Failure™ Magazine

Get Your Wings

On the centennial of first flight, rediscover the remarkable achievements of the Wright Brothers.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History, Science & Technology

Except for hunting and fishing Wilbur and Orville had little time for distractions, as they were almost entirely focused on experiments. Only unfavorable weather or one of the area’s periodic mosquito infestations could keep them from working. During one stay at Kitty Hawk Orville wrote his sister Katharine: “A swarm of mosquitoes came in a mighty cloud, almost darkening the sun. This was the beginning of the most miserable experience I ever passed through. They chewed clear through our underwear and socks. Lumps began swelling up all over my body like hen’s eggs.”

Nevertheless, the brothers came to love the Outer Banks, marveling at the beautiful sunsets and hospitality of the people who lived there. For their part, the residents of Kitty Hawk viewed Wilbur and Orville as oddities. “The locals felt that they were kind of crazy, wasting their time and money trying to build a flying machine,” conveys Collins.

In September of 1900, the Wright Brothers arrived at Kitty Hawk for the first time. After building a temporary shelter, they constructed a 17-foot glider, which they tethered to the ground and flew like a kite, figuring that it was the safest way to practice and experiment. They were so conservative that Wilbur spent a mere 10 seconds aloft in free flight during the six weeks they stayed at Kitty Hawk that autumn. Aside from needing time to assess the behavior of their first glider, the Wrights had a practical reason for returning to Dayton; they feared the Wright Cycle Company’s business might suffer in their absence.

Lift Off
In the summer of 1901, the Wrights resumed their gliding experiments at Kitty Hawk, but the experience was disappointing. “For one thing, they came at a time when it rained for almost two-and-a-half weeks,“ says Collins. “With all the standing water the mosquitoes started to hatch out.”

Even more discouraging was the performance of their latest glider, which had a wingspan of 22 feet. The new craft pitched wildly and only produced about one-third of the lift they expected. “Those two problems overwhelmed the Wright Brothers to the point where they only stayed a short time,” notes Collins. “On the way back home they were going to give up. They felt they had blown all this money and had nothing to show for it.”

After a period of contemplation, the Wrights re-evaluated the glider, which they had designed using the accepted formula for lift:

Lift (weight to be lifted) = Lift coefficient x Smeaton’s coefficient x Surface area x Velocity (squared)

The formula relied on a table of air pressures devised by the aforementioned Lilienthal (lift coefficient), as well as Smeaton’s coefficient (for air pressure, named after British engineer John Smeaton), an established value that had been in use for 150 years.

However, their gliders flew so poorly that the Wrights began to question Lilienthal’s calculations and the accuracy of Smeaton’s coefficient. As a result, they built a wind tunnel to test Lilienthal’s tables and soon discovered that there was a serious flaw in the numbers being used for the lift formula. Aside from creating their own table of air pressures they also surmised that the value of Smeaton’s coefficient (.005) was too high, concluding that it should be .0033. “It was almost like throwing away the Bible,” says Collins.

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