Replica Flyer Foiled By Weather

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Replica Flyer Foiled By Weather

Posted by timothy on Sunday September 21, 2003 @08:18AM from the first-one-took-a-few-tries-too dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "A replica of the Wright Brothers' 1903 flyer failed to fly yesterday afternoon at a demonstration in Chicago. Organizers blamed the measly 5 MPH winds. Kitty Hawk had 25 MPH back on December 17, 1903. IIRC, isn't Chicago the 'Windy City?'" Here's an earlier story about the various groups attempting to re-enact the Wright brothers' pioneer flight.

14 of 238 comments (clear)

Windy by youaredan · 2003-09-21 08:21 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually... Chicago is called the windy city because of the politians, not the wind. It's a "hot air" sort of wind :) But it is usually 'blustery' as well...

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-Digital Extremist // digitale
1. Re:Windy by mrtrumbe · 2003-09-21 08:32 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Ahh, but that might not be right either. Here's the full explanation from straightdope.com:
  ANOTHER BITE FROM THE APPLE
  Back to Barry Popik. Having gotten Big Apple squared away, Barry turned his attention to Chicago's nickname, the Windy City. The average mope believes Chicago was so dubbed because it's windy, meteorologically speaking. The more sophisticated set (including, till recently, your columnist) thinks the term originated in a comment by Charles Dana, editor of the New York Sun in the 1890s. Annoyed by the vocal (and ultimately successful) efforts of Chicago civic leaders to land the world's fair celebrating Columbus's discovery of America, Dana urged his readers to ignore "the nonsensical claims of that windy city"--windy meaning excessively talkative.
  But that may not be the true explanation either. Scouring the magazines and newspapers of the day, Popik found that the nickname commonly used for Chicago switched from the Garden City to the Windy City in 1886, several years before Dana's comment. The earliest citation was from the Louisville Courier-Journal in early January, 1886, when it was used in reference to the wind off Lake Michigan. In other words, the average mope was right all along! However, when Popik attempted to notify former Chicagoan but soon-to-be New Yorker Hillary Rodham Clinton of his findings, she blew him off with a form letter--and this from a woman facing a campaign for the Senate. Come on, Hill, quit worrying about the Puerto Ricans and pay attention here. You want to lose the etymologist vote?
  Full article here. There's also info on the origins of the "Big Apple." Neat.
  Taft
Two wrongs don't make a right... by enos · 2003-09-21 08:24 · Score: 4, Funny

... but two Wrights make an airplane.

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boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
100 years of aviation and this is what we get? by civilengineer · 2003-09-21 08:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Anyone saying getting there is half the fun did not fly on modern commercial airlines. -someone's quote I forgot who

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New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
1. Re:100 years of aviation and this is what we get? by SheldonYoung · 2003-09-21 08:58 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  100 years of aviation and we get air travel very safely at unbelievable speeds, where going through the airport often takes longer than the flight itself. It's become so routine nobody even thinks of how amazing flying is.
  
  100 years of aviation and we get safe, affordable high performance airplanes that you can buy and build yourself.
  
  100 years of aviation and we get piston engine airplanes with greater than 1:1 thurst to weight ratio.
  
  100 years of aviation and we feel confident enough to land airplanes without being able to see the ground.
  
  100 years of aviation and we find the next 100 years is decided by laywers and the insurance industry.
Trouble for the Wrights? by YouHaveSnail · 2003-09-21 08:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Should we continue to give the Wrights credit for the first powered flight when they had to rely on 25mph winds? Seems the 1903 Wright flyer was more like a glider.
Why? by chrispl · 2003-09-21 08:32 · Score: 5, Funny

Why would someone try this? The technology is ancient and there are much better...

Oh wait, wasn't there a story on here a few days ago about how to hook a C64 to your cable modem?

Never mind then.

