The Wrong Wright Story Series #5: Flying Machines on Film

The Wrong Wright Story Series #5:  

Flying Machines on Film 

By Joe Bullmer 

This is the 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.

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.

Dr. Tom Crouch, PhD
Wright State University, Dayton, OH

 

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. This is a particularly ironic way to begin the documentary since the Wrights had no idea that this is 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.  

A Lilienthal glider replica. Note the wing shape.

From NOVA

 

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 both his book -- which the Wrights obtained in 1899 --and 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 "fundamental riddle" was solved 18 years earlier in a paper Sydney Hollands presented to the British Aeronautical Society describing how propellers should be made up of cambered sections and twisted to account for the airspeeds of the sections along the spinning blades. Hollands also showed that the blades chord or width should be tapered down toward the tips, a now-common practice which the Wrights neglected, but which has been used ever since. Chanute also covered all this in his book that the Wrights had obtained four years before beginning work on a powered vehicle. (This can be seen on page 162 of Lorenz and Herweg's 1976 edition of Chanute's book.)

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. 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.

Constructing the replica

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.

The Model B replica lifting off

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. 

The crashed replica

 

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.

Ken Burns and David McCullough

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.

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”.


Summary

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.

-- Joe Bullmer

The Wrong Wright Story Series #2 - Visions of a Flying Machine (Part I)

The Wrong Wright Story Series #2

Peter Jakab's Visions of a Flying Machine (Part I)

By Joe Bullmer

Left: Peter L. Jakab of the Smithsonian Institution; Right: Jakab's book Visions of a Flying Machine

Introduction to the Wrong Wright Story series:

This is the second in a series of critical reviews of four books and a television documentary about the Wright brothers’ creation of an airplane. The books include a biography authorized by Orville Wright, and three more by senior officials of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. This article refers to the paperback reissue of Visions ofa Flying Machine by Associate Director Peter Jakab, published in 1990 by the Smithsonian Press, ISBN 1-56098-748-0.

These books were chosen because they have been used as source material for dozens of other publications containing discussions of the Wright brothers’ work and accomplishments. The NOVA documentary Wright Brothers' Flying Machineis perhaps the most prominent of approximately a dozen produced since 2003 portraying the invention of the airplane.

These five accounts all contain numerous fabrications and false statements that contradict the Wright brothers’ original records, the records of other aviation researchers who preceded the Wrights, and even aviation science. Unfortunately, other authors have relied on these books as bases from which to launch into discussions of the Wrights’ work. As a result, nearly every source of information on the Wright brothers’ work is contaminated with some of these same falsehoods and errors.

This series of articles represents an attempt by this author to establish “truthinaviationhistory” concerning the work of the Wright brothers. With this goal in mind, any technically qualified rebuttal to these critiques, or criticism of The WRight Story, would be welcomed.

Visions of a Flying Machine: Overview

It may seem unlikely that a book with such an extensive list of contributors in its Acknowledgements section as Visions would contain so many errors. However, only three contributors are credited with technical qualifications. One of these made similar errors in his books, which subsequent articles in this series will reveal. The others have published only limited writings on the Wright brothers, indicating only limited research.

A couple years of researching thousands of pages of original records of the Wrights and their predecessors resulted in my publishing a book in 2009 titled The WRight Story. Reliable primary and secondary sources were consulted for historical events preceding the Wrights and those after 1905. However, only original Wright material was consulted for all descriptions of their work resulting in a successful airplane by October of 1905. Surviving authors and producers of the works discussed in these reviews were contacted in an effort to discuss and resolve differences, but none have expressed interest in pursuing a dialogue.

A first reading of the book being discussed in this article revealed over 160 exaggerations or errors. Just addressing the 43 listed here precluded citing complete sources for each comment. However, eliminating more would be an injustice to portraying the nature of the book.

Chapter 1: "Why Wilbur and Orville?"

Page 15: The author claims “The majority of the critical elements in the airplane were original to the Wrights.” Actually, Wilbur admitted that the truss biplane structure was copied from the Chanute/Herring glider, their successful post-1902 wing camber and aspect ratios were essentially those used by numerous predecessors, and wing warping had already been used and patented by at least three experimenters. Cambered twisted propellers had also been recommended by a few predecessors, and even the forward elevator was a feature of Maxim’s 1894 machine. The only feature “original to the Wrights”, opposable wing warping with a mechanically coordinated rudder, had to be abandoned by them in 1905 in order to make turns.

