Posted on 10/15/2011 8:47:55 AM PDT by Daffynition
American test pilot Chuck Yeager flew a plane through the sound barrier on October 14th, 1947. Some say only the Wright brothers — Orville and Wilbur — can claim a more significant achievement in the history of flight. At the time, Britain and Germany also were trying to develop a plane that could break the sound barrier, but the United States soon won out with its X-1. It was more rocket than plane, developed specifically to fly through the shock waves of the sound barrier, with Yeager as pilot. “About half of the engineers gave us no chance at all of ever successfully flying beyond the speed of sound. They said it’s a so-called barrier and the airplane would go out of control or disintegrate, but I didn’t look at it that way.” Yeager said he had confidence in the craft. He named it “Glamorous Glennis” for his wife, and described its bullet-shaped body as cozy. ....
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They started out using them but found out they were flawed. The Wright brothers built their own(and the absolute first ever)wind tunnel in order to get the correct math for the wing. Until they built the wind tunnel they relied on faulty math from Lilienthal and others and their machines had poor lifting ability. After the wind tunnel they wre able to make a better wing and get their powered machine off the ground. The wrights were truly pioneers in the aviation field and others, such as Curtis, soon built on their work. They were also the first to use ailerons in the form of wing warping in order to turn correctly in the air. Other early pilots and builders used only rudders, but after seeing a Wright flyer in action they soon Made their own versions, violating the Wrights patents(Curtis was among them)which they spent years in court trying to get justice for.
I will always remember Yeager’s response when, at the time, he was asked for a comment about the Challenger Shuttle disaster. He responded by saying something like “Well, all I can tell you is that people get killed in the flying business.” He has probably seen lots of people come and lots of people go in the flying business.
Wonder if fate had brought c15Century da Vinci with the 19thcentury Wrights....what they would have come up with?
≤}B^)
Yes, in a sort of way. The assessed the literature on airfoils, including Lilienthal's tables of lift vs. drag for a few wing shapes.
Being cautious, the Wrights tried to replicate the findings in their own wind tunnel and found them completely at variance with the published tables. They went with their own data.
I remember it well. I was 7 mo. old.
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