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February 9, 2015

Early Flight Powered by Wind, Fishing Line, and Boys (1897)

"The start was made at a given signal the line being pulled by three boys
and Mr Pilcher gradually left the ground and soared gracefully into the air attaining a maximum height of about 70 feet... A safe and graceful landing was made at a distance of 250 yards from the starting point. The photographs illustrate that part of the flight previous to the attainment of the greatest height...if the machine had been fitted with a small engine or motor to give (this) amount of thrust by means of a screw or otherwise perhaps an equal or further distance would have been covered."
JF Ptak Science Books:
aglidingboyflight.jpg

Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 9, 2015 10:47 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

Of course, the Wrights did two things through careful experiment that all the other would-be flyers not only did not do, but did not even appreciate had to be done!

1. Designed an effective 3-axis control system.

2. Designed an effective propeller.

Both these problems seemed to have intuitive solutions derived from ships, so other flyers followed them and focused their attentions elsewhere - usually on the wing, which made sense, and several basically got it right. But then they thought they were done, whereas the Wrights understood that the wing was just the most obvious of several keys to success.

Posted by: DaveR [TypeKey Profile Page] at February 9, 2015 8:53 PM

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