The Wrong Wright Story Series #5:
Flying Machines on Film
By Joe Bullmer
This last installment in this series of critical reviews of leading publications concerning the Wright brothers’ creation of the airplane switches from books to video productions.
It features what is perhaps the most prominent documentary on the subject, the centennial 2003 production by PBS, NOVA of WGBH, Boston titled The Wright Brothers' Flying Machine. Major funding was provided by the Park Foundation, Sprint, Microsoft, and the National Science Foundation, although the NSF wisely attached a disclaimer regarding the production’s content.
Dozens of films or videos on the Wrights have been produced and broadcast in recent decades. Essentially all these videos contain errors similar to those in the 2003 NOVA production. Interviews of David McCullough by the Massachusetts Historical Society and by Ken Burns publicizing McCullough’s book are two of the most recent of significance, and are also briefly discussed near the end of this article.
Throughout this discussion, echoes of the same errors found in the Smithsonian books previously addressed are evident. Consequently, although many will be mentioned here, they will generally not be covered in as much detail in this article. More information on what is true can be found in previous articles in this series, and in complete detail in this author’s book The WRight Story. It becomes obvious that the Smithsonian’s falsehoods have infected history and the minds of nearly all those interested in early aviation.
NOVA’s The Wright Brother’s Flying
Machine also features Ken Hyde, proprietor of The Wright Experience at
Warrenton, Virginia. With the help of Rick Young, Greg Cone, and
many others, Hyde recreated Wright gliders, a 1903 “Flyer", and the 1910 Model
B featured in the video. Also featured in the video are Tom Crouch, the Curator of Aeronautics of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and John Anderson, its Aerodynamics Curator. Crouch appears in a couple dozen brief clips and Anderson in a half dozen.
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Dr. Tom Crouch, PhD Wright State University, Dayton, OH |
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Dr. John Anderson, Aerodynamics Curator, NASM |
The PBS centennial video begins discussion of the Wrights’ work by saying that the U.S. Weather Bureau suggested Kitty Hawk as appropriate for their tests. In fact, Octave Chanute suggested the Carolina coasts to the Wrights in the first place, and then, upon the Wrights’ request, the weather bureau provided weather records of these sites. This is the first in what will become a familiar litany of omissions and errors.
The documentary launches off into technical matters by showing an exaggerated thick Clark-Y type airfoil with a flat bottom and hugely arched top, and mentioning the familiar sped-up flow across the top lowering its pressure and thus creating lift. It is a particularly ironic way to begin the documentary, since the Wrights had no idea how cambered wings create lift. They thought it was due to air smashing into the bottom of a thin cambered wing set at an angle to the airstream and pushing it up, just like the way water supports a skier. They even gave this incorrect explanation for lift in their first patent. Their correspondence reveals that the Wrights still believed this at least into 1906.
Right off the bat, Crouch authoritatively but erroneously states that the Wrights, seeing that Lilienthal’s gliders and Langley’s models flew so well, used their wing shapes as “the basis” for the wing shapes of their 1900 and ’01 glider wings. However, in his 1901 speech to the Western Society of Engineers, Wilbur made it absolutely clear that they intentionally did not use Lilienthal’s arc-shaped wings. They also used only half his aspect ratio. A cursory glance at photos clearly shows the differences.
Unfortunately, NOVA falls for Crouch’s assertion, and shows Lilienthal’s circular wing curvatures with maximum cambers at their mid points. But soon thereafter, they clearly show the early glider recreations, carefully and accurately made from excellent photos, having short flat wings with only a very little camber right at the leading edges.
Next, Anderson says the Wrights “made the courageous decision” not to use Lilienthal’s data. This is followed by Crouch claiming that they couldn’t just “keep building gliders” and instead “used a much smarter approach” by deciding to build a wind tunnel. He goes on saying that building the tunnels themselves was fairly simple, but the measuring balances “illustrate the Wrights’ genius”. NOVA puts icing on the cake by claiming that “the balances are one of the most important experimental devices in the history of technology.”
