Wright Activities Before and After 1903

The “Scientific American,” May 30, 1908, carried the following article:

The Wright Aeroplane Test in North Carolina.

Upon the return of the newspaper correspondents and photographers from North Carolina, considerable more information was obtainable regarding the recent flights made by the Wright brothers in testing their aeroplane than has hitherto been available.

Unfortunately, not one of these men is a qualified technical observer, for which reason we are little better off for details than we were before.

In addition to the frontispiece showing the aeroplane as it appears in flight, we are enabled, owing to the courtesy of P. F. Collier & Son, (Colliers Magazine) to show our readers two photographs at long range of the aeroplane in flight around Kill Devil Hill. These photographs, while quite minute, nevertheless when magnified give some idea of the actual appearance of the machine in flight; but their greatest value lies in dispelling all doubt as to the ability of the Wright machine to fly and to make good its designers’ claims.

Comments: The wrights had developed the practical airplane in 1905. They made the decision at the end of the 1905-flying season that they would not fly again until they had a signed contract for its sale in hand. Their patent wasn’t granted until 1906 and even then the patent wouldn’t assure protection from their competitors stealing their secrets.

In 1908, they finally had secured contracts in France and the U. S. government for their airplane contingent on demonstration of operational performance. Their customers wanted a machine that would carry two people and a system of controls allowing the pilot to teach a passenger how to fly.

Their new design was basically the 1905 machine updated to incorporate a new upright seating arrangement, a new control system and a more powerful engine. The control system replaced the saddle with three control sticks. One elevator control stick was placed at the left hand of the pilot and another at the right hand of the passenger/student. The wingwarping and rudder controls were placed between the two seats.

The redesign of the controls along with the fact that the Wrights had not flown since 1905 necessitated they spend time practicing flying the new machine. They, therefore, decided to return to Kitty Hawk in 1908. End of Comments

All those who witnessed the flights agree that the performance of the machine was marvelous, and that the speed attained with the small motor of 30 horsepower was remarkable.

Comments: News organizations had been reporting on the new Army contract and were aware of the creation of a French syndicate to buy a Wright machine. They knew that the Wrights would soon be flying again and they wanted to be there when they did.

Three reporters representing leading newspapers were assigned to observe the Wright activities. Knowing the Wrights reluctance to fly when reporters were observing, they tried to hide some distance away. It wasn’t pleasant duty. They had to cope with snakes, mosquitoes, ticks and, at times, heavy rains. They were probably upset to find out later that the Wrights knew they were there all the time. End of Comments.

As already noted in our last issue, the speed in question appears to have been from 45 to 48 miles an hour, although the last flight was timed in 7 minutes and 40 seconds, during which the life savers claim that the machine traveled slightly over 8 miles.

The distances are said to be fairly accurate, since they were gauged by the known space between telegraph poles and the number of poles in the course.

The probability is, however, that the speed of the machine did not at any time exceed 48 miles an hour. In fact, the Wrights do not claim a speed of much over 40 miles an hour.

Still, according to report, they state that before the flights witnessed by outsiders, they made three flights of 18, 24, and 32 miles respectively.

In their final flight they had intended to remain in the air an hour and twenty minutes, or a third longer than is required in the government test; but a false movement of one of the operating levers caused them to plunge downward. Not more than $50 worth of damage was done to the machine, and save for a few scratches the aviator was uninjured.

Comment: The accident could have been very serious. After flying some 8,900 feet, Wilbur became confused while operating the elevator control and dived the machine into the sand while moving at 41 miles an hour. He suffered severe bruises and bumps and wrecked the machine. End

A close study of the photographs which we reproduce shows that the horizontal rudder in front of the machine is of the double or triple-surface type.

Comment: The photographs were the first ever published of a Wright airplane in the air. End

The vertical rudder also can be seen well out at the rear, as well as the two propellers, half of each of which is in sunlight, and the other half in shadow.

The aviator is seen sitting in the middle of the lower plane, while there are several tubes for the cooling water of the motor running vertically upward to the upper plane from the motor, which is located in a fore-and-aft direction in the center of the lower plane, and which drives each of the two through chains.

A second lever in front of the aviator operates the vertical rudder, and a third one twists the planes to aid in steering.

In the tests recently made, the Wright brothers were trying out their new form of steering and control by means of levers and with the operator in a sitting position. In their former flights in 1905, the operator lay prone, and the change to a sitting position necessitated a different method of control.

Comment: On May 14, Wilbur flew with their friend Charlie Furnas aboard. Charlie was a mechanic from Dayton. This was the first time two men had ever flown together on a Wright airplane. End

The brothers are quite satisfied with the results they have obtained, and there is little doubt that more will be heard from them in the near future.

