Wright Flyer

The Wright Flyer (the Kitty Hawk, often retrospectively referred to as Flyer" I or 1903 "Flyer) was the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft. Designed and built by the Wright brothers, they flew it four times on December 17, 1903, near Kill Devil Hills, about south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Today, the airplane is exhibited in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. The U.S. Smithsonian Institution describes the aircraft as "the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard." The flight of the "Wright Flyer" marks the beginning of the "pioneer era" of aviation.
Design and construction.
The "Flyer" was based on the Wrights' experience testing gliders at Kitty Hawk between 1900 and 1902. Their last glider, the 1902 Glider, led directly to the design of the "Wright Flyer".
The Wrights built the aircraft in 1903 using giant spruce wood as their construction material. The wings were designed with a 1-in-20 camber. Since they could not find a suitable automobile engine for the task, they commissioned their employee Charlie Taylor to build a new design from scratch, a lightweight gasoline engine. A sprocket chain drive, borrowing from bicycle technology, powered the twin propellers, which were also made by hand. In order to avoid the risk of torque effects from affecting the aircraft handling, one drive chain was crossed over so that the propellers rotated in opposite directions.
According to Taylor, "They figured on four cylinders and estimated the bore and stroke at four inches. It took me six weeks to make that engine. The completed engine weighed 180 pounds and developed 12 horsepower at 1025 revolutions per minute...The body of the first engine was of cast aluminum, and was bored out on the lathe for independent cylinders. The pistons were cast iron, and these were turned down and grooved for piston rings. The rings were cast iron, too. A one-gallon fuel tank was suspended from a wing strut, and the gasoline fed by gravity down a tube to the engine. The fuel valve was an ordinary gaslight petcock. There was no carburetor as we know it today. The fuel was fed into a shallow chamber in the manifold. No spark plug. The spark was made by opening and closing of two contact points inside the combustion chamber. Dry batteries were used for starting the engine and then we switched onto a magneto bought from the Dayton Electric Company. There was no battery on the plane. Several lengths of speaking tube...were used in the radiator. We blocked-tested the motor before crating it for shipment to Kitty Hawk."
The long propellers were based on airfoil number 9 from their wind tunnel data, which provided the best "gliding angle" for different angles of attack. The propellers were connected to the engine by chains from the Indianapolis Chain Company, with a sprocket gear reduction of 23-to-8. Wilbur had calculated that slower turning blades generated greater thrust, and two of them were better than a single blade turning faster. Made from three laminations of spruce, the tips were covered with duck canvas, and the entire propeller painted with aluminum paint.
On 5 November 1903, the brothers tested their engine on the "Wright Flyer" at Kitty Hawk. However, before they could tune the engine, the propeller hubs came loose. The drive shafts were sent back to Dayton for repair, and returned on 20 November. However, a hairline crack was discovered in one of the propeller shafts. Orville returned to Dayton on 30 November to make new spring steel shafts. On 12 December, the brothers installed the new shafts on the "Wright Flyer" and tested it on their launching rail system that included a wheeled launching dolly. According to Orville, "We had designed our propellers to give thrust at a speed of 330 rev. per minute (about 950 of engine), which we had figured would be the required amount for the machine weighing ." In practice tests however, they were able to achieve propeller rpm of 351, with a thrust of , more than enough for their flyer.
The "Wright Flyer" was a canard biplane configuration, with a wingspan of , a camber of 1-20, a wing area of , and a length of . The right wing was longer because the engine was to heavier than Orville or Wilbur. Unoccupied, the machine weighed . As with the gliders, the pilot flew lying on his stomach on the lower wing with his head toward the front of the craft in an effort to reduce drag. The pilot was left of center while the engine was right of center. He steered by moving a hip cradle in the direction he wished to fly. The cradle pulled wires to warp the wings, and simultaneously turn the rudder, for coordinated flight. The pilot operated the elevator lever with his left hand, while holding a strut with his right. The "Wright Flyer"s "runway" was a track of 2x4s, which the brothers nicknamed the "Junction Railroad." The "Wright Flyer" skids rested on a launching dolly, consisting of a plank, with a wheeled wooden section. The two tandem ball bearing wheels were made from bicycle hubs. A restraining wire held the plane back, while the engines were running and the propellers turning, until the pilot was ready to be released.