In one minute, this trifecta of screw-ups illustrates how Smithsonian falsehoods have infected subsequent historians. It seems that rather than doing their own research, newcomers just search their vocabularies for unique ways of telling the same tales.
As stated in previous reviews, the Wrights made absolutely no mention of a wind tunnel until Chanute and his cohorts discussed the subject with them during the summer of 1901 at Kitty Hawk. They showed the Wrights photos of wind tunnels, straightening vanes, and the balance scheme for measuring lift vs drag of a wing section. (Of course, a straight smooth flow of air and a device to measure forces on test items are the two primary elements of any wind tunnel.) Armed with this information, the Wrights then built a tunnel at their first opportunity upon their return to Dayton.
The Smithsonian’s errors continue with
Crouch reiterating that Lilienthal’s wing shapes were the basis for the
Wrights’ 1900 and ’01 wings. The NOVA
narrator immediately follows with the “Wrights built their first wings with the
same cross sections that Lilienthal had used.” Both falsehoods are yet again immediately contradicted by more clips
showing the nearly flat wings of the 1900 glider recreation made from close
study of photos of the original vehicle.
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| An actual replica of a Lilienthal glider |
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| The flat wings of the Wright glider recreation |
Next, diagrams are shown indicating that, from the tunnel data, the Wrights moved their maximum camber from the 50% chord point forward to the 25% point for the 1902 glider. In fact, they moved it from just after the leading edge back to about the 30% point. This tortured subject is topped off with a strange statement by Crouch that “modern engineers with multi-million-dollar wind tunnels” get results “within one or two percent” of the wing profile determined by the Wrights.
Things get even weirder in the next clip showing what appears to be the post-wind-tunnel 1902 wing camber curvatures on a 1900/1901 glider, something that never happened.
About 17 minutes into the 54-minute video,
Crouch asserts that “The Wrights’ recognition of the fact that the control
issue would be critical set them apart from virtually everyone else.” This is yet another idea that first came from
Chanute in his book, Progress in Flying Machines -- which the Wrights obtained in 1899 --as well as his later correspondence
with them.
Both Crouch and NOVA then excuse the instability of the Wright airplanes by explaining that, as builders and purveyors of unstable bicycles, they were unconcerned about not having “automatic stability” in their flying machines. Yet another often repeated failure of research.
In his 1920 sworn affidavit for the Montgomery case, Orville wrote “Our elevator was placed in front of the surfaces with the idea of producing inherent stability fore and aft, which it should have done had the travel of the center of pressure been forward [with decreasing angle of attack] as we had been led to believe.”
This error is followed by Crouch repeating another one by again implying that the Wrights were the first to devise wing warping. Then clips are shown of the Hyde/Young recreation of the 1902 glider with two vertical panels aft. This is particularly amusing since those twin panels were fixed and made the early ’02 glider, in the Wrights’ words, "the most dangerous vehicle yet," nearly unflyable.
They quickly replaced the fixed dual stabilizers with one moveable aft vertical rudder to counteract warp-induced yaw. That successful glider was flown that way for the rest or the test session. Perhaps Hyde or someone thought the twin rudders were a better-looking match to the biplane wings.(Speaking of configuration errors, I have seen a model of a proposed multi-million-dollar memorial to the Wright brothers planned to be located near Dayton at the intersections of interstate highways 70 and 75. It features a gleaming stainless-steel Wright aircraft purported to be the 1905 Flyer III on a huge pedestal nearly 200 feet tall. But so far, the proposals feature an aircraft with no engine or propellers. Wouldn’t it be ironic to expend all that effort to gather many millions of dollars for a nearly 200-foot-high stainless-steel Wright memorial for millions to see every month, and then show something that never existed, particularly when a correct detailed recreation of the powered Flyer III resides in a museum on the other side of town? Worst yet, with no propulsion, the memorial vehicle would look more like their first 1902 glider, a vehicle the Wrights claimed was their worst, nearly unflyable, and which they quickly reconfigured.)