Upon hearing of their flights, Henry Farman sent a challenge for them to come to France and fly in competition with him. The Wrights paid no attention to this challenge. Their confidence in their machine is such that they do not believe it necessary to make a public trial either here or abroad in order to interest the other governments, which may yet purchase machines from them.

Since their trial flights in North Carolina have been witnessed by newspapermen, and photographs of these flights have been secured, there is no longer any doubt of the pre-eminence of America in aviation.

We hope that before the end of the year we shall be able to arrange for a public contest near New York, in which all the prominent foreign and American aviators will compete, and endeavor to win for the first time the Scientific American trophy.

Comment: Wilbur, under pressure from the French syndicate, left camp on May 17 to proceed directly to France via New York. Orville returned to Dayton to complete work on the machine he would fly in demonstrations for the Army at Ft. Myer beginning in September. End

Harper’s Weekly of September 26, 1908 reprinted an interview that a London newspaper reporter conducted with Lazare Weiller. Mr. Weiller is the head of a French syndicate that had just signed a contract in New York with Wilbur Wright.

Under the terms of the contract, the syndicate would purchase the Wright French patent rights to manufacture, sell and license Wright airplanes in France as soon the conditions of the contract were fulfilled.

The article stated that “the conditions (roughly) are that the machine shall make a flight of fifty kilometres (thirty-one miles), rising from ground under its own power in a wind of at least eleven miles an hour.

Mr. Weiller said that if the trials at Le Mans succeeded he would build a factory and make and sell the machines, to be used as instruments of sport.

He expressed great admiration for Mr. Wright, not for his dexterity, for he thought him rather clumsy, but because he is a genius and a scientist and has a perfect mechanical intelligence.

The French aviators he considered to be still in the stage of complications which Mr. Wright had passed.”

Weiller was a businessman involved in a variety of businesses, including a lucrative Paris taxicab business. His interest in the aeroplane was more than financial. He was interested in scientific and aeroplane speculation. The syndicate he headed was called La Compagnie Generale de Navigation Aerienne.

The contract was the first contract that the Wrights had successfully negotiated in France or anywhere else in Europe and even though terms were not as good as they wanted, it seemed to have profit potential. Upon satisfactory completion of the demonstration flights, the Wrights would receive (a) 500,000 francs upon delivery of the first machine, (b) 50% of the founders shares in the company and (c) 20,000 francs apiece for each of four additional machines.

The year before, Wilbur had been unsuccessful in negotiating a contract with the French Government. At that time he thought that contracting with the government as the Wrights had done in the U.S., rather than with a commercial firm, was the preferred approach.

That approach had resulted in a ten-month delay in getting started in France. By that time several French aviators were making flights with machines that imperfectly copied the Wright machine.

On January 1, 1908 Henri Farrman won the Archdeacon 50,000 francs cup for a flight lasting one minute, 28 seconds. The flight was far from perfect and his turn at the halfway point was awkward and the machine wobbled as it made a wide flat turn.

The day after Wilbur’s arrival in France, Leon Delagrange flew for 8 miles at Rome and Farrman flew the first flight with a passenger on board at Issy.

Although the French machines were technologically behind the Wright’s machine, Weiller began to get cold feet about the contract and feared the Wrights’ machine might be overtaken. When Wilbur arrived in France in June, he had to shore up Weiller’s confidence.

Wilbur wrote to Orville, who had stayed behind in the U.S. to fulfill the Army’s contract requirements: “The situation in France was similar to how an old-time circuit rider had found religion in his district, in other words flat on its back. — Our position is improving rapidly as it always does when one of us is here to meet people and infuse a little confidence in them.”

Wilbur was optimistic about the time it would take to build the machine that was still stored in crates at Le Havre, having been sent to France the previous year. He estimated that it would take a few weeks to build the machine and complete the demonstration flights. The few weeks turned into six months.

When Wilbur opened the crates, he found the disassembled machine had been severely damaged during the French custom inspection. Initially, he thought it was Orville’s fault, so he sent him an angry letter.

He wrote: “I opened the boxes yesterday and have been puzzled ever since to know how you could have wasted two whole days packing them. I am sure that with a scoop shovel I could have put things in within two or three minutes and make as good a job of it. I never saw such evidence of idiocy in my life.”

Seven weeks were required to build the machine. It didn’t help that Wilbur received a severe burn on his arm when a radiator hose broke during an engine test. The burns left a blister as big as Wilbur’s hand on his left side and another blister a foot long on his forearm.

Finally on August 8, Wilbur was ready for a demonstration flight of his assembled Wright Model A Flyer at the Hunaudieres racetrack near Le Mans.

Wilbur was dressed in his usual suit, a visor cap set backwards and starched collar. The engine started and quickly died when Wilbur’s back collar stud caught on the control wires.

Soon after, the weight dropped from the launching derrick, propelling the machine into the air.

