Amit Anand 400907031

History
Dream as old as mankind
Reflected in imaginations & dreams Daedus & Icarus have their mentions in the Greek

mythology Flying horse-Pegasus(greek) , Garuda(indonesian) ,Pakshiraj(indian mythology)

Mere Attempt At Copying Nature

Era of the

th 17

Century

Seventeenth century saw various attempts in the

form of lighter than air balloons. Filled with hot gas or hydrogen Amount of hot gas blown into the balloon determined the flight and range . Not a feasible solution

Eighteenth & Nineteenth Century

Eighteenth &Nineteenth century saw the invention of

various things . Completely changed human life. But still there wasnt anything substatntial done in the field of aviation uptill now An englishmen Sir George Cayley conceived a flying machine with fixed wings,propulsion sysytem & moveable control surfaces.

 Cayley was fascinated by birds and kites.

He would carefully study and observe the different

flying mechanisms in birds Concluded that the lift function and the thrust function in the birds were distinct. Built the first airplane a kite mounted on a stick with a moveable tail.

Cayley glider replica flown

Works of Otto Lilienthal

Period of experimentation began in 1891 with Otto

Lilienthal. Began his experiments with a hang glider Worked on the ideas of cayley Believed that the ideas of distinct thrust function and lift function could be imitated by employing different systems on the aircraft. Developed 19 different gliders Died in a gliding accident but his work paved the way for engineers to come including the wright brothers.

Lilienthals Gliders

A Fairy Tale
Story of two honest , straightforward & hardworking

Americans who accomplished something magical & fantastic . Created a craft of stick & fabric that mounted the air like the chariots of gods opening the sky to all human kind. Driving force behind the Wright brothers

Analogies
Various sources from where they derived analogies

were-: 1. Birds 2. Kites 3. Flying carpets from the Arabian nights 4. Fishes

Starting At The Top

Carefully studied what others had done
Tried to understand the failures & limitations of

previous work Broke the orthodox style of thinking , discarded various superstiotions & carefully put together various bits & parts of info scattered here and there Began with a glider & then only moved to the idea of a powered airplane.

General Rule Of Designing

 Wright brothers built their several aircrafts and tested

it. They conducted field test which revealed certain vital stats i.e. how far it can fly , how long it remained airborne ,how sensitive it is to air borne disturbances.

Doing It Wright
Tested individual components instead of designing

and building the whole aircraft Earlier researchers had showed that airplane can be controlled by designing it in such a way that one wing tips up & other tips down . Wright bros. Concentrated on a 5 foot biplanekite,showed that twisting the wings had the intended effect in causing the kite to roll.

1900-1902
They tested several gliders but none of them were

very successful They knew they just couldnt go on making gliders and testing them as it was too costly and also was uncertain They came up with a wind tunnel in which the lift and drag could be quantified Tested 80-200 different wing shapes

 In 1902 they finally came up with a design which was

the first effective heavier than air aircraft . Although the longest flight that the glider was to ever make was only 662 feet on the ground, it was travelling into stiff air

1903-The Historic Year

They knew they were very close , nw all eyes were

on the powered airplane The brothers developed a 4 cylinder gasoline engine , returned to the tunnel to test the propellor shapes and finally designed the 1903 aircraft.

Quantitative Analysis
Blue points depicts the

progress made during the period 1894 to 1905 for the non wright flights Against the backdrop we see the wright bros. efforts to develop an airplane in green.their first aircraft was approx. equal to the best aircraft that had been developed so far.

Thanks