FIRST FLIGHT STORY

Hokitika Guardian, 21 February 1929, Page 8

FIRST FLIGHT STORY

anniversary dinner

LONDON, December .18. A. distinguished company ol British scientists, p.oneers in aircraft eonstrucLi<>n and aeronautical research workers gathered round the historic Wright biplane in South Kensington Aluseum, to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first controlled flight in a power-driven aeroplane, made by the \Vright Brothers at Kitty Hawk on Decc nicer 17th. 19J3.

Colonel the .Master of Sempill, the chairman of the Royal Aeronautical Society, which was tljus honouring the achievement winch made flying possible, and all that has followed, presided over a company limited by space to one hundred and which had the privilege of actually sitting- uown to dinner tallies placed underneath the wings oi that first- flying machine overhead. This fact alone gave an added emphasis to the speeches, for the listeners, looking at the biplane above, with its curiously thin wings, slender struts, forward elevators, and the idenke model of a- man peering down from Ins prone position at the controls, could better appreciate the progress made in those twenty-five years and the difficulties which the WTigln brothers so patiently and courageously overcame. After the loyal toasts, that of “Wilber and Orville Wright” was proposed ny Air Griffith Brewer, who was the first Englishman to fly with the Wright brothers, and has been very closely associated with them. He gave a short address on the early work ol the brothers., TWO PLANS. He said that to appreciate the Wright brothers’ effort it was necessary to take their minds back to the end ol the last century, when there was a Hying problem, l ilt not yet a flying art. I hey learned from such acknowledged leaders m science at Sir George C'ayioy, the Hon Charles Parsons and Sir Hiram Maxim that in their belief the best method of attaining flight was to build a. p :wer machine and then learn to fly it; and there was another groupe winch included Otto Chnnute and Pilcher. who believed in learning to fly on a glider before building the power machine. The Wright Brothers, haling learnt from the books what had already been tried, recognised that the main problem was that of equilioritun and net merely the application of power Li wings which would support that power. They, .therefore, decided to build a glider. Their first departure from hook practice .as the system of balancing the glider by changing the angle of the wing tips instead of changing the p osition of the pilot, a method which had proved fatal to Liliciithal and Pilcher. ! liey made a long series of actual measurements to lift and drag of the machine under various loads. These were probably the first full-scale measurements taken, and revealed the first discrepancies in the existing table: They then proceeded to make a second gilder with 308 square feet, nearly douule that of the first, and from its behaviour they deducted that, (-outran |.o the teaching of the hooks, the centre of pressure of a curved surface travelled backwards when the surface was inclined at small angles and that measurements and formula! published by different investigators were so contradictory that it was necessary to test everything for themselves. Up till now they had regarded flying as a sport, but now they entered upon the scientific side of it, and built for u.eniselves a wind tunnel in which they tested various shaped surfaces at intervals of two and a half degrees, l hev measured the results, and from this the third glider was made, and with this at Kill Devil Hill in 19-02 they made nearly a thousand gilding flights, several of which covered distances of over six hundred feet. They then returned home and built their first power machine, even to the engine. as no suitable one was available, and they had also to design and make the propellors. A CRUEL SEQUEL. This research delayed the completion of the power machine so that the first uiglit did not take place until December 17. 1903. So confident were they of success that they sent out a general invitation to people in the neighbourhood to see the first flights, but the cold December wind prevented all but live people availing themselves ol uie invitation. This machine was launched by running it along a twowheeled trolly laid along a wooden rail on the sand, and so carefully bad everything been calculated that this machine, home-made in every detail, when it left the rail was flown by Orville Wright in perfect balance, maintaining its height above the sand and landing at the end of the first flight without smashing and in perfect order for flight again. Milbour then flew the machine, next owill again, and then Wilbur, who covered, 852 ft in 59 seconds again.si a 20mile wind. Then, as a cruel sequel to tlie greatest mechanical achievement ever performed by man, a gust of wind caught the machine, rolled it over, and made it a wreck. Those four flights were- the only ones ever made with the machine, which, now restored by Mr Orville Wright, was within their view tiiat night, and was the forerunner twenty-five years ago of the now flying art. (Cheers).

...ossages were read from Mr Orville Wright, Mr W. P. MaeCrackcn jun. ( Assistant-Secretary of Commerce for 'eronaiitics), the chairman of International Aeronautics Conference at. "Washington. M. Paul Tissandier. president < the Historical Commission and Centre de Documentation. Aero (dull of France, “as an old pupil of "Wilbur Wright,” the German Scientific Society for Air Navigation, the Belgian Aero Club, and the Italian Aero Society.

Air C. R. Kaircy, in proposing the health of the chairman, said it would not he right to allow an historic occasion like that to pass without a mention of that great English engineer, St ringfollow. who not 25 but 80 years ago at one blow solved more than half the problems of flight in a machine, a specimen of which was in that museum. Had he been given a sufficiently powerful engine it would have been a different anniversary they would have been celebrating, and the Wright Brothei-s would not grudge to Stringfellow the credit of designing the first aeroplane, not to lift a man, hut to sustain itself in the air.