The Romance of Aircraft

by Laurence Yard Smith

CHAPTER V
Some of the Problems the Inventors Had to Solve

Every American must feel a glow of pride when he stops to think that it was two of his fellow-countrymen, Wilbur and Orville Wright, who invented the airplane. But it is largely to France, our great ally and friend, that the credit must go for improving upon the invention of the Wrights, and making possible the wonderful aerial feats, the marvelous flights and accomplishments of the airplane of to-day. From the first day they saw an airplane flown, the French were wildly enthusiastic. They gave freely of their money and their encouragement to help the good cause along. French inventors attacked the problems of the heavier-than-air machine with a will, and their unfailing determination and refusal to accept defeat or failure made final victory inevitable.

But before we could have the powerful fighting machines, the big cross country fliers and the seaplanes of to-day, there were many difficulties of construction which had to be met and solved.

First of all the pioneer designer had to choose between the monoplane, the biplane and the triplane. The monoplane was light in weight and could fly faster with the same powered engine than the biplane. But it was difficult to know just how to brace and strengthen the single pair of wings. In the biplane the struts between the wings gave strength and firmness. The wings of the monoplane were braced by wires to the body, but often they did not prove strong enough and the airplane collapsed in mid-air. In spite of this danger the monoplane was much in favor because of its speed.

Slower in speed, but stronger and a better weight lifter was the biplane. And in addition to strength it possessed more natural stability, a much sought after quality in the pioneer days.

Even more stable and with greater lifting powers than the biplane was the triplane, but the difficulty here was the lack of an airplane motor of sufficient strength to drive it. Until clever engineers came to the rescue with an improved aircraft motor, the triplane was very much in disfavor.

The monoplane, indeed, captured most of the early records for speed and it was this type of machine that was generally built by the sportsman type of airman, while men like the Wright brothers and others whose aim was to develop an airplane of unusual reliability and suited to many purposes, turned to the biplane and gave many hours and months and years of their time to its improvement.

Once the choice of a type had been made, there were countless other problems. Stability was of prime importance and the airmen of a few years ago labored desperately to attain it. They knew all too little about the airplane from a scientific angle. We have seen in our brief study that the method of obtaining balance in a glider or an airplane is to see that its center of weight coincides with the center of the upward pressure of air. How to bring this happy state of things about was a source of much debate. Some suggested that instead of a tail at the stern a tail in front of the main planes of the machine would help to balance it in flight. Some placed the pilot's seat above both planes of the biplane, while others thought he should sit below. Many of these queer ideas were tried out and by dint of hard practise and many failures certain simple elementary facts were finally weeded out and set down.

Probably the addition of a “fuselage” or body to the modern airplane has had something to do with helping in the proper distribution of its weight and increasing its stability. Larger at the bow and tapering toward the stern where a fixed tail piece or horizontal stabilizing plane is attached, it resembled more or less closely the general outlines of a fish or bird. And this “streamline form” greatly reduces the head resistance, another important subject on which there was very little known when the first of the airplanes was built. In addition to having only a very slow and inefficient engine the early machine suffered from the head resistance it created as it pushed forward through the air, and this check to its progress ate up the little speed its motor could develop. For if the airman of 1908 or 1909 was made miserable by his fear of winds, gusts and aerial whirlpools which might upset him in mid-air, his fears in this direction were completely overshadowed by his worries about a suitable motor. If the design of his craft was faulty and it proved “balky” when he attempted flight, he had only himself to blame. But for an engine he had to rely entirely upon some one else. The airplane could be a “home-made” article, but the engine had to be chosen from such as were on the market.

The Wright brothers in their first flying machine used a made-over automobile engine of 12 horsepower. It was not long before this was improved upon, and later Wright machines had a four-cylinder, water-cooled engine developing 35 horsepower. Its weight had been reduced as far as possible and its simplicity of design was its greatest recommendation.