Moving on into propeller design, all the standard blunders on this subject appear. After showing Hyde carefully measuring original Wright propellers at the Franklin Institute, Crouch once more marvels at the Wrights’ realization that a propeller should be just a rotating wing, and that this “underscores the nature of their genius”. Then NOVA joins the cheering by proclaiming “the Wrights solved the fundamental riddle of propeller design.”
(This can be seen on page 162 of Lorenz and Herweg’s 1976 edition of Chanute’s book.)
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| Progress in Flying Machines by Octave Chanute |
Unfortunately, the Wrights did just the opposite, making their propellers wider toward the tips. Although somewhat helpful in developing thrust with very low-speed props, this caused excessive stress loading there. This stress may have contributed to the failure of a propeller at Ft. Myer in 1908 causing the crash that injured Orville’s back and killed Lt. Thomas Selfridge.
About 25 and a half minutes into the video,
NOVA does a completely bungled foray into Langley’s Aerodrome testing. They show the photos of both separate attempts
while claiming there was just one attempt, and in that one the aircraft went up
60 feet, then down, and then broke up before falling into the river, a
description that’s not even close to what actually happened. It is well known that there were two attempts
to fly Langley’s manned airplane. Photos
clearly shown two completely different failures, the aircraft not gaining
altitude in either attempt.
Next, Crouch zips quickly through the 1903 tests at Kitty Hawk, giving the distances and times claimed for Orville’s first and Wilbur’s last attempts on the 17th of December. He then claims that was “the day that changed history.” Not content, NOVA jumps in claiming that within one year after that the Wrights built an aircraft that could fly for 30 minutes. It was actually two years before they accomplished that with a substantially modified aircraft.
NOVA next covers Wilbur’s successful demonstrations in Europe without mentioning Orville’s demonstrations at Ft, Myer that included the crash due to propeller failure that killed Lt. Tom Selfridge. They then show the photo of the first Wright factory at Dayton without noting that, in order to sell airplanes, for their Model B they had to abandon the canard elevator, the patented coordinated control, the catapult, and eventually on a later model, even wing warping. They also don’t mention that the company basically failed within six years and was eventually merged with the Martin company.
Thirty-three minutes into the 54-minute video, the focus changes to Ken Hyde’s ill-fated attempt to build and fly an accurate reproduction of the Wright Model B.
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| Constructing the replica aircraft |
He is shown measuring the authentic Model B at the Franklin Institute, using the same type of thread to weave fabric, and the same aluminum stain on the wood struts. He even found an original Wright Model B engine in California, brought it back to his facility at Warrenton, Virginia, and rebuilt it. Creating this exact replica and getting it to flying condition took a team over ten years and required funding of seven figures by donors including the Northrup-Grumman and Curtiss-Wright Corporations.
While showing roll-out of the B replica, Crouch mentions that most of the Wright-trained exhibition pilots were killed in them. Ken follows that by courageously saying one must take chances to fly one, and you had to be brave to attempt it. He then makes the prophetic statement that most pilots of B’s were killed due to confusion and miss-use of the flight controls. He planned to avoid this fate by practicing on a specially programmed simulator. Ironically, he mentions the simulation showed the aircraft had a tendency to side slip when moderately banked.
They first measure the thrust available and
find it adequate at over 160 pounds. Ken then attempts a taxi test but starts at mid-field due to storms
having created bumpy soggy conditions on half of it. He gets more acceleration than expected, a
problem on an aircraft with no brakes. He is heading for trees protruding out into the field, but instead of
cutting power, turning away, and using a nearby ditch to stop the vehicle, Ken
inexplicably elects to lift off and attempt to fly over the nearby tree tops.