The Chanute/Herring glider

Page 16: Here he repeats, writing that “Much of what the Wrights accomplished was highly original.” These comments are the first examples of the author's frequent contradictions, since page 217 says that “with the exception of the propellers, there was nothing fundamentally original about the way in which (sic) 1903 machine was designed”. In a sort of double reverse, the next paragraph on 217 says “they invented a fundamentally new technology.”

Chapter 2: "Aeronautics before the Airplane"

Page 33: The author claims that “Using [Otto Lilienthal’s] data and tables, an experimenter could easily calculate the size wing required to support a given weight at a particular velocity.” Then on pages 143 to 149 he talks about how bad he thinks Lilienthal’s data was. This is another unresolved contradiction in the book.

Chapter 3: "'You Must Mount a Machine'"

Page 46: The author writes, “[Lilienthal] failed to see that [weight shifting] was a dead end as far as a large, powered aircraft was concerned.” Actually Lilienthal did not “fail to see that.” On page 284 of the current edition of his book Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation, Lilienthal pointed out that although wings twice as big would be more optimum for gliding, he felt he couldn’t safely handle gliders larger than about 160 square feet with just weight shifting. In the 1896 edition of James Means’ TheAeronautical Annual, Lilienthal reported that he was well aware aerodynamic methods would be necessary to control larger aircraft. In fact, he was collaborating with other German experimenters on the design of such controls and had begun experimenting with them. Some claim it was actually a failure of one of these devices, rather than a piloting mistake, that resulted in his fatal crash.

Left: Lilienthal's Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation; Right: Chanute's Progress in Flying Machines.

Page 48: Here the Wrights are given credit for being the first to realize that control was the most important problem to solve. But in his 1894 book Progress in Flying Machines, the Wrights’ principal research source, Chanute stated that experimenters should direct their attention to gliding or “soaring” flight, and that the “maintenance of equilibrium….was by far the most important aspect of flight yet to be solved”. Nonetheless, in the book under discussion, this author goes on to say that “The Wrights’ recognition of the centrality of control…was…the premier conceptual leap that set them apart from their predecessors and their contemporaries.” He apparently has no idea that they read it in Octave Chanute’s book.

In the next paragraph, Alphonse Penaud is given credit for developing dihedral for roll stability during the 1870s. Yet again a lack of research is evident. Sir George Cayley invented dihedral and reported on it in the November, 1809 issue of Nicholson’s Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts.

Page 49: The careless claim is made that “proponents of inherent stability gave no thought whatsoever to controlling or steering their machines.” adding “Many reasoned that if simple straight-line flight was achieved, control could be easily dealt with later.” This completely misses the fact that that is precisely the approach the Wright brothers took, concentrating solely on achieving straight line flight until 1904, then beginning attempts at maneuvering and turning, finally accomplishing these by October, 1905. They stated this many times, even in their patent, wherein on page three, lines 78 to 87, they explained that their moveable coordinated rudder was invented to maintain straight and level flight.

Page 50: In the second paragraph a severe lack of knowledge of aircraft design is exhibited by the author. He states “The Wrights were the first to see that control was [for airplanes] the very essence of maintaining equilibrium.” Actually, until recently all airplanes have been designed such that, once trimmed, they maintain equilibrium completely by their aerodynamic design without any control movements whatsoever. This was true of airplanes immediately following the Wright Flyers, and is largely what caused the Wrights to eventually totally change their designs not long before going out of business.

Later in the paragraph the author's lack of knowledge is confirmed by saying “…just as a cyclist must make constant control movements to stay on two wheels, the airplane pilot must exercise similar authority over his craft to stay in the air.” Anyone who has ever flown in an airplane, or even seen a film of a pilot flying one, should know this is not true. Even more astounding is the number of “aviation historians” that have confidently parroted these absurd statements in their books and TV appearances.

Page 51: The Wrights’ experience of riding bicycles is given credit for the idea of banking an airplane in order to turn. This is another fallacy that has been picked up by countless authors and “aviation historians.” It’s quite likely that some cavemen, over 100,000 years ago, noticed that birds always bank when they turn.

