The Wright Brothers Conquered the Skies with Data • Hacker News Board

Re: The Wright Brothers Conquered the Skies with Data

#21

Post by sytelus » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

Fixing Smeaton’s constant was only small part of the puzzle. They discovered in wind tunnel that certain shapes produces almost 3X better lift to drag. They tried out 150 shapes varying one variable at a time to find optimal shape and angle of attack [1]. Another big problem was 3 axis control system and designing propellers that can generate enough thrust. Before Wrights, propellers were used in ships but no one really understood how the worked and their design was largely “cut and try”. Wrights needed to produce enough thrust to lift whole machine with just ~10HP engine. They literally invented theory of propellers as wings and deviced equations to compute thrust. They also designed mechanism to transfer power from engine to propellers and the fact that they need two propellers rotating in opposite directions [2].

[1] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eb92/1d44112fbdd04532f56cb2...

[2] http://www.wrightexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/161...

Re: The Wright Brothers Conquered the Skies with Data

#22

Post by AceyMan » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

ereyes01 wrote: post #6

Isamu wrote: post #4

>They did several things differently, from doing their own research to building wind tunnels to validate their data and eliminate guesswork. >Sometimes the non-glamorous lab work is absolutely crucial to the success of a project. - Wilbur Wright >Since the 18th century, engineers had been using Smeaton’s coefficient to calculate the density of air. After running over 50 simulations using their wind tunnels, the broth…

Yes, it enabled them to not only fail fast, but to fail and live to tell the tale! Much talent and knowledge was lost in the people that died trying to fly before them. It's also amazing to read about the many pilots who died trying to cross the Atlantic before Charles Lindbergh did it. The journey nearly cost him his life as well, and it took some time before such flights were safe enough to routinely attempt. Early…

> Early aviators had some serious guts.

Here, here!

On this note, I must recommend Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann. It's a terrifying and honest account of his experiences in the early days of commercial aviation (Gann's narrative starts in the '30s).

Wikipedia citation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_Is_the_Hunter

Re: The Wright Brothers Conquered the Skies with Data

#23

Post by AceyMan » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #5

The real key is advancement in metallurgy and engine technology made a lightweight engine feasible. The correct formula might have taken a couple years off the time frame, but no more. As always you see farther than others by standing on the shoulders of giants.

As I understand it, the biggest innovation the Wright Brothers brought to the goal of powered flight was the understanding that the biggest hurdle was not propulsion but control.

In a nutshell, most others of the era (not counting Santos-Dumont!) were striving to get more power with an assumption that once aloft with sufficient power that flight would "just 'happen."

Meanwhile, the Wrights knew more power was coming, and instead focused on the more important truth that if the operator couldn't control the ship it didn't matter at all how much power was available, how much lift was generated or how efficient the propeller was.

To this day the three-axis controls they settled on are fundamental to all conventional aircraft. (Though the weird "twisting wing" solution for roll control couldn't scale and so the aileron mechanism was a huge improvement.)

Re: The Wright Brothers Conquered the Skies with Data

#24

Post by bluGill » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 12:27 PM UTC

AceyMan wrote: post #23

bluGill wrote: post #5

The real key is advancement in metallurgy and engine technology made a lightweight engine feasible. The correct formula might have taken a couple years off the time frame, but no more. As always you see farther than others by standing on the shoulders of giants.

As I understand it, the biggest innovation the Wright Brothers brought to the goal of powered flight was the understanding that the biggest hurdle was not propulsion but control. In a nutshell, most others of the era (not counting Santos-Dumont!) were striving to get more power with an assumption that once aloft with sufficient power that flight would "just 'happen." Meanwhile, the Wrights knew more power was coming,…

Correct, control was their innovation. However control without enough power isn't useful. It is possible (albeit very unlikely) someone in the 1300s was able to build a controllable glider much like the wright brother's but lacking any means of propulsion it would be impractical and forgotten to history.

I'm not discounting their innovation, just stating that it depending on propulsion. Once propulsion was there it was inevitable that someone would figure out control in a few years when they realized more power wasn't enough.