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| The aircraft lifts |
While over the trees, he tries a shallow turn to the left in an attempt to return to the flying field, but the aircraft starts slipping to the left and losing altitude. Ken recovers but tries the same maneuver again while still barely over the tree tops. Of course, the same thing happens, but this time he sideslips into the trees. In seconds, ten years of work by whole teams, along with millions of dollars, was turned into a pile of junk.
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| The crashed aircraft |
Ken’s senior assistant, Greg Cone, sounds really disgusted. After getting the airplane out of the trees and seeing that the engine, one of only two original Wright engines in existence, is busted up and the airframe demolished, Cone sounds ready to quit. (Apparently, he didn’t.) Ken, who suffered injuries, says they will need a lot more money, and (interestingly) some engineers, to try it again.
But perhaps finding out that Hyde demolished the plane within a few seconds of taking off when he wasn’t even supposed to leave the ground soured the confidence of his financial backers. A second try has never been made.
Hyde astutely concludes his comments by saying that avoiding accidents “was not thought out that well.” Then he paraphrases a Wright quote, to wit, “you’ve got to fly to learn.” Maybe, but at least the Wrights had more sense than to try to maneuver while skimming over a bunch of trees on what was supposed to be a first taxi test. Certainly, busting up million-dollar airplanes within ten seconds of takeoff, after a decade of work, is not what the Wright brothers had in mind.
The 54-minute video is concluded without mentioning Hyde’s 1903 reproduction that failed to lift off of the ground in front of over a thousand onlookers at the Wright centennial ceremonies at Kitty Hawk in 2003. Apparently no one involved had a sufficient appreciation of the vehicle’s need for a strong headwind to lift it.
The quality of the NOVA production was of course doomed by relying on Smithsonian officials for technical and historical accuracy. This may be of minor concern for a TV production. As long as they have good video and authoritative sounding narratives, most producers seem happy. But unfortunately, it casts doubt among knowledgeable people about the veracity of other NOVA productions. It also provides yet another illustration of how the virus of faulty Smithsonian research infects the products of others innocently relying on their information.
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum personnel are not the only ones who rely on their, or their organizations, reputations to compensate for lack of knowledge of the subject, or diligent research. An excellent recent example of this is the 2015 book The Wright Brothers by two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough. I have not read the book, but have heard radio interviews and seen TV interviews of McCullough, and talks by him to promote the New York Times bestselling book. His degree of incorrect knowledge on this subject is surprising. Nonetheless, his book will undoubtedly sell well and become another source of errors in future works.
(As you read further, please keep in mind that the following was written over a year before David McCullough died. He was well respected and loved as a historian. However, his recent death does not change history or the inaccuracy of his account of the Wright brothers or their work.)
In a talk to the Massachusetts Historical Society, McCullouch made the following incorrect or misleading statements:
“Everybody knew man couldn’t fly.” Actually, many newspapers and magazines had been showing for years that many, using unpowered gliders, had already flown over a thousand times.
There was only one Aerodrome flight attempt that went up 60 feet and then dove into the water. In fact, there were two attempts. Both went down immediately after leaving the launcher, the aircraft not gaining ten feet.
The Wrights designed their airplanes by watching birds. Although Wilbur alluded to birds bending their wing tips, Orville said he knew of nothing they got from birds.
Mouillard’s book convinced the Wrights that “riding the wind” was the secret to birds’ soaring flight. McCullough evidently doesn’t know about thermals or updrafts due to surface features. The Wrights always knew power was necessary for the sustained flight of an airplane.
He relates how their sister Katherine took care of Orville after his crash. However, he says nothing about Orville disowning her for "deserting" him when, after working with him for 18 years, she finally married.