Page 58: Here and on the next page indecision is expressed as to whether or not the Wrights copied the trussed biplane design of the Chanute/Herring glider of 1896. Again, lack of research glares out. The Wrights both said they did! In a December 21^st, 1909 letter Wilbur wrote, “We have repeatedly acknowledged our indebtedness to the Chanute double-decker for our ideas regarding the best way of obtaining the strongest and lightest sustaining surfaces [wings].” Explaining their design in his sworn deposition for the 1920 Montgomery case, Orville testified that “it was apparent that the wings of a Chanute double-deck type [of glider] could be warped.”

Octave Chanute and his 1896 "double-decker" (as the Wrights called it)

Chapter 4: "Learning the Art of Airplane Design"

In this chapter, the book’s author, a history and arts major, attempts to explain key aerodynamic and stability and control aspects of aircraft design. Only major errors are discussed here. There are many others.

Page 65: At the bottom of the page he writes, “Although the record shows little specific discussion of these issues by the Wrights before 1901, it is clear….that they had at least a basic understanding of the reversal of the center of pressure before building their first full-size machine.” (Although he cites two references in the Notes section of his book for this statement, examination of the references reveals no justification for such a statement.)

On the next page he reverts to his favorite theme of Wright perfection, saying “Just as their initial instincts…regarding control moved them well ahead of their contemporaries, so too did their beginning assumptions concerning aerodynamics.”

Actually, both brothers recorded statements directly admitting that their canards (forward elevators) were the result of their erroneous concept of the movement of the center of pressure on a wing. During his speech in Chicago in 1901 Wilbur stated, “Our peculiar plan of control by forward surfaces instead of tails was based on the assumption that the center of pressure would continue to move farther and farther forward as the angle [of attack] became less”, an assumption that proved to be false. In his legal deposition of 1920, Orville recalled their perplexity thus: “Our elevator was placed in front of the surfaces [wings] 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.”

The author admits that he couldn’t find much about the Wrights’ knowledge of center of pressure movements before 1901. The reason is that they didn’t know how it moved until the summer of 1901 when Chanute’s cohorts Edward Huffaker and Dr. George Spratt demonstrated it to them through wing balance tests at Kitty Hawk. Wright statements reveal that the reversal of movement of the center of pressure came as quite a surprise to them. Evidently they had only seen data on flat surfaces and neglected to check cambered ones.

                         Visitors to Kitty Hawk. l to r: Huffaker, Chanute, Wilbur Wright, and Spratt.

This is a good spot to address the constantly repeated claims throughout the book that the Wright’s “intuition” or “instinct” about aerodynamics enabled them to “visualize” air flow correctly in their minds without actually seeing it. This ability is credited for their development of their 1900 and 1901 wing shapes which he repeatedly claims were very good. He later contradicts these statements by blaming Otto Lilienthal’s data for these two vehicles having totally inadequate lift.

In fact, these vehicles could barely fly, and the Wrights’ wind tunnel showed them they had to change wing camber and aspect ratio to something very similar to Lilienthal’s (and numerous other predecessors) which solved their lifting problems. In a November 24^th, 1901 (i can't find this letter) letter to Octave Chanute, Wilbur admitted that “It is very evident that a table based on one aspect [ratio] and [wing section] profile is worthless for a surface of different aspect and curvature. This no doubt explains why we have had so much trouble figuring all our machines from Lilienthal’s table.”

Other examples of the Wrights’ “instinct” for aerodynamics failing them, but not noted in this book, were not seeing

• How cambered wings generate lift.
• That an airplane needs tails to be easily controllable.
• How wing warping would work in free flight.
• That a fixed vertical tail wouldn't stop their warp-induced spins.
• That stability and insensitivity to crosswinds were opposing goals.

Page 66: We are informed that when the center of pressure and center of gravity coincide, an airplane is at equilibrium. Instantaneously, yes. But practically, equilibrium implies stability at that point, i.e., the airplane should want to stay there. That requirement is something that eluded the Wrights, and evidently also the author of the book being discussed.

Page 67: Here he states that Horatio F. Phillips’ 1884 airfoil shapes set the precedent for the Wrights’ early airfoils. One can only conclude that he has never seen Phillips’ airfoils because some of them look quite modern, and all had maximum cambers at least a third of the way back, as opposed to those of the Wrights in which maximum camber was located immediately behind the leading edges.

