Yet, neither correspondent addresses, with anything stronger than a shrug, the fundamental point that this picture might well show, not the Mk I Flyer in December, 1903, but the modified (two-seat) Mk III Flyer in May, 1908. Nor do they acknowledge contradictory testimony from the Wrights which compounds the uncertainty. Below, therefore, is a broader view of events, and a plea for traditional historians of the Wrights to "grasp the nettle" and declare their own view of what this picture really shows. If you have not already done so, we recommend you read Bullmer's analysis first.*
COMMENT: Unknown----I offer a different opinion: It does not matter if the propellers are turning, or not. The apparently stopped prop was, merely, one of the factors alerting the observant expert (Joe Bullmer) to the fact that several things do not seem right about this photo.
However, the propellers are a red herring. The airplane is pictured on the ground and going nowhere; it has finished flying (for ever!) and the elevator is broken off by a heavy landing. We have been told that at first-hand by Orville Wright; and seen a close-up picture of the crash site taken by Orville himself. The latter can be viewed on the Smithsonian Institute website at https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/wright-brothers-1903-flyer-damaged-photograph
The intention of the investigation described below is to determine the height of the aircraft above the local surface at the moment when the long-view photograph (analysed by Joe) was taken.
As explained in a previous blog post, ‘Kitty Hawk – A New Perspective’ a line drawn between the eye (or camera lens) and the horizon bisects all objects it touches at the same height as is the eye/lens, providing the ground is level. (That, it was. Refer, for example, to Orville Wright in How We Invented the Airplane: “These flights started from a point about 100 feet to the west of our camp. The ground was perfectly level for a mile or two in every direction, excepting those towards the big and the smaller Kill Devil Hills.)
As earlier demonstrated on this blog, the Wright camera tripod was of 4 foot height, and the distance from the camera base to the center of the lens was a further 3 inches or so.
Fig 1. Annotated
photograph of the Flyer against the horizon
In the far distance of the photograph are sand dunes. Were they not to be there, the natural horizon would be slightly above the base of the dune, but below its crest. The natural horizon is marked X-X on the annotated photograph. Line X-X passes through all things 4 ft 3 ins above the surface of level ground, whether they be near or far.
Turning now to the airplane, the Flyer exhibit in the Smithsonian has a gap between the wings of 6 ft 2 in. From this, it can be deduced that the line X-X passes about 9 inches below the propeller axis. Highly accurate drawings by Herb Kelley, available at https://silodrome.com/1903-wright-flyer-blueprints-free-download/ show that the vertical distance from the propeller axis to the underside of the landing skids is a fraction of an inch over 5 ft.
Fig 2. Part of Herb
Kelley’s Flyer three-view drawing. The circled measurement is 5 ft 1/8
in
In summary, therefore, the indicators determining that the Flyer is at rest are as follows:
3. If both props are turning, Joe’s analysis does not “fall apart” (as is claimed) at all. Even if both are whizzing round at full speed, the Flyer is stuck on the ground with a broken elevator and can’t take off to extend its flight because of the drag of the skids on the sandy surface; it needs a special launch rail before it can fly any farther. And Orville didn’t claim that the airplane got any farther than where it is shown in the picture; indeed, he took another picture to show why it couldn’t.
We are being deliberately sidetracked into a side-show debate on whether, or not, some ill-defined, mysterious, trick of the light has confused the camera shutter. What the aviation historians of the world — starting with those in the Smithsonian — need to be resolving right now is what airplane we are looking at, and in which (1903 or 1908) year.
There is an alternative explanation for the apparent perspective of the airplane vis-à-vis the ground if the Wrights’ description of the event photographed (852 feet on 12-17-1903) is taken as Gospel. It would be most interesting if somebody would like to posit it.
— Paul Jackson FRAeS, former Editor-in-Chief, Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft (1995-2019)
* The Wrights' Fourth Flight - Mensuration" - Joe Bullmer
5 comments:
Hey you have amazing post keep up doing good work
RH:
While I find this analysis very intriguing, and well worth dwelling upon, I can't help noticing some POSSIBLE loopholes in the argument. I must confess I have not read the foregoing posts in which you believe you established certain facts alluded to in this post, so my following remarks may have quite unfairly overlooked something very explanatory that you have previously posted on this issue. My concerns:
1.) Am not clear how you arrived at the assumption of the location of the horizon. How could you be certain that the exact height of the Wright camera tripod (PLUS the distance from the top of the tripod/bottom of the camera, to the centerline of the camera lens), was EXACTLY 4'3"?