French aviation reporter, Francois Peyrey, describes what happened: “We beheld the great white bird soar above the racecourse and pass over and beyond the trees. We were able to follow easily each movement of the pilot, note his extraordinary proficiency in the flying business, perceive the curious warping of the wings in the process of circling and the shifting and position of the rudders. After one minute and 45 seconds of flight, Wright returned to the ground, descending with extraordinary buoyancy and precision.”

The crowd cheered loudly. “Well, we are beaten!” exclaimed one spectator. Another said, “We are as children compared with the Wrights.”

Wilbur wrote Orville on August 15, “In the second flight, I made an “eight” and landed at the starting point. The newspapers and the French aviators went wild with excitement. Blenot and Delagrange were so excited they could scarcely speak, and Kapferer could only gasp and could not talk at all. You would have almost died of laughter if you could have seen them.”

Wilbur, between August 1908 and January 1909, made more than one hundred demonstration flights in France at Le Mans and Pau. He took up 60 passengers including the first woman to fly (Mrs. Hart Berg, whose husband had put the Weiller syndicate together), astounding spectators and bringing on instant fame.

On the last day of 1908, Wilbur won the Michelin prize for circling above snow covered Camp d’Auvours for 2 hours, 20 minutes. The distance covered was about 90 miles. Wilbur was told that the French government was going to bestow the Legion of Merit on both Wright brothers.

After his last flight in France near Pau in March, Wilbur gave the machine he flew at Le Mans and Pau to Weiller and the members of the syndicate.

Weiller’s doubts had vanished and investors clamored to join the syndicate. His syndicate did not intend to build the machine. They would function as sales agents, contracting other firms such as Societe Astra and Chantiers de France.

The syndicate eventually claimed that it had received 50 orders, but probably one-half that was ever constructed. The trouble began when Societe Astra, the company that had constructed most of the machines under contract for the syndicate, was taken over. The legal complications of this take-over might take years to straighten out. In the meantime, profits were falling and Weiller’s syndicate was about out of business.

Orville sailed to France to investigate the situation, leaving New York on November 15, 1910. He returned home discouraged. Their contract in Germany was also in bad shape.

Orville returned to Europe in 1912. He found that Weiller’s syndicate was virtually defunct. Societe Astra had taken over the entire operation. The change was disastrous. Quality of the machines had deteriorated, particularly the engines, and their business practices, according to Orville, were hopeless.

Neither the Wrights nor the investors would ever get rich on the profits from the sale of the license-built machines in France.

The Wright brothers can best tell the story of how the Wright machine takes off and makes a flight. They wrote about the experience in a 1908 issue of Century Magazine. It is quoted below.

“In order to show the general reader the way in which the machine operates, let us fancy ourselves ready for a start.

The machine is placed upon a single rail track facing the wind, and is securely fastened with a cable.

The engine is put in motion, and the propellers in the rear whirr. You take your seat at the center of the machine by the operator. He slips the cable, and you shoot forward.

An assistant who has been holding the machine in balance on the rail, starts forward with you, but before you have gone fifty feet the speed is too great for him, and he lets go. Before reaching the end of the track the operator moves the front rudder (note: they called the elevator, the rudder at that time) and the machine lifts from the rail like a kite supported by the pressure of the air underneath it.

The ground under you is at first a perfect blur, but as you rise the objects become clearer. At the height of one hundred feet you feel hardly any motion at all, except for the wind which strikes your face.

If you did not take the precaution to fasten your hat before starting, you have probably lost it by this time.

The operator moves a lever, the right wing rises, and the machine swings about to the left, yet you do not feel the sensation of being thrown from your seat, so often experienced in automobile and railway travel. You find yourself facing the point from which you started.

The objects on the ground now seem to be moving at much higher speed, though you perceive no change in the pressure of the wind on your face. You know then that you are traveling with the wind.

When you near the staring point, the operator stops the motor while still high in the sky. The machine coasts down at an oblique angle to the ground, and after sliding fifty or a hundred feet comes to rest.

Although the machine often lands when traveling at a speed of a mile a minute, you feel no shock whatever, and cannot, in fact, tell the exact moment at which it first touched the ground.

The motor close beside you kept up an almost deafening roar during the whole flight, yet in your excitement you did not notice it till it stopped.”

The same article the Wrights discussed some of the difficulties met with by experimenters in constructing a machine that will have good stability.

“The balancing of a flyer may seem, at first thought, to be a very simple matter, yet almost every experimenter had found in just this the one point which he could not satisfactorily master.

Many different methods were tried. Some experimenters placed the center of gravity far below the wings, in the belief that the weight would naturally seek to remain at the lowest point. It was true, that, like the pendulum, it tended to seek the lowest point; but also, like the pendulum, it tended to oscillate in a manner destructive of all stability.

