THE FIRST AIRPLANE
Many people speak of the Wright Brothers’ first airplane as a flimsy contraption of sticks, cloth, and wire. Although it was indeed built of wood, cloth and wire, it was, like everything else the Wrights built, thoughtfully and painstakingly constructed. Its wings were efficient lifting surfaces and the entire airplane was sound structurally. The main force that went into it was the result of years of sound research in aëronautical science. Orville and Wilbur Wright had solved all the fundamental problems of flight before they built their first powered, man-carrying airplane. They discovered the basic forces that control all heavier-than-air flight: lift, thrust, drag, and weight. Today, little more than forty years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk, those four forces discovered by the Wright Brothers still control the design of every airplane built.
Equally important was their solution of the problem of controlled flight. Their knowledge of the effect of air on the surfaces of the wings helped the Wrights solve the problem of control. By warping the wings they were able to turn the plane to the right or to the left. When a wing-tip was warped downward it increased the lift of the wing, causing it to rise. The opposite wing-tip warped upward lost lift and the plane would fall off toward the low side. The effect was that of dragging one oar of a boat in the water. To aid in turning the plane, the machine was provided with a vertical rudder attached to the lateral control. When the wings were warped, the rudder automatically swung to enforce the turn.
The pilot’s right hand was on the lever which controlled the wing warping and rudder. His left was on the lever which raised and lowered the elevators. The lever at the extreme left also was attached to the elevators, providing dual control. All movements of the controls were in the direction of the desired attitude of the plane.
The story of American aviation began in a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. It continued in the shop of a daredevil motorcycle racer and gasoline engine builder at Hammondsport, New York.
While the Wright Brothers were quietly flying their plane on the flat lands in Ohio, another self-taught, young Yankee was combining bicycles and gasoline engines to create speedy motorcycles. Speed fascinated this young man. He had started to build motorcycle engines of his own design in order to win races and break speed records.
It was not long before the name of this young mechanic began to appear repeatedly in connection with new motorcycle speed records. His name was Glenn H. Curtiss, and he won race after race. His prize money was not spent foolishly, but put into his experiments with gasoline engines.
In 1904, the pioneer American dirigible balloon builder, Captain Tom Baldwin, saw a Curtiss motorcycle in California. One look at the engine sent him scurrying to Hammondsport, New York, where he begged Glenn Curtiss to build him an engine for a new dirigible he was building. Curtiss built the engine, the first Curtiss engine to function in the skies. He also flew Tom Baldwin’s dirigible, but he was not enthusiastic over the idea of flying. “Not bad sport,” he remarked the first time he flew the dirigible, “but there’s no place to go.” Curtiss had heard of the flights of the Wright Brothers, but he was skeptical.
Before long Glenn Curtiss had another visitor. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, had long been interested in the problems of flight, and had organized the Aërial Experiments Association to encourage aëronautical efforts in this country. After talking for hours, Dr. Bell converted Curtiss to a belief in the future of flying and persuaded him to join the experimental group.
In November, 1907, Glenn H. Curtiss, in company with two young Canadian engineers, F. W. Baldwin and J. A. D. McCurdy of Dr. Bell’s group, and an official Army observer, Lieutenant Tom Selfridge, started to work on a new airplane. Using all of the available existing flight research and the ingenuity of Glenn H. Curtiss, the group finished their first plane in March, 1908. On March 12 Baldwin flew it 300 feet. Curtiss then designed an improved plane, the June Bug. With it he won the Scientific American contest by flying over a measured kilometer course on July 4.
