HISTORY OF AVIATION

Following a step by step method, discovering aerodynamic forces then controlling the flight, the Wrights brothers (Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright) built and tested a series of kite and glider designs from 1900 to 1902 before attempting to build a powered design. The gliders worked, but not as well as the Wrights had expected based on the experiments and writings of their 19th century predecessors. Their first glider, launched in 1900, had only about half the lift they anticipated. Their second glider, built the following year, performed even more poorly. Rather than giving up, the Wrights constructed their own wind tunnel and created a number of sophisticated devices to measure lift and drag on the 200 wing designs they tested. As a result, the Wrights corrected earlier mistakes in calculations regarding drag and lift. Their testing and calculating produced a third glider with a larger aspect ratio and true three-axis control. They flew it successfully hundreds of times in 1902, and it performed far better than the previous models. In the end, by establishing their rigorous system of designing, wind-tunnel testing of airfoils and flight testing of full-size prototypes, the Wrights not only built a working aircraft but also helped advance the science of aeronautical engineering.