Horatio F. Phillips' patented airfoil shapes

The author goes on to incorrectly discuss camber as if it was only “the [maximum] depth of the curvature” as opposed to the entire curvature of the wing from leading to trailing edges, including the critical location of maximum camber.

Page 68: Again, reality is contradicted here by saying that the Wrights’ early wings, with maximum camber right behind the leading edges were a “marked improvement in aerodynamic efficiency over the….wing used by Lilienthal and others” and “it also provided much more lift than the wings used by contemporary glider experimenters.” (Here again a source in his Notes section of the book is referenced that has nothing to do with his claim.) Contradicting this on pages 154 and 155 the author admits that their 1900 and 1901 wings were terrible and the wind tunnel showed that they had to move maximum camber much farther back and increase aspect ratio (more than doubling it to Lilienthal’s value) to obtain reasonable lift for their 1902 glider.

Page 69: He attempts to explain the “Penaud” method of achieving longitudinal stability but gets it exactly backwards by saying Penaud set his horizontal tails at a positive angle of attack. His explanation of how this would work is incoherent since it can’t work. In fact, Penaud set them at negative angles of attack to balance out the centers of gravity which were placed ahead of the centers of lift to achieve dynamic stability. With this, if the aircraft pitched nose up, Penaud’s negative tails would have a less negative angle to the wind and push down less, allowing the forward center of gravity to pull the nose back down. If the aircraft was pitched nose down, the tails would have a more negative angle, push down harder, and bring the nose of the vehicle back up.

                     Penaud's "aeronautical machines:" helicopter, planophore, and ornithopter.

And by the way, this author, like most all others, erroneously credits Penaud with originating this method of achieving stability. Sir George Cayley reported on using it for his unmanned gliders in Nicholson’s Journal in 1809.

Later on this page the author reveals the falseness of his assertion on page 65 that the Wrights knew about the reversal of movement of the center of lift (pressure) when they started. He says here that they “designed their forward rudder [canard] as if they were dealing with a wing having the properties of a flat plate,” i.e., no reversal of travel of the center of lift with angle of attack.

Page 70: Here he says “the Wrights’ scheme of a moveable elevator to keep pace with a constantly roving center of pressure was fundamentally sound, and it has been the method for pitch control on virtually every airplane since.” Yet again ignorance of aircraft design, and even flying, is revealed by not knowing that airplanes, once the horizontal stabilizer is trimmed out, do not need any help from an elevator to maintain longitudinal balance. A proper understanding of the “Penaud” technique would have revealed why.

Page 71: The author states that a canard stalls before the main wings because of its smaller size and thus avoids stalling of the wings which he implies is a stabilizing effect. Thus, two mistakes for the price of one. First, nothing stalls because of its size. It would stall first because of lack of camber or higher angle of attack, but not because it was smaller. Also, their canard is what made the airplane unstable and caused it to depart from level flight in the first place. It was therefore destabilizing.

Page 75: It’s asserted here that the Wrights didn’t put a vertical tail on their gliders for the first couple years because “it would complicate matters unnecessarily.” No, they didn’t think one was necessary because they were only trying to fly straight, and their aerodynamic “instinct” didn’t tell them about wing warping creating asymmetric drag which yawed their airplane. That’s why a rudder was required; to maintain the original heading.

In fact, in his speech in Chicago in 1901 Wilbur erroneously stated that “tails, both vertical and horizontal,..…may with safety be eliminated.” He then proceeded to design their next machines with vertical tails.

Page 78: Here the author explains the lift and drag equations as though lift and drag coefficients are the same for all wing shapes. Actually, until November of 1901 the Wrights thought so too.

Page 81: The bizarre tutorial on aerodynamics and airplane design is wound up by again admiring the Wrights’ supposed ability to mentally visualize aerodynamics, which, as previously noted, was often wrong. 

Summary - Part I:

At this point the first four chapters of the book Visions of a Flying Machine have been discussed. Due to the length of this critique the remainder will be discussed in the second part appearing shortly in truthinaviationhistory. That part of the article will begin the discussion of Chapter 5 with a list of ten seldom noted, but well documented, significant contributions to the Wright effort by Octave Chanute, without which the brothers' achievement of success would have been problematic.