2.) How can you be sure that the camera was pointed exactly horizontally, not upwards nor downwards, and depicting a level (perfectly horizontal) surface, rather than a descending or ascending slope?
3.) The image certainly APPEARS to me to show the shadow of the aircraft beneath and behind it (though, admittedly, the width of the "shadow" is greater than the width of the aircraft -- more than can easily be attributed to diffusion, especially given the sharpness of the "shadow" that appears near the left wingtip.)
4.) The wings APPEAR to be at about a decent angle for flight, given my observations of modern aircraft with remotely comparable wing cross-sections (e.g.: on "ultralight" aircraft, with ordinary single-surface wings.
To support your thesis, from the photo, I must concede, however, that:
a.)
I don't see the three dark patches as indicating the original Wright Flyer's two vertical tails and an engine or person (or both). Looks more like three guys in black outfits, standing on the center section of the lower wing (Note their light spots near the top, which could indicate white-men's faces (down-sun/shadow-side), topped by dark hats. More importantly, note their (apparent) shadows descending from them at angle -- comparable to what would be the case if they were standing on a wing, and the light was on the other side of them, and somewhat to the (camera's) left,
b.)
Assuming the shutter was instantanous for all blades of both propellers (which, as any aviation photographer knows, is generally unrealistic), both the right and left props should be equally visible, or invisible. Yet in the photo, the LEFT prop is visible, but the RIGHT prop does not seem (to me) to be visible. Could it be broken? removed?
It could NOT be that the two props are at different speeds, because the asymmetric thrust would almost certainly, instantly, render the craft uncontrollable.
Admittedly, varying shutter position variation during cycling -- and differing prop angles -- MIGHT cause only one to be visible (especially when both are turning). But doesn't seem highly likely, given how slow the Wright props supposedly were.
c.)
There is the question of why the prop on the right appears to be stationary -- while other photos of "flights" show the props somewhat motion-blurred, as I seem to recall.
Anyway, just some initlal thoughts. I leave to your experts to make of it what they, with better knowledge, can.
Respectfully,
Richard Harris
aviation instructor/consultant/writer/historian
http://harris1.net
Fourth Flight, response to Richard Harris’ comments, by Paul Jackson
Mr Harris,
Thank you for taking the time and effort to read through the photo analysis and record your observations. You are right in supposing that I have taken certain facts for granted or, more to the point, explained them in detail elsewhere on this blog some time ago. That’s another way of persuading to read more of the older posts, but please get back to me if anything still is not clear.
Your points in more detail:
1. Height of the camera tripod. On several pictures taken by the Brothers in 1903, with the Flyer on level ground, the horizon cuts across the airplane at a point (determined from a three-view drawing of the machine in the Smithsonian) 4 ft 3 in off the ground. If they had used a modern SLR, which is held at eye height, the horizon would have bisected the airplane at about 5 ft 6 in. The principles of perspective are explained at length in this blog for November 2017: Kitty Hawk – A New Perspective. Essentially, though, on level ground, all points at eye (camera) height lie on the horizon, no matter how near or far they are.
2. Was the camera held horizontally? If the question is considered for a few moments, you will realize it does not matter. If the camera were on its side, the horizon would be vertical and so would the airplane’s wings — still in the same relative positions as in the level picture. The same if the camera were just a little tilted. If the camera were tipped slightly up or down, you would see a lot of ground and not much sky, or a lot of sky and not much ground . . . but the airplane and horizon would still be in the same position compared to each other. These laws of perspective are so hidden from our consciousness that we don’t realize they are all around us, and unyielding in their application. Except if you are viewing a Picasso painting, when you find out what life would look like if the laws of perspective were negotiable.
