VOICE ONE:
This is Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English programEXPLORATIONS. Several American groups are building and testingcopies of flying machines that are almost one-hundred years old.Today, we tell about why this is being done.
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VOICE ONE:
Orville and Wilbur Wright are famous as the first people tosuccessfully build and fly a heavier than air, engine-poweredaircraft. They did this on December Seventeenth, Nineteen-Oh-Three.They flew their machine at a place called Kitty Hawk in thesoutheastern state of North Carolina. At that time, they wereunknown brothers who built bicycles in the city of Dayton in themiddle western state of Ohio.
Recently an exact copy of one of the earlier flying machinesbuilt by the Wright brothers was tested at NASA’s Langley ResearchCenter. The aircraft is called the Nineteen-Oh-One glider. A glideris a light weight airplane that does not have an engine. It can flyafter a plane with an engine pulls it up into the air.
The glider tested at Langley is a copy of the second glider thebrothers designed and built that was large enough to carry a pilot.The Wright brothers were trying to learn about flight. They builtand flew several different gliders before their first poweredflight. Some of these machines were successful. Some were not.However, each machine added to their knowledge.
VOICE TWO:
The recent tests of the Wright brothers’ glider are part of aresearch project being carried out by three groups in Virginia. Theyare Old Dominion University in Norfolk, the Wright Experience ofWarrenton, and the Discovery of Flight Foundation, also ofWarrenton.
The three groups joined together in an effort to discover andrecord how the Wright brothers succeeded in learning to fly. NeitherWilbur nor Orville was well educated. However, they taughtthemselves to make a successful flying machine in about five years.Other people with scientific educations had failed in this effortagain and again.
VOICE ONE:
During the recent tests, engineers at Langley took exactmeasurements of how the glider performed. The tests at Langley areperformed inside a huge wind tunnel. The wind tunnel is big enoughto test full size airplanes in a controlled environment.
The tunnel produces wind at any speed the researchers choose. Thewind is directed to pass the airplane’s wings to produce the effectsof flight.
Robert Ash is a professor of aerospace engineering at OldDominion University. He was the head of the flight test project ofthe Wright brothers’ glider. Mister Ash said the Nineteen-Oh-Oneglider was extremely difficult to control.
The Wright brothers had built the glider in an effort to learnhow to control an aircraft in flight. They made about one-hundredflights in the glider during the summer of Nineteen-Oh-One. Some oftheir tests flew a distance of more than ninety-two meters. MisterAsh says the test of the Nineteen-Oh-One glider showed the Wrightsthat they needed to make major changes in the design of the glider’swings and its controls.
VOICE TWO:
The Wright brothers decided they needed a device to test newdesigns. They built a very small wind tunnel. They tested almosttwo-hundred designs of small size wings and planes in the tunnel.The wind tunnel helped them learn how to shape a wing so it was ableto produce the lift needed to permit flight.
When a design proved successful in their wind tunnel, the Wrightswould build a full size machine to test again at Kitty Hawk, NorthCarolina. Each wing they tested, each control device they designed,each aircraft they made added to their knowledge of flight.
The Wright brothers created the first wind tunnel aircraft designprogram. Their early methods are very similar to the researchmethods used by the flight industry today.
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VOICE ONE:
The recent tests at the Langley, Virginia wind tunnel arenecessary because the Wright brothers did much of their work insecret. They did not leave many documents concerning their work.
Wilbur and Orville Wright were forced to work in secret becausemany other inventors were experimenting with flying machines. Thebrothers believed others might steal their ideas, or use their workto create a successful flying machine before they could.
The Wright brothers usually destroyed both successful andunsuccessful aircraft after they were tested. They also destroyeddocuments and drawings. Today, their first flying machines existonly in one-hundred year old black and white pictures. The Wrightbrothers never told the full story of all their many experiments.
VOICE TWO:
The Discovery of Flight Foundation and the Wright Experience areresearching, building, testing and recording full size copies of theWright brothers’ designs. These include early gliders, airplanes,propellers and engines.
The groups are working to create a historical record of theWright brothers’ efforts. This record will be complete withdrawings, scientific measurements, instructions, pictures anddocuments.
Scientists at the Langley Wind Tunnel have already tested andrecorded the Nineteen-Oh-One glider. They also have tested theNineteen-Oh-Three, Nineteen-Oh-Four and Nineteen-Eleven Wrightpropellers.
The testing of the Wright brothers’ work has an important goal.On December Seventeenth, Two-Thousand and Three, at exactlyten-thirty-five in the morning, a copy of the first Wright poweredairplane is expected to lift into the air. The flight will takeplace at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on the one-hundredthanniversary of the Wright’s famous flight.
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VOICE ONE:
Ken Hyde is the director of the Wright Experience Organizationthat is building an exact copy of the first powered aircraft. MisterHyde says the goal of the organization is to re-create what Orvilleand Wilbur did so history will fully understand the secrets of theWright brothers. He says, “We know how to put a human on the moon,but we have not been successful in flying a true Wright airplane.”
Mister Hyde says, “We want to discover how the first steps weremade—steps that are lost in history. And we believe that we willfind those first steps and finish the first century of flight as itbegan, by flying over the sands of Kitty Hawk.”
Mister Hyde says the re-creation of the work of the famousbrothers is being aided by documents the Wrights provided courts toprove the designs were theirs. Orville Wright also left manypersonal letters that told in general terms about their work.Orville spent much of his life defending the fact that he and hisbrother were the first to invent the airplane.
Mister Hyde says this was necessary because so many other peopletried to violate the brothers’ legal rights to the airplane.
VOICE TWO:
Ken Hyde says it is exciting to be building the copy of theWright Nineteen-Oh-Three Flyer. He thinks Orville and Wilbur Wrightwould be pleased with the results.
Mister Hyde says work on the engine is about seventy-percentcomplete. Most of the body of the aircraft is also complete.
The Wright Flyer has two wings, an upper wing and a lower one.Both are made of wood with a cloth covering. The wood part of thewings is now completely built.
The Wright brothers covered all the wings they built with aspecial cloth called muslin. The cloth was lightweight, yet strong.Mister Hyde says the cloth the Wright brothers used was called”Pride of the West.” It was a common cloth used for women’s clothingin the early Nineteen-Hundreds, but this “Pride of the West” muslincloth is no longer made.
Mister Hyde says an exact copy of the cloth must be used forscientific measurements to be correct. Different kinds of clothwould produce different results in wind tunnel and flight tests.Finding a way to reproduce this special cloth has been the biggestproblem in building a copy of the airplane
VOICE ONE:
Ken Hyde says the Wright Flyer will be ready so the Wrightbrothers’ flight can be re-created two years from now. He says youcan follow the progress of the project if you have a computer. Thecomputer address for the World Wide Web is:www.wrightexperience.com.
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VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson. It wasproduced by Cynthia Kirk. Our studio engineer was Mick Shaw. This isSteve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for anotherEXPLORATIONS program on the Voice of America.