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What post? The one you're carrying inside your rusty innards!
Catapults by blitz487 · 2003-09-21 08:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

Should we also then assert that navy jets are not really airplanes because they cannot get off the carrier deck under their own power and without the carrier steaming full blast into the wind?
The failure to fly is not surprising. by Rojo^ · 2003-09-21 08:51 · Score: 4, Informative

The Wright brothers didn't get the plane into the air on their first attempt either. A google search revealed a website containing the following information:

On Dec. 17, 1903, Orville Wright climbed into a 600 pound flying machine and made his historic flight in Kitty Hawk, N.C. Three days before, with Wilbur as pilot, the Wrights had tried but failed to get off the ground. The 17th turned out to be the fateful day for the Akron, Ohio-born brothers who had tinkered for months before finally unlocking the key to powered flight. They made four flights that day -- Orville's first lasted 12 seconds and spanned 120 feet; Wilbur's best was a 59 seconds, 852 foot leap. It wasn't long before the brothers had formed the Wright Company, which bought and sold airplanes.

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<:
Give'm a break by codefungus · 2003-09-21 08:52 · Score: 4, Informative

I JUST watched a documentary on this last night. It was really interesting. The wright brothers created the first powered airplane on their own while the goverment wasted thousands funding someone else. It was a fascinating story about these two inseperable brothers who ran a bicycle shop and decided to build their own plane. They were very methodical and:
1) Came up with the idea of what we call "Lift"
2) Created the first propeller as we use it today
3) Invented the wind tunnel for testing

All on their own! They also developed the way modern planes "stear"...as in angle and yaw are connected (i believe that's what they are).

The worked very very hard on this plane and left tons of notes...however...we do not have that plane. That's why the "Wright Experience" set out to build a replica based on the brothers notes...to the T! They knew they could make improvements, fixes...but then they wouldn't be building a replica.

Gives these guys a break...it took years to put this thing together as accuratly as possible...from the fabric to even the damn engine !

Thanks for playing

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-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
In other news by bongobongo · 2003-09-21 08:56 · Score: 5, Funny

A recreation of Columbus' first voyage was scheduled to begin today in Spain, but was called off due to the presence of what the organizers of the event described as "a wave in the ocean."
Engine powered flight dates back from... by Balinares · 2003-09-21 09:08 · Score: 4, Informative

1890.

For some reason it was decided that only the Wright brothers' attempt really counted and was worth teaching in schools, however. Go us, we invented the plane, etc.

Not that this one wasn't overly dependant on weather conditions either, of course (the plane exposed in this museum crashed in 1897 after a flight in bad weather conditions).

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-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Why the Wrights needed the 25mph wind. by Whammy666 · 2003-09-21 09:20 · Score: 4, Informative

It's been suggested in several posts that the Wright's requirement of a 25mph headwind was cheating because this somehow reduced their plane to a noisy glider. This really isn't the case. The reason has to do with drag. Even with a modern paved runway and tires, there is still a noticable amount of rolling drag during a take-off roll. It's not uncommon for a pilot (especially in small planes with limited horsepower) to lift the plane of the runaway a few feet to eliminate the rolling drag and then let the plane gain additional speed from the reduced drag before climbing out. Using a headwind just makes this process easier. Considering that the Wright Bros were using a crude track, wheels, and skids it's amazing they were able to get off the ground at all.

But their biggest contribution was that the Wrights recognized that existing aerodynamic theory was wrong. Using their wind tunnel and full size models, they literally re-wrote the book on aerodynamic theory of the time. Unlike other attempts at flight of the time, the Wright flyer was a product of sound scientific research rather than throw-it-together-and-hope-it-flies which was so common a the time. For that, they deserve to be recognized as the fathers of flight.

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When all else fails, run.
1. Re:Why the Wrights needed the 25mph wind. by KFury · 2003-09-21 09:47 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Interestingly, several modern aircraft don't even rely on the airfoil principles pioneered by the Wright Brothers.
  
  The F-4 Phantom's wings don't even have an airfoil shape. To compensate, they have huge engines mounted with a different angle of attack than the wings, so the wings act as lifting bodies because they're tilted up, as opposed to any help from Bernoulli.
  
  Like several other modern fighters, F-4 proves that you can put enough power behind a brick and it will fly.
  
  So the Wright Brothers needed 25mph headwinds. Is that any less an airplane than an F-4?
  
  --
  
  Kevin Fox