Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

The first manned flights were likely in 1783. No, that isn't a typo.

The debate between 1901 and 1903 (Whitehead Vs. Wright) is really uninteresting in the grand scheme of overall aviation history, and long before 1901 even members of the public could take a hot air balloon ride (and they were already being used in wars).

All that really happened in the early 1900s is that the weight-power ratio of engines got such that it was just waiting for someone to exploit that advancement. That's the reason why people didn't do it before 1901, not because nobody had invented the concept of a fixed wing aircraft (they had, with gliders) but because engines were simply too heavy for their power output to carry both themselves and a passenger.

PS - Yes, Whitehead/Wright deserve credit, they often had to tweak engines, optimise the design, optimise the propeller, and so on. Just saying that broader technology advancements played a large role which is often ignored.

The importance of either flight wasn't that they achieved flight, it was that they achieved sustained, controlled flight. Whitehead flew with full control authority (3 axis') in 1902 and the Wright Brothers in 1903. Devising a system of control over pitch, roll, and yaw was the real breakthrough for a heavier than air vehicle. Balloons have altitude authority but are otherwise at the mercy of the wind. Various gliders couldn't control altitude without external assistance (thermals, launch height) but they could theoretically control all 3 axis', mostly through shifting weight distribution.

Sustained flight required a significant increase in the size and weight of the aircraft (powerplants are heavy and the lift and control surfaces must be increased to compensate) which meant control through shifting weigh distribution was out. Creating an inherently stable aircraft with control authority was a game changer and a significant challenge that both parties deserve recognition for.

The Wrights didn't "tweak engines", they hired a machinist to build their own engine from scratch, being unable to find an existing one with the requisite power to weight ratio.

The Wrights also had a propeller design that was 90% efficient, compared with the flat design (used on the Langley machine) that was 50% efficient. This was also crucial, because it had the effect of nearly halving the required power.

Power, weight, and efficiency are all critical. There's no way to tell if Whitehead's design would have flown from a replica based on a photo, because those 3 factors cannot be derived from a photo.

The Wrights also did considerable wind tunnel research on air foils until they got the right shape of wing. The exhibit at the Smithsonian taught me a lot, of which I remember only vague bits. It went something like this.

In the 19th C, some airflow work led to a constant, having a value of N; the Wrights used that constant for years, and their craft would not fly.

Eventually, having made every adjustment they could think to make, they began to question some of the expert work upon which they relied.

In the end, they built their own wind tunnel, ran many of the classic 19th C. experiments, and discovered that errors had been made, and that the constant in question had an actual value of 2N (might even have been 10N, it's late, I'm lazy and on my way to bed).

Important work. They were extremely methodical....

Quite right. Consider also the design of the wings of the Wright Flyer. This was a design deduced from principles. The Whitehead design is copied from birds, indicating a lack of understanding how wings worked. Look at the size of Whitehead's wings. They're just too small, compared with that of the Flyer. The Wrights calculated the necessary wing size, and it was barely enough.

Do you believe those small and inefficiently shaped Whitehead wings would fly with the likely engine power he had? I don't. The replicas probably had far more powerful engines - you can make anything fly given enough power.

Maybe Whitehead's machine did fly - down a sufficiently steep hillside. I don't think that counts as flying under its own power, though.

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