The "Wright Flyer" had three instruments onboard. A Veedor engine revolution recorder measured the number of propeller turns. A stopwatch recorded the flight time, while a Richard hand anemometer, attached to the front center strut, recorded the distance covered in meters.
Flight trials at Kitty Hawk.
Upon returning to Kitty Hawk in 1903, the Wrights completed assembly of the "Flyer" while practicing on the 1902 Glider from the previous season. On December 14, 1903, they felt ready for their first attempt at powered flight. With the help of men from the nearby government life-saving station, the Wrights moved the "Flyer" and its launching rail to the incline of a nearby sand dune, Big Kill Devil Hill, intending to make a gravity-assisted takeoff. The brothers tossed a coin to decide who would get the first chance at piloting, and Wilbur won. The airplane left the rail, but Wilbur pulled up too sharply, stalled, and came down after covering in 3 seconds, with not much damage.
Repairs after the abortive first flight took three days. When they were ready again on December 17, the wind was averaging more than , so the brothers laid the launching rail on level ground, pointed into the wind, near their camp. This time the wind, instead of an inclined launch, provided the necessary airspeed for takeoff. Because Wilbur had already had the first chance, Orville took his turn at the controls. His first flight lasted 12 seconds for a total distance of – shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747, as noted by observers in the 2003 commemoration of the first flight.
Taking turns, the Wrights made four brief, low-altitude flights that day. The flight paths were all essentially straight; turns were not attempted. Each flight ended in a bumpy and unintended "landing." The last flight, by Wilbur, was in 59 seconds, much longer than each of the three previous flights of 120, 175 and 200 feet (, and ) in 12, 12, and 15 seconds. The fourth flight's landing broke the front elevator supports, which the Wrights hoped to repair for a possible flight to Kitty Hawk village. Soon after, a heavy gust picked up the "Flyer" and tumbled it end over end, damaging it beyond any hope of quick repair. It was never flown again.
In 1904, the Wrights continued refining their designs and piloting techniques in order to obtain fully controlled flight. Major progress toward this goal was achieved with a new Flyer in 1904 and even more decisively in 1905 with a third Flyer, in which Wilbur made a 39-minute, nonstop circling flight on October 5. While the 1903 "Wright Flyer" was clearly a historically important test vehicle, its hallowed status in the American imagination has obscured the role of its two successors in the continuing development that led to the Wrights' mastery of controlled powered flight in 1905.
Influence of the "Wright Flyer".
The Flyer series of aircraft were the first to achieve controlled heavier-than-air flight, but some of the mechanical techniques the Wrights used to accomplish this were not influential for the development of aviation as a whole, although their theoretical achievements were. The "Flyer" design depended on wing-warping controlled by a hip cradle under the pilot, and a foreplane or "canard" for pitch control, features which would not scale and produced a hard-to-control aircraft. However, the Wrights' pioneering use of "roll control" by twisting the wings to change wingtip angle in relation to the airstream led directly to the more practical use of ailerons by their imitators, such as Glenn Curtiss and Henri Farman. The Wrights' original concept of simultaneous coordinated roll and yaw control (rear rudder deflection), which they discovered in 1902, perfected in 1903–1905, and patented in 1906, represents the solution to controlled flight and is used today on virtually every fixed-wing aircraft. The Wright patent included the use of hinged rather than warped surfaces for the forward elevator and rear rudder. Other features that made the "Flyer" a success were highly efficient wings and propellers, which resulted from the Wrights' exacting wind tunnel tests and made the most of the marginal power delivered by their early "homebuilt" engines; slow flying speeds (and hence survivable accidents); and an incremental test/development approach. The future of aircraft design, however, lay with rigid wings, ailerons and rear control surfaces. A British patent of 1868 for aileron technology had apparently been completely forgotten by the time the 20th century dawned.