- The Wrights created their wind tunnel and, with it, developed the first correct information. In fact, they were informed about wind tunnels and shown designs for their components and measuring devices by Octave Chanute and his cohorts Ed Huffaker and George Spratt. They subsequently built a tunnel and found that Lilienthal’s data, which he had published 13 years earlier, had been absolutely correct. The Wrights had just applied it to totally inappropriate wing shapes. They admitted all this in a November 24th, 1901 letter to Chanute.
In 2015, documentarian Ken Burns interviewed McCullough on TV. During that hour-long interview:
- McCullough said “Wilbur was unquestionably a genius”. This may be easy to believe when you don’t understand the science or what Wilbur did, and are unaware of how much he got from others.
Both McCullough and Burns had Lilienthal’s and Wrights’ wing cambers completely confused.
In McCullough’s discussion of Wilbur’s and Orville’s personalities and intellectual differences he again had the names mixed up and was somewhat incoherent.
He again said irrelevant things about “riding the wind”.
Burns repeated numerous erroneous things he had read in McCullough’s book.
Again, McCullough discusses Kate, omitting Orville’s disownment of her when she got married.
Ken Burns and David McCullough, 2015
McCullough says the Wrights would never blame others for failures or attack competitors. In fact, they blamed others for their having the wrong concept of center of pressure movements, for having inadequate lift, for Wilbur’s fatal sickness, plus a number of other things. They attacked Henson, Stringfellow, Marriott, and others as having made no contributions to aviation, called Langley’s successful powered unmanned aircraft “toys”, sued many others in aviation, and even used the courts to try to throw foreign aviators out of America. Not long before Chanute’s death they turned on even him, a man without whose help, as we have seen in these earlier critiques, they may well not have been successful.
They occasionally even belligerently blamed each other for things. Wilbur repeatedly berated Orville’s business acumen, and blamed him for inadequate workmanship and packing when the aircraft Orville sent to France arrived damaged from customs inspections. In interviews for Kelly’s book, Orville blamed Wilbur for their incorrect concept of movement of the center of lift on a cambered wing.
The last flight in 1903 by Wilbur was the only trial that they, at that time, claimed had met their 300-foot criteria for a successful flight. However, after Wilbur’s death, Orville claimed he had made the first successful flight by adding the 27 mile per hour, 12-second wind speed distance to his 120-foot estimated ground distance to claim 570 feet “through the air”.
This concludes this series of critique articles. In spite of a fairly cordial discussion over ten years ago with the authors of the Smithsonian books discussed in these articles, there has been no subsequent interest expressed by them, or anyone else in the Smithsonian organization, in resolving any of these issues. On the contrary, recently the Institute proudly placed its name on the cover of Flight – The Complete History of Aviation, a book that repeats some of the most egregious long-standing Smithsonian falsehoods concerning the Wrights’ testing.
Cordial approaches to NOVA and PBS documentary producers have likewise elicited no responses. Apparently these authors and producers also intend to continue to enjoy success and royalties with little regard for the truth, arrogantly expecting it to quietly fade away and leave their reputations, incomes, and integrity intact. They probably think they did a noble thing, aggrandizing the Wrights’ by crediting their accomplishments to amazing inspirations of genius. However, in fact the Smithsonian has dishonored itself and its contributors, the Wrights, and particularly their advisors, by falsifying the story of what many consider the creation of the manned, powered, controlled airplane.
The NOVA producers, along with David McCullough, have provided examples of how the books reviewed in the first four articles of this series have infected aviation history. Even someone as well-intentioned and respected as Ken Burns was duped by McCullough’s interpretation of the Smithsonian fantasy. This author would have welcomed an opportunity to meet with Mr. McCullough and show him original source material, but unfortunately he died before this was published. While I respect his intentions, McCullough’s death does not change history nor the dangers of using Smithsonian books or information as source material.
The author of these articles and The WRight Story remains available to participate in open recorded discussions or debate with Smithsonian personnel, or any others in a position to resolve any of the issues raised in any of these five articles, in order to establish truth in aviation history.
