The Wright 1899 Kite Flys Again! ...sort of

On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:04:03 -0800 (PST), wright1902glider
wrote:

Well don't stop there, tell us how it flew. ...like a Cub?

Pictures?

Vaughn


A Cub? Hell, airplanes wouldn't fly that good until Piper invented
the... oh, right.

No fellas, the Wright 1899 kite was nothing more than a quick and
dirty way to see if wing warping was going to work. According to
Orville, the wingspan was only 5 feet. The fact that Wilbur (Orv never
flew it) was inspired to continue after building this machine is the
amazing part. Of the other builders that I've talked to, three
characteristics seem common.

First, it seems impossible to fly it for more than a minute. If its
been done, I've not heard of it. (Supposedly, Tom Crouch of the
Smithsonian has managed 50 seconds, but I've never talked with Tom
Crouch.)

Second, it has almost no roll authority. Get it a little out of shape
and its going to roll over and dive into the ground. The same seems
true for the Wright gliders and airplanes; very slow in roll.

Third, the kite has a nasty habit of becoming classically unstable. By
that I mean that it porpoises worse than even the 1903 did, and that's
a lot. While the gliders and airplanes had an acceptible pitch range
of -2 to +10 degrees AOA, the kite's is much less. When it (not you,
it) wants to, it'll start a wild pitch occilation that will go from 30
cycles/min. to about 90 cycles/min. in less than 2 seconds, if it
doesn't crash or tear itself abart first. Its very fond of doing the
later. Although there are few things more facinating and entertaining
than watching a Wright kite takeoff, climb 8 feet, and then proceed to
shake itself to smithereens, flinging parts at unsuspecting schoolkids
along the way. Sounds pretty cool too. Whapa-whapa
whapawhapawhawpwpwpwpwpwpwpwpwpwpwpwwppw BANG! CRUNCH!

Fun stuff. Time to go shovel more snow and cook a few more ribs.

Harry

sounds to me like you have a laminar bubble warbling back and forth on
the aerofoil. some bubble trips might be in order to nail that little
puppy down and make the ride more stable.

you also realise that Old Warden has a flying vintage aircraft from
that era that can only be successfully flown at a single airspeed.

interesting.
Stealth Pilot