After a single statement to the press in January 1904 and a failed public demonstration in May, the Wright Brothers did not publicize their efforts, and other aviators who were working on the problem of flight (notably Alberto Santos-Dumont) were thought by the press to have preceded them by many years. After their demonstration flight in France on August 8, 1908, they were accepted as pioneers and received extensive media coverage.
The issue of patent control was correctly seen as critical by the Wrights, and they acquired a wide American patent, intended to give them ownership of basic aerodynamic control. This was fought in both American and European courts. European designers, however, were little affected by the litigation and continued their own development. The legal fight in the U.S., however, had a crushing effect on the nascent American aircraft industry, and even by the time of America's entry into World War I, in 1917, the U.S. had no suitable military aircraft and had to purchase French and British models.
"Wright Flyer" stability.
The "Wright Flyer" was conceived as a control-canard, as the Wrights were more concerned with control than stability. However, it was found to be so highly unstable that it was barely controllable. During flight tests near Dayton the Wrights added ballast to the nose of the aircraft to move the center of gravity forward and reduce pitch instability. However, the basics of pitch stability of the canard configuration were not understood by the Wright Brothers. F.E.C. Culick stated, "The backward state of the general theory and understanding of flight mechanics hindered them... Indeed, the most serious gap in their knowledge was probably the basic reason for their unwitting mistake in selecting their canard configuration."
According to Combs, "Wright designs incorporated a 'balanced' forward elevator...the movable surface extending an equal distance on both sides of its hinge or pivot axis, as opposed to an 'in-trail' configuration...which would have enhanced controllability in flight." Orville wrote of the elevator which the brothers called a "front rudder", "I found the control of the front rudder quite difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center and thus had a tendency to turn itself when started so that the rudder was turned too far on one side and then too far on the other." Thus, these early flights suffered from overcontrol.
"Wright Flyer" after Kitty Hawk.
The Wright Brothers returned home to Dayton for Christmas after the flights of the Kitty Hawk "Flyer". While they had abandoned their other gliders, they realized the historical significance of the "Flyer". They shipped the heavily damaged craft back to Dayton, where it remained stored in crates behind a Wright Company shed for nine years. The Great Dayton Flood of March 1913 covered the flyer in mud and water for 11 days.
Charlie Taylor relates in a 1948 article that the "Flyer" nearly got disposed of by the Wrights themselves. In early 1912 Roy Knabenshue, The Wrights Exhibition team manager, had a conversation with Wilbur and asked Wilbur what they planned to do with the "Flyer". Wilbur said they most likely will burn it, as they had the 1904 machine. According to Taylor, Knabenshue talked Wilbur out of disposing of the machine for historical purposes.
In 1910 the Wrights first made attempts to exhibit the "Flyer" in the Smithsonian Institution but talks fell through with the ensuing lawsuits against Glenn Curtiss and the "Flyer" may have been needed as repeated evidence in court cases. Wilbur died in 1912, and in 1916, as the patent fights were ending, Orville brought the "Flyer" out of storage and prepared it for display at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He replaced parts of the wing covering, the props, and the engine's crankcase, crankshaft, and flywheel. The crankcase, crankshaft, and flywheel of the original engine had been sent to the Aero Club of America in New York for an exhibit in 1906 and were never returned to the Wrights. The replacement crankcase, crankshaft and flywheel came from the experimental engine Charlie Taylor had built in 1904 and used for testing in the bicycle shop. A replica crankcase of the flyer is on display at the visitor center at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.
Debate with the Smithsonian.
