A Wing, A Prayer, And A Transmission

The basic principles of powered flight have actually been known for several centuries. Figuring out the factors that allow something heavier than air, to get off the ground, does not require an industrial complex to figure out. One merely needs to observe birds which are the ultimate proof that this is both possible and, even more important, not a miracle. Anyone who is familiar with Leonardo Da Vinci will know that the first useful plans for such a device were drawn up in the Renaissance and are not modern, relatively speaking. Yet, until 1901, no one had actually built such a machine that actually worked. The stumbling blocks were two fold, one being the power plant required and the other being materials technology required to make that power plant both strong enough and light enough to be useful. The technology to build and hold together an airframe had been around for centuries at this point but, was rendered useless by the lack of an engine.

Samuel Langley was very aware of these facts and that is why his project had mostly concentrated on producing a power plant that was adequate to the task. Steel technology, ironically pioneered by the British, had reached a point in 1901 where such an engine should be possible. The refinement of crude oil into a usable fuel had also aided in this task.

Strangely enough, Roosevelt had also aided in this quest when he was not even aware of the fact that he had. During the New Mexico campaign, his men had captured one of Astin Greene’s trucks and the vehicle was quickly shown to many industrialists in the US, who were floored by many of it’s innovations. The compression ratio’s and the metallurgy (which was mostly a Mexican innovation) were far higher than any comparable engines in the US. The one innovation that was entirely Greene’s was not really the engine but, the transmission of the energy it harnessed to the source of locomotion. You have to remember that this was at a time when most motorcars were still using bicycle chains to transfer energy from the engine to the wheels.

Chains, no matter how well made, can only be so strong due to the simple nature of what they are. If you put too much stress on one then it will break. That is generally not a problem when the source of power are human legs but, gas engines were now at the point of being too strong for them. Greene’s solution to the problem was to use a set of encased gears that could be shifted when required. This new transmission system both shocked and thrilled US engineers. Because of this, the blue prints for this system quickly made their way to Langley, in Wichita. Ironically, despite these plans later being useful, it would be the reason Langley would make no progress for some time.

Langley’s obsession with the power requirements would lead him down a dead end path because, he was ignoring several other fundamentals, all of which would prove to be far more important. No one dared point any of this out because, so far, the only design that had any success at all was Langley’s. His team had managed to get a glider fifteen feet off the ground, for a forty five second flight, across his test field. That should have been good news only, they were unable to repeat the test and, no one ever figured out why it worked. Modern theories suggest that the most likely reason was that a natural updraft had occurred on that day, and that it gave the vehicle a little extra needed lift. Despite the failure to repeat the exercise, it only encouraged Langley to continue down the same path.

The Wright Brothers had different ideas that Langley did not agree with. They considered the most important element to be the wing and thought that more conventional power plants were adequate enough to do the job, at least, that is if you had the right wing design. You see, powered flight is all based on a simple physical principle. Air rushes over and under the wing, as it moves. The wing causes the upper air flow to take a ‘detour’ and because it wants to reach the back of the wing at the same time as the lower flow, it moves faster. This creates a low pressure center above the aircraft and then the heavier air concentrations, beneath it, push the vehicle upwards. This was not disputed by anyone, at the time, but how to achieve it was. The vehicle requires a certain amount of speed, to do this, and this is why Langley thought the engine was important while the Wright’s believed a more efficient wing design was the answer.

It was not that Langley ignored the wing but, his methods for testing these designs were less than ideal. Langley was a model maker and his wing tests were all based on any number of small gliders that he had built and were thrown into the air by a human hand. Langley obviously thought this was enough but, it did not give you adequate enough data on full sized wings because the larger you made one, the more drag you created and almost at an exponential rate. Drag rates are basically the non aerodynamic characteristics of any aircraft that disrupt the airflow, over the surface, hence reducing the efficiency of lift. Given the material that early aircraft were working with, the drag was significant and, indeed, most of the advances in the early aircraft industry were figuring out how to reduce it.

The Wrights had taken a different approach and long before their involvement with the US government. Their bicycle shop had aided them in the building of a genuine wind tunnel. Their main business meant that they had the parts, the space, and the machine tools required to build a descent apparatus where they could test full sized wings. Once they had access to government funding, resources, and access to Langley’s notes, it did not take them long to find a wing design that they thought would work. The biggest problem was actually getting Langley to agree to test it. It would take their sister Kitty, appealing to their army advisors, to appeal to the President, to get that test. When Roosevelt was updated on their progress he wasted no time sending a telegram to Langley, ordering him to do so.

By the Fourth of July, 1901, a prototype had been built. It was a double decked bi wing aircraft that was flown by Wilbur while laying on his belly. On that day he would fly it some four feet in the air, for over a minute, from one side of Langley’s test field to the other. In the coming week it would make two more flights that both got higher and longer in duration. It’s third flight was it’s last and, oddly enough, because of it’s success and not it’s failure. They had yet to develop a real means of control and the aircraft could not really turn. Wilbur, who enthusiastically wished to push the machine to the limits, flew it right into some trees on the far side of the field. He was only lightly injured but, the prototype was completely wrecked and would never fly again.

This did not really matter since, after the second flight, they were already building a second and third prototype of different designs. They were also, already, working on the third and crucial factor in powered flight, that of controlling the X, Y, and Z axis of their aircraft. Here, the work of Chanute would be crucial. Since Chanute had almost no success with either wings or engines, he had been concentrating on a system of control surfaces. Langley had the plans for all of them by this point and now they only needed to incorporate them into the new designs. Langley would also get his own ideas involved. The first aircraft had used two very simple, light weight, and less than powerful engines. Langley was sure that he could do better and, with the new captured Confederate engine, his people were certain that they could adapt the innovations to a truly dedicated power plant made exclusively for flight. If you will pardon the pun, the US aircraft industry was about to take off.