Editing History of aviation (section)

=== Wright brothers ===
{{Main|Wright brothers}}
[[File:First flight2.jpg|left|thumb|The ''[[Wright Flyer]]'': the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft]]
Using a methodical approach and concentrating on the controllability of the aircraft, the brothers built and tested a series of kite and glider designs from 1898 to 1902 before attempting to build a powered design. The gliders worked, but not as well as the Wrights had expected based on the experiments and writings of their predecessors. Their first full-size glider, launched in 1900, had only about half the lift they anticipated. Their second glider, built the following year, performed even more poorly. Rather than giving up, the Wrights constructed their own [[wind tunnel]] and created a number of sophisticated devices to measure lift and drag on the 200 wing designs they tested.<ref name=Dodson>{{Citation |author=Dodson, MG |title=An Historical and Applied Aerodynamic Study of the Wright Brothers' Wind Tunnel Test Program and Application to Successful Manned Flight |journal=US Naval Academy Technical Report |volume=USNA-334 |year=2005 |url=http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3585 |access-date=11 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110905162319/http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3585 |archive-date=5 September 2011 |url-status=usurped }}</ref> As a result, the Wrights corrected earlier mistakes in calculations regarding drag and lift. Their testing and calculating produced a third glider with a higher [[aspect ratio]] and true three-axis control. They flew it successfully hundreds of times in 1902, and it performed far better than the previous models. By using a rigorous system of experimentation, involving wind-tunnel testing of airfoils and flight testing of full-size prototypes, the Wrights not only built a working aircraft the following year, the ''[[Wright Flyer]]'', but also helped advance the science of aeronautical engineering.
{{
multiple image | direction = vertical | total_width = 300

| image1 = 19031228 Machine That Flies - The Newark Daily Advocate.jpg | width1 = | caption1 = Within weeks of the first powered flight, this Ohio newspaper described "what the [[Wright Brothers]]' invention has accomplished" — after years of glider tests, four successful flights in a powered flier that has "no balloon attachments of any kind, but is supported in the air by a pair of aerocurves, or wings", placing "[[Alberto Santos-Dumont|Santos-Dumont]] and [[Patrie (airship)|Lebaudys]], with their dirigible balloons&nbsp;... in eclipse".<ref name=NewarkDailyAdvocate_19031228>{{cite news |title=Machine That Flies / What the Wright Brothers' Invention Has Accomplished |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/newark-advocate-dec-28-1903-p-7/ |work=The Newark Daily Advocate |date=28 December 1903 |location=Newark, Ohio, U.S. |page=7 |access-date=12 August 2020 |archive-date=17 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417133818/https://newspaperarchive.com/newark-advocate-dec-28-1903-p-7/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

| image2 = 19060107 Another attempt to solve aerial navigation problem - Wright Brothers - The New York Times.jpg | width2 = | caption2 = This 1906 article describes how the Wrights' experiments were conducted in "strict secrecy for several years", with "not more than a dozen persons" being in on the secret.<ref name=NYTimes_19060107/> One insider stated that the brothers had "not sought for spectacular success", and instead described their "progressive accumulation of experiences", including gradual progression from gliders to powered flight, and from straight flights to circuits requiring turning the aeroplane.<ref name=NYTimes_19060107/> The account reported "some slight success in flying through the air at the end of the Summer of 1903".<ref name=NYTimes_19060107/> The Wrights were said to have solved flight control issues to achieve controlled turns on a one-mile circuit on 20 September 1904, followed by five-minute flights in the ensuing weeks, and a 24-mile, 38-minute flight in summer 1905.<ref name=NYTimes_19060107>{{cite news |title=Another Attempt to Solve Aerial Navigation Problem |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/new-york-times-jan-07-1906-p-12/ |work=The New York Times |date=7 January 1906 |page=2 |access-date=9 August 2020 |archive-date=6 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201106204215/https://newspaperarchive.com/new-york-times-jan-07-1906-p-12/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
}}

The Wrights appear to be the first to make serious studied attempts to simultaneously solve the power and control problems. Both problems proved difficult, but they never lost interest. They solved the control problem by inventing [[wing warping]] for [[Roll (flight)|roll]] control, combined with simultaneous [[Yaw axis|yaw]] control with a steerable [[rear rudder]]. Almost as an afterthought, they designed and built a low-powered [[internal combustion engine]]. They also designed and carved wooden propellers that were more efficient than any before, enabling them to gain adequate performance from their low engine power. Although wing-warping as a means of lateral control was used only briefly during the early history of aviation, the principle of combining lateral control in combination with a rudder was a key advance in aircraft control. While many aviation pioneers appeared to leave safety largely to chance, the Wrights' design was greatly influenced by the need to teach themselves to fly without unreasonable risk to life and limb, by surviving crashes. This emphasis, as well as low engine power, was the reason for low flying speed and for taking off in a headwind. Performance, rather than safety, was the reason for the rear-heavy design because the [[canard (aeronautics)|canard]] could not be highly loaded; [[Dihedral (aircraft)#Anhedral|anhedral]] wings were less affected by crosswinds and were consistent with the low yaw stability.