A more satisfactory system, especially for lateral balance, was that of arranging the wings in the shape of a V, to form a dihedral angle, with the center low and the wing-tips elevated.

In theory this was an automatic system, but in practice it had two serious defects: first, it tended to keep the machine oscillating; second, its usefulness was restricted to calm air.”

The Century Magazine in their comment on the above mistakenly maintains the wrong paradigm popular at the time that a successful design of a machine will incorporate automatic equilibrium.

The Magazine states the following: “The Wright machine has demonstrated that it can fly in a wind as great as 20 miles an hour, while none of the other aeroplanes have ever flown in a wind of half this velocity. In this one point alone it is far superior to all other aeroplanes; and doubtless, in time, the brothers will perfect it so that it will have automatic equilibrium and thus be capable of use by almost any individual.”

By 1905 the Wrights had developed a practical airplane that for the first time could be controlled by a pilot. Having achieved that goal, they decided to develop an automatic stabilizer that could fly the airplane straight without a pilot’s intervention.

They were successful in their effort and were awarded the prestigious Collier Trophy by the Aero Club of America for their device on January 5, 1914. The prize recognized the most significant contribution to aeronautics made during the year of 1913.

Unfortunately for the Wrights, Lawrence Sperry publicly unveiled a more technologically advanced device in France six months later on June 18, 1914.

The Wrights began their work on the device in secrecy sometime after 1905. Their concept was to develop an adaptive system with feedback. A change in direction of heading, automatically applies power to adjust the airplane controls in yaw, roll and pitch as appropriate, and brings the airplane back to its original heading.

The 30-pound device consisted of a pendulum and vertical vane that were connected to a power source which drove servomotors. Whenever the pendulum swung out of vertical the wing warping control was activated to restore yaw and roll balance.

Similarly the horizontal vane sensed pitch stability and activated the elevator control.

The original power source was compressed air, then it was replaced with a battery, and in the final version, a small windmill set in motion by wind was used.

The pilot could adjust the vane at any angle desired for use in climbing or descending. It could also be switched on or off by the pilot as desired.

They applied for a patent on February 8, 1908 although the device was still in development and not been flight tested yet because of desire to maintain secrecy.

The Wrights worked on the device intermittently, as time would allow. In the fall of 1911 they had progressed to the point where they decided to test it out on a new glider at Kitty Hawk. However a number of reporters also showed up, so in order to maintain secrecy on the new device, they flew the glider without using the automatic control feature.

Their patent (#1,075,555) was granted October 14, 1913 although they still had not flight-tested it.

The Wrights didn’t seem to be in any hurry in using the device until Glenn Curtiss had won the Collier Trophy two years in a row during 1911 and 1912. Curtiss had won the trophy for his development of flying boats.

Orville decided Curtiss wasn’t going to win again in 1913. He decided he would use the Automatic Stabilizer to win the prize with.

In the fall of 1913, Orville installed the stabilizer on a special Wright Model E airplane that utilized a single pusher propeller. He kept the details of the stabilizer secret even from the Wright Company. He purposely waited until the last day of the year to fly for the prize.

He invited the Aero Club’s judges to Huffman Prairie to see a demonstration of his new device on a cold snowy day, December 31st.

He turned up his coat collar, put on a pair of goggles and took off. He made a total of 17 flights.

His most spectacular flight consisted of 7 full circles of the field with both hands held in the air. The automatic stabilizer kept the same angle of bank and almost the same altitude. He wowed the judges and was awarded the prize on February 5, 1914.

The stabilizer was then offered as an option for use with the sale of Wright 1910-1911 Model B flyers.

However, it saw little use, because on June 18, 1914, a young Lawrence Sperry, as part of a great safety competition, unveiled a totally new type of stabilizer to the world. The safety competition was jointly sponsored by the Aero-Club de France and the French War Department.

In his demonstration flight, Sperry took off from the Seine in a Curtiss C-2, climbed to altitude and flew back down the river. At the appropriate moment, his mechanic, Emile Cachin, crawled 7 feet out on the wing as Sperry lifted his hands from the controls and stood up in the cockpit. The plane sped by the judges as the crowd went wild.

What Sperry had done was adapt a balancing mechanism invented by his father, Elmer, for counteracting the rolling of ships, to an airplane. The device employed two gyroscopes that performed the function of the pendulum and vanes in the Wrights’ device.

The invention was a new technology that would create expanded opportunities for application in the future. It certainly has done that and is used in today’s satellites and space flights.

The rapid obsolescence of the automatic stabilizer was symbolic of what was also happening to the Wright airplanes. The awarding of the Collier trophy to the Wrights signaled the end of an era in which the Wrights had invented and nurtured the airplane to a reality. In so doing they set a standard of excellence for others to follow in their footsteps.

References: The Bishops Boys by Tom Crouch; Wilbur and Orville by Fred Howard