The Smithsonian Institution, and primarily its then-secretary Charles Walcott, refused to give credit to the Wright Brothers for the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft. Instead, they honored the former Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley, whose 1903 tests of his own Aerodrome on the Potomac were not successful. Walcott was a friend of Langley and wanted to see Langley's place in aviation history restored. In 1914, Glenn Curtiss had recently exhausted the appeal process in a patent infringement legal battle with the Wrights. Curtiss sought to prove Langley's machine, which failed piloted tests nine days before the Wrights' successful flight in 1903, capable of controlled, piloted flight in an attempt to invalidate the Wrights' wide-sweeping patents.
The Aerodrome was removed from exhibit at the Smithsonian and prepared for flight at Keuka Lake, New York. Curtiss called the preparations "restoration" claiming that the only addition to the design was pontoons to support testing on the lake but critics including patent attorney Griffith Brewer called them alterations of the original design. Curtiss flew the modified "Aerodrome", hopping a few feet off the surface of the lake for no more than 5 seconds at a time.
Between 1916 and 1928 the "Wright Flyer" was prepared and assembled for exhibition under the supervision of Orville by Wright Company mechanic Jim Jacobs several times. It was briefly exhibited at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1916, the New York Aero Shows in 1917 and 1919, a Society of Automotive Engineers meeting in Dayton, Ohio in 1918, and the National Air Races in Dayton in 1924.
In 1925, Orville attempted to persuade the Smithsonian to recognize his and Wilbur's accomplishment by offering to send the "Flyer" to the Science Museum in London. This action did not have its intended effect, and the "Flyer" went on display in the London museum in 1928. It remained there in "the place of honour," except during World War II when it was moved to an underground storage facility from London, near the village of Corsham.
In 1942 the Smithsonian Institution, under a new secretary, Charles Abbot, published a list of 35 Curtiss modifications to the "Aerodrome" and a retraction of its long-held claims for the craft. Abbot went on to list four regrets including the role the Institution played in supporting unsuccessful defendants in patent litigation by the Wrights, misinformation about modifications made to the Aerodrome after "Wright Flyer"s first flight, and public statements attributing the "first aeroplane capable of sustained free flight with a man" to Secretary Langley. The entry in the 1942 Annual Report of Smithsonian Institution begins with the statement "It is everywhere acknowledged that the Wright brothers were the first to make sustained flights in a heavier-than-air machine at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903" and closes with a promise that "Should Dr. Wright decide to deposit the plane ... it would be given the highest place of honor which it is due"
The following year, Orville, after exchanging several letters with Abbott, agreed to return the "Flyer" to the United States. The "Flyer" stayed at the Science Museum until a replica could be built, based on the original. This change of heart by the Smithsonian is also mired in controversy – the "Flyer" was sold to the Smithsonian under several contractual conditions, one of which reads:
Researchers who promote the accomplishments of pioneer aviator Gustave Whitehead have commented that this agreement renders the Smithsonian unable to make properly unbiased academic decisions concerning any prior claims of 'first flight'.
In 1948 the official handover of the "Wright Flyer" was made to the American Civil Air Attaché at a ceremony attended by representatives of the various flying organizations in the UK and by some British aviation pioneers such as Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe.
Later in 1948, the "Flyer" was returned to the United States on board the "Mauretania". When the liner docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Paul E. Garber of the Smithsonian's National Air Museum met the aircraft and took command of the proceedings. The rest of the journey to Washington continued on flatbed truck. While in Halifax Garber met John A. D. McCurdy, at the time the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. McCurdy as a young man had been a member of Alexander Graham Bell's team Aerial Experiment Association, which included Glenn Curtiss, and later a famous pioneer pilot. During the stay at Halifax, Garber and McCurdy reminisced about the pioneer aviation days and the Wright Brothers. McCurdy also offered Garber any assistance he needed to get the "Flyer" home.
In the Smithsonian.
The "Wright Flyer" was put on display in the Arts and Industries Building of the Smithsonian on December 17, 1948, 45 years to the day after the aircraft's only flights. (Orville did not live to see this, as he died in January of that year.) In 1976, it was moved to the Milestones of Flight Gallery of the new National Air and Space Museum. Since 2003 it has resided in a special exhibit in the museum titled "The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age," honoring the Wright Brothers in recognition of the 100th anniversary of their first flight.