According to the [[Smithsonian Institution]] and [[Fédération Aéronautique Internationale]] (FAI),<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Wright Brothers & the Invention of the Aerial Age|url=http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/|access-date=14 February 2023|website=airandspace.si.edu|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120502100132/http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/|archive-date=2 May 2012}}</ref><ref>[http://www.fai.org/news_archives/fai/000295.asp "100 Years Ago, the Dream of Icarus Became Reality"]. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110113080326/http://www.fai.org/news_archives/fai/000295.asp |date=13 January 2011 }} ''FAI News'', 17 December 2003. Retrieved: 5 January 2007.</ref> the Wrights made the first sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air manned flight at [[Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina]], four miles (8&nbsp;km) south of [[Kitty Hawk, North Carolina]] on 17 December 1903.<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11372/ |title = Telegram from Orville Wright in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to His Father Announcing Four Successful Flights, 1903 December 17 |website = [[World Digital Library]] |date = 17 December 1903 |access-date = 21 July 2013 |archive-date = 25 December 2018 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20181225123949/https://www.wdl.org/en/item/11372/ |url-status = live }}</ref>

The first flight by [[Orville Wright]], of {{Convert|120|ft|m}} in 12 seconds, was recorded in a famous photograph. In the fourth flight of the same day, [[Wilbur Wright]] flew {{Convert|852|ft|m}} in 59 seconds. The flights were witnessed by three coastal lifesaving crewmen, a local businessman, and a boy from the village, making these the first public flights and the first well-documented ones.<ref name="WDL"/>

Orville described the final flight of the day: "The first few hundred feet were up and down, as before, but by the time three hundred feet had been covered, the machine was under much better control. The course for the next four or five hundred feet had but little undulation. However, when out about eight hundred feet the machine began [[Pitch axis (kinematics)|pitching]] again, and, in one of its darts downward, struck the ground. The distance over the ground was measured to be {{Convert|852|ft|m|0}}; the time of the flight was 59 seconds. The frame supporting the front rudder was badly broken, but the main part of the machine was not injured at all. We estimated that the machine could be put in condition for flight again in about a day or two".<ref>Kelly, Fred C. ''The Wright Brothers: A Biography'' Chp. IV, p.101–102 (Dover Publications, NY 1943).</ref> They flew only about ten feet above the ground as a safety precaution, so they had little room to manoeuvre, and all four flights in the gusty winds ended in a bumpy and unintended "landing". Modern analysis by Professor Fred E. C. Culick and Henry R. Rex (1985) has demonstrated that the 1903 ''Wright Flyer'' was so unstable as to be almost unmanageable by anyone but the Wrights, who had trained themselves in the 1902 glider.<ref>Abzug, Malcolm J. and E. Eugene Larrabee.[http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/09924/sample/9780521809924ws.pdf "Airplane Stability and Control, Second Edition: A History of the Technologies That Made Aviation Possible"]. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304051730/http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/09924/sample/9780521809924ws.pdf |date=4 March 2016 }} ''cambridge.org''. Retrieved: 21 September 2010.</ref>

The Wrights continued flying at Huffman Prairie near [[Dayton, Ohio]] in 1904–05. In May 1904 they introduced the [[Wright Flyer II|''Flyer II'']], a heavier and improved version of the original Flyer. On 23 June 1905, they first flew a third machine, the [[Wright Flyer III|''Flyer III'']]. After a severe crash on 14 July 1905, they rebuilt the ''Flyer III'' and made important design changes. They almost doubled the size of the [[elevator (aircraft)|elevator]] and rudder and moved them about twice the distance from the wings. They added two fixed vertical vanes (called "blinkers") between the elevators and gave the wings a very slight dihedral. They disconnected the rudder from the wing-warping control, and as in all future aircraft, placed it on a separate control handle. When flights resumed the results were immediate. The serious pitch instability that hampered Flyers I and II was significantly reduced, so repeated minor crashes were eliminated. Flights with the redesigned ''Flyer III'' started lasting over 10 minutes, then 20, then 30. ''Flyer III'' became the first practical aircraft (though without wheels and needing a launching device), flying consistently under full control and bringing its pilot back to the starting point safely and landing without damage. On 5 October 1905, Wilbur flew {{Convert|24|mi|km}} in 39 minutes 23 seconds.<ref>[http://home.dayton.lib.oh.us/archives/wbcollection/wbscrapbooks1/WBScrapbooks10006.html Dayton Metro Library] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090213024229/http://home.dayton.lib.oh.us/archives/wbcollection/wbscrapbooks1/WBScrapbooks10006.html |date=13 February 2009 }} Aero Club of America press release</ref>

According to the April 1907 issue of the ''[[Scientific American]]'' magazine,<ref>Reprinted in ''Scientific American'', April 2007, page 8.</ref> the Wright brothers seemed to have the most advanced knowledge of heavier-than-air navigation at the time. However, the same magazine issue also claimed that no public flight had been made in the United States before its April 1907 issue. Hence, they devised the [[Scientific American Aeronautic Trophy]] in order to encourage the development of a heavier-than-air flying machine. [[Glenn H. Curtiss]] won the trophy in 1908 with the first pre-announced and officially recorded flight of the June Bug.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/scientific-american-trophy/nasm_A19730589000 | title=Scientific American Trophy &#124; National Air and Space Museum | access-date=5 September 2023 | archive-date=5 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230905141556/https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/scientific-american-trophy/nasm_A19730589000 | url-status=live }}</ref>