was their technical expertise in mechanical repair and fabrication of bicycles that enabled them to achieve their noted milestone flight in 1903. The same equipment and tools used in bicycle repair and manufacture were used to construct their early flying machines, with most of initial aviation experimentation (& wind-tunnel tests) carried out in the backroom of their bicycle shop. Almost all of the parts used in their Wright Model 03 Aeroplane were built in that bicycle shop. Critical to the success of the 1903 flight was the Wrights’ colleague, Mr. Charles Taylor, a machinist who had previously worked on bicycles. It was his excellent work and technical expertise that produced the150 pound, homebuilt, 4-cylinder, copper-aluminum alloy engine (rated variously at between at 8 and 12 horsepower and utilising an empty tomato can for a carburetor) that powered the 22 foot long, 675 pound Wright 03 Flyer, during its 12 second, 120 foot long flight into the annals of aviation history (the actual length of that first flight has been estimated at 12 seconds, due to the fact that they were so excited over having achieved actual flight that they forgot to shut off the stopwatch when the craft touched down!). They would go on to complete 4 flights on that memorable day, then longest of which lasted about 55 seconds and took them over 850 feet.
As
the automobile came into being, former widespread interest in the human powered
bicycle began to wane; it wasn’t long before engines were added to bicycles
and these early motorised bicycles would ultimately evolve into today’s modern
motorcycle. As the
date of the Wrights' first recorded powered (& controlled) flight merges into history, it is good to bear in mind
, over 100 years after the fact, that it was the lowly bicycle
that not only gave birth to the modern aviation age, but to the American Harley-Davidson
motorcycle (and all other modern two-wheeled motorised vehicles).
We note that at least one existing history records that the Wrights’ original, initial aeronautical ambition was, as simply stated by Wilber Wright, to ‘…build a bicycle with wings, that would fly’!
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As this is being written, a day after the day marking the 100th anniversary of the Wrights' remarkable achievement, I am somewhat perplexed by the paucity of media coverage and the rather remarkable disinterest shown in the event by the nation as a whole. Mindful of the fact that the capitol of the world's 5th largest regional economy (the State of California) always has and still manifests an unfortunate 'podunk' country town character that is contradictory to its status, it was still disappointing to see how little coverage the local community newspaper gave the occasion. Opening the local newspaper, I found nothing but stories about our problems in Iraq, the Michael Jackson child molestation charges, and similar assorted subjects of extremely ordinary and markedly mundane significance.
This seeming lack of interest in what is a truly Earth-shaking advancement in the state of science and technology can only be explained, to my thinking, by the fact that in 100 short years, powered heavier-than-air flight has become so much taken for granted by the general public that the significance of the Wright Flyer's impact on modern civilisation has been completely lost in the unrelenting ebb and flow of contemporary human affairs.
One thing that is clear to me is that, aside from the fact that what H.L. Mencken called 'the boobs' (my preferred term would be 'dimbulbs', AKA the average clueless individuals that predominate in society) have lost the barest glimmer of appreciation for what the miracle of flight is, the immense, logarithmic increases in the cost of technology are completely overlooked by virtually everyone. Case in point: the 1.2 million dollar Wright 1903 Flyer reproduction that was constructed to recreate the original historic Wright hop of 17 Dec 1903 on this month's 100th anniversary celebration of that event. Due to the vagaries of fate, chance, and uncooperative weather (that characterise circumstances on the North Carolina 'outer banks', by the way), this costly replica Wright 03 Flyer failed miserably to even get off the ground on 17 Dec 2003. Consider if you will that the expensive Wright replica was put together and paid for by a vast consortium of interested parties and financiers without whom the million plus dollar craft would never have taken shape at all. In Orville's & Wilber's time individual, small scale individual enterprise was the primary means through which advances in science and technology were achieved; today, lavishly funded corporate enterprise is the modern equivalent.
Partly due to this fact, the present terribly expensive costs of advancing scientific and technological state of the art are hidden from the general public awareness. The result of this is a substantial and widespread naiveté on this subject by that same public, which typically waxes enthusiastic about any purported 'breakthrough' (surely in this age of American hyper-euphemisation, one of the most egregiously overworked and abused words in the dictionary) announced by the media without having even a half-baked idea of what that 'breakthrough' has, or will cost in real dollars. The fact that someone has to pay for these 'advances' in the scientific frontier of technological research efforts is completely lost in the shuffle, accordingly, as is the fact that it will surely be these same oblivious public dimbulbs who will ultimately foot these costs (not the corporations, in their quest for stockholder revenue and corporate gains).
Viewed against this backdrop of hard, cold economic fact, it is extremely difficult to be supportive of this modern day trend to advance technology without even the most moderate condition or qualification. Return to the comparison between the original Wright 1903 Flyer (estimated to have cost about US$ 6000) and the failed 2003 1.2 million dollar replica and ponder anew the fact that what the Wrights achieved with limited funds and only their own cold sweat was only slightly less than miraculous and it will never be the same again, in these times of multi-billion dollar research budgets and trillion dollar commercial sales campaigns.
I hate to keep returning to E.F. Schumacher's brilliant expostulations on 'human scale meta-economics' (and I well recognise the risk of appearing to be a frusty Luddite), but the dangers resulting from our modern blind quest for scientific advancements with no regard for the cost are to me clear and present. One of the best examples of this recently has been the George Bush Administration's expansion of the national debt into the trillions of dollars, owing to the insane Iraq War adventure (that every day continues to turn into another Vietnam-like quagmire of monumentally expensive cost--both in terms of dollars and human life) that closely followed the costly Afghanistan campaign. Another excellent example of this mindset is newly elected California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger's decision to 'resolve' the current deficit budget with more borrowing (this time in the form of new bond issues). These examples cited are excellent evidence of that unholy mix of frightened reluctance and schizoid arrogance that has taken hold of our elected representatives, who have become so habitually accustomed to slavish pandering to special-interest (read: 'corporate') lobbying that they are now totally incapable of making even mildly unpopular decisions for the sake of correcting economic policies that are dangerously off-base (and perhaps even potentially catastrophic).
At any rate, as the 100th Anniversary of the first successful controlled powered human flight comes and goes, I am reminded of the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Wright's achievement in 1953, and of my own participation in it as a 7 year old child. I was a 3rd grader at the time and my school was conducting an art and writing contest to see which child in our elementary school could best celebrate the event in drawing and story. Although my picture of an airplane failed to win first prize, a story I wrote about aviation did in fact win the first place award for writing (perhaps an early indication that I would eventually grow up to be an inveterate word-slinger?). For that, I was given a rather nice certificate which I still have on my wall today. I think I even have the original story I submitted, lurking somewhere in a box full of childhood memorabilia.
As the centennial of the historic Wright Brothers' achievement passes into history, I offer best wishes to all for a restful and meaning-filled holiday season, whether of Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Druid, or any other religious belief. I personally do not believe in any theory for the explanation of human awareness and the origin of the Universe that is quite as simple as those provided by the so-called 'organised religions', but whatever it is that glues the Universe together and enables humanity to reflect on our insignificance (be it the metaphysics of 'string theory' or something less physically logical), it resulted in the Wright's great achievement in the realm of flight shortly before Christmas of 1903. Let's just leave it at that and be grateful for those small blessings (if you'll pardon the use of that distinctly religious term) we enjoy in the midst of the unrelenting, barely structured chaos we call human civilisation, and for the miracle of flight...
Cheers, C2.....XII/2003
(...return to AEOLUS AEROSPACE...)