Wright Brothers' Path to First Flight Being Re-Created

Bijal P. Trivedi
National Geographic Today

November 9, 2001

For the past week, engineers led by retired commercial pilot Ken Hyde
have tried to experience the trials and tribulations of the Wright
brothers by testing a reproduction of their 1901 glider at NASA's
Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The goal of Hyde
and his collaborators is to relive the dawn of aviation history by
rebuilding and testing the series of kites and gliders that Wilbur and
Orville Wright built at the turn of the 20th century.

"We are trying to rebuild, retrace, and evaluate," said Hyde. "We want to find out how and why the Wright brothers were able to discover the secrets of flight in four years, whereas the whole academic community had spent hundreds of years trying to discover that and were unsuccessful," he added.

Wilbur Wright had planned to write a book describing the design and flights of all the gliders and planes that he and his brother had built and tested. But he died in 1912, and his brother Orville never took up the task.

Because none of the original blueprints exist, Hyde and his colleagues have rebuilt the Wright's 1901 glider based on grainy black and white photographs, descriptions in notebooks, and court depositions.

"By building this 1901 glider, and testing the propellers and building all of the aircraft, we'll go back and re-engineer all the processes and fill in the puzzle pieces that are missing in their files, in their paperwork," said Hyde.

The 1901 glider was a source of much frustration. Some reports say that it initially flew equally well when launched backwards off of a hill. After some alterations, the glider completed more than 100 flights, some almost as far as 400 feet (120 meters). But it was still very difficult to control.

After disappointing flights in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, during the summer of 1901, the brothers built a wind tunnel and began making and testing several hundred airfoils. This systematic approach, which is still used today, enabled the brothers to rapidly test wing designs, and thus marked a turning point in the Wright brother's strategy.

At Langley Research Center, a full-scale reproduction of the 1901 glider sits mounted on a pole in front of two enormous propellers, which produce winds comparable to those encountered in flight.

"The wind tunnel allows us to study how the glider handled at high and low speeds, to measure its drag and lift," said mechanical engineer Kevin Kochersberger of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, who is running the wind tunnel tests.

Kochersberger said "reverse engineering" is being used to design and build the gliders and all of the Wright brothers' other contraptions because the design is tweaked to match flight accounts from the time.

"I hope our efforts will inspire some young Orville and Wilbur Wrights," said Hyde.

"When you see what limited resources the Wright brothers had, it just shows how much can be done with a little creative thinking," said Kochersberger.

Hyde hopes to build and fly the 1903 Wright Flier at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 2003, which will mark the anniversary of 100 years of flight.

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