3. Picture appearing to show the shadow of the airplane. I believe the dark patch is not a shadow, but an area of short vegetation or a patch of differently coloured (damp, perhaps) ground. But, just for fun, let’s pursue this theme further, in two parts:
(A) Assuming the Flyer is not quite touching the ground. The take-off was a few degrees east of northwards (as confirmed by many sources, including the Wrights, and the marker stones in the current Kitty Hawk national park). So, the camera is looking north; the shadow is between the camera and the airplane; therefore, in North Carolina the sun shines from the north. Now, that’s what I call a real ‘conspiracy theory’. Also, the Wrights say the fourth flight started at “just 12 o’clock”, meaning the sun was exactly south. So, option A is impossible anywhere in the Earth’s northern hemisphere.
(B) Assuming the Flyer is a good height above the ground. Here, the airplane is high enough for us to look underneath it and observe the full shadow ahead (north side) of it. Sight of the full shadow would require the airplane to be at quite a height, because at Noon in Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903 the sun was only 31° above the horizon, thereby casting a shadow far ahead of the Flyer. Let’s call the present height “X feet”, and discount the fact that even Orville wrote on the back of the picture that it was on the ground. The problem here is that the horizon still bisects the Flyer 4 ft 3 in above the underside of its skids. Remembering our perspective lesson, we know that this juxtaposition can only happen with a flying airplane if the ground under the camera tripod is also the identical X feet higher than we thought it was.
Continued below
Paul Jackson response to Richard Harris continued--
But the tripod is standing on the same piece of ground as the starting end of the launch rail. So the airplane started its take-off run X feet higher than the ground over which it is now flying—and on which it will shortly land. Ergo: here is photographic proof that the Flyer took off downhill, thereby totally invalidating the claim of a “from the level” launch. Photographic proof that the Wrights falsified their claim to “first flight” unassisted by gravity. Refer again to the November 2017 post for how this applies in our debunking of the world-famous “First Flight” picture.
Seriously, I don’t make that claim for this picture (but I do for others), because all the indications are that it shows not the 1903 Flyer in December 1903, but something else entirely—probably the modified 1905 Flyer in April 1908. Unfortunately, we shall have to go through this pantomime every time until the Smithsonian and its cohorts come out and admit that this picture does not show the fourth flight of December 17, 1903.
4. I am not quite sure what is meant by the wings being at a “decent angle for flight”. However, comparisons with the single-surface wings of some ultralights are invalid, because the Flyer’s wings were two-surface.
Moving on to your supporting points, item (b): you are not the only one puzzled by one propeller appearing stopped and the other one not equally visible. I can add that there are two types of camera shutter, of which the ‘curtain’ type can give misleading images of fast-moving subjects. That said, the Wright’s camera had a ‘diaphragm’ shutter, which is more faithful in that respect. However, it is possible to state with absolute certainty that whether the starboard propeller is turning at fantastic speed or has, alternatively, fallen off, an airplane in that situation is only a split-second away from a heavy encounter with the ground.
Further to this, I suggest we look closely as possible at the image. The props were chain-driven from a single shaft on the engine, so their positions relative to each other were always fixed (one being a mirror of the other); incidentally, that’s another reason why they could not turn at different speeds. Look at the ‘nick’ in the upper wing’s trailing edge where the tip of the (easily visible) port prop has stopped. There is a mirror blemish on the opposite side wing in exactly the right place. However, there are so many specks of dust on the image that I would not claim this to be irrefutable evidence of the second stopped prop.
Finally, with apologies, I could not resist leaving your point (a) to last. The alternative explanation (to ours of pilot, passenger, and upright engine) is offered for the black blobs as “three guys in black outfits” standing on the lower wing. Fair enough as an opinion . . . but that means either three onlookers made a suicide pact to become the first trio in history to jump up in front of a moving airplane and get mown down; or (I more plausibly suggest), three guys standing around a crash-landed airplane assessing the damage. Either way the fundamental point is unchanged: the airplane has run out of momentum (or very soon will do when it plows into the three suicides) at under 300 feet from launch.
Either the 852-foot claim is a deliberate lie; or Orville hand-wrote his caption on the back of a photograph showing something else — and (i) he never realized and (ii) he threw out the correct picture.
On behalf of Joe Bullmer, who did all the original research, I venture: Q.E.D.
Thank you. Appreciate the comments. Please keep reading this blog. We have much more interesting research to reveal!
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