A piece of fabric and wood from the "Wright Flyer" was taken to the surface of the Moon by the crew of Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission, in July 1969.
1985 restoration.
In 1981, discussion began on the need to restore the "Wright Flyer" from the aging it sustained after many decades on display. During the ceremonies celebrating the 78th anniversary of the first flights, Mrs. Harold S. Miller (Ivonette Wright, Lorin's daughter), one of the Wright brothers' nieces, presented the Museum with the original covering of one wing of the "Flyer", which she had received in her inheritance from Orville. She expressed her wish to see the aircraft restored.
The fabric covering on the aircraft at the time, which came from the 1927 restoration, was discolored and marked with water spots. Metal fasteners holding the wing uprights together had begun to corrode, marking the nearby fabric.
Work began in 1985. The restoration was supervised by Senior Curator Robert Mikesh and assisted by Wright Brothers expert Tom Crouch. Museum director Walter J. Boyne decided to perform the restoration in full view of the public.
The wooden framework was cleaned, and corrosion on metal parts removed. The covering was the only part of the aircraft replaced. The new covering was more accurate to the original than that of the 1927 restoration. To preserve the original paint on the engine, the restorers coated it in inert wax before putting on a new coat of paint.
The effects of the 1985 restoration were intended to last 75 years (to 2060) before another restoration would be required.
"Wright Flyer" reproductions.
A number of individuals and groups have attempted to build reproductions of the "Wright Flyer" for demonstration or scientific purposes.
In 1978, 23-year-old Ken Kellett built a replica "Wright Flyer" in Colorado and flew it at Kitty Hawk on the 75th and 80th anniversaries of the first flight there. Construction took a year and cost $3,000.
As the 100th anniversary on December 17, 2003, approached, the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission along with other organizations opened bids for companies to recreate the original flight. The Wright Experience, led by Ken Hyde, won the bid and painstakingly recreated reproductions of the original "Wright Flyer", plus many of the prototype gliders and kites as well as several subsequent Wright aircraft. The completed "Flyer" reproduction was brought to Kitty Hawk and pilot Kevin Kochersberger attempted to recreate the original flight at 10:35 am December 17, 2003, on level ground near the bottom of Kill Devil Hill. Although the aircraft had previously made several successful test flights, sour weather, rain, and weak winds prevented a successful flight on the actual anniversary date. Hyde's reproduction is displayed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
The Los Angeles Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) built a full-scale replica of the 1903 "Wright Flyer" between 1979 and 1993 using plans from the original "Wright Flyer" published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1950. Constructed in advance of the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight, the replica was intended for wind tunnel testing to provide a historically accurate aerodynamic database of the "Wright Flyer" design. The aircraft went on display at the March Field Air Museum in Riverside, California. Numerous static display-only, nonflying reproductions are on display around the United States and across the world, making this perhaps the most reproduced single aircraft of the "pioneer" era in history, rivaling the number of copies – some of which are airworthy – of Louis Blériot's cross-Channel Bleriot XI from 1909.
Artifacts.
In 1969, portions of the original fabric and wood from the "Wright Flyer" traveled to the Moon and its surface in Neil Armstrong's personal preference kit aboard the Apollo 11 Lunar Module "Eagle", and then back to Earth in the Command module "Columbia". 
This artifact is on display at the visitors center at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
In 1986, separate portions of original wood and fabric were taken by North Carolina native astronaut Michael Smith aboard the Space Shuttle "Challenger" on mission STS-51-L, which was destroyed soon after liftoff. The portions of wood and fabric were recovered from the wreck of the Shuttle and are on display at the North Carolina Museum of History.
A small piece of the "Wright Flyer"s wing fabric is attached to a cable underneath the solar panel of the helicopter "Ingenuity", which became the first vehicle to perform a controlled atmospheric flight on Mars on 19 April 2021.