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Destination Tomorrow - DT12 - First Flight Control

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Subido el 28 de mayo de 2007 por EducaMadrid

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NASA Destination Tomorrow Segment explaining how the Wright Brothers successfully achieved controlled flight.

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On the morning of December 17th, 1903, history was made off the sands of Kitty Hawk, North 00:00:00
Carolina. 00:00:10
For the first time in history, man had achieved controlled flight of a heavier-than-air machine. 00:00:11
The Wright brothers had achieved what all their predecessors had only dreamed of, flight. 00:00:16
While many of their contemporaries had focused on very complicated designs, the Wrights chose 00:00:20
a straightforward design as a means of accomplishing flight. 00:00:25
Controlling the aircraft was a key area most designers took for granted. 00:00:28
This is where the Wright brothers targeted most of their design and innovation. 00:00:32
Most early inventors thought that flight control can be achieved by a pilot simply shifting 00:00:35
his weight back and forth. 00:00:39
The Wrights, on the other hand, knew that controlling the plane would be the key to 00:00:41
successful flight. 00:00:44
To find out how the Wrights accomplished the goal of flight, I spoke with Jim Cross to 00:00:45
find out how it works. 00:00:48
Well, it started when they were both pretty young. 00:00:50
In fact, at the time, they were living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 00:00:53
They didn't always live in Dayton, even though that's where they considered their home, to 00:00:56
be Dayton, Ohio. 00:00:59
Their father was a minister, in fact, he was a bishop in his church, and he would take 00:01:01
long trips away from home. 00:01:05
When he would come back, he'd often bring the boys a gift. 00:01:07
Well, one time he came back from a trip, and he walked into the room and had something 00:01:11
in his hand. 00:01:15
And when he opened his hand to show them what it was, it flew out of his hand. 00:01:16
Now, what he had brought them was a little helicopter, I guess is what you'd call it 00:01:21
today. 00:01:25
But at that point, Orville was only seven years old at the time, Wilbur was 11. 00:01:26
That seed of flight was planted, and it never left them. 00:01:31
They really just started sort of as enthusiasts and hobbyists, but when they got started on 00:01:35
it, they knew before they did anything, they were going to have to learn everything they 00:01:41
could on it. 00:01:44
In 1896, they decided that they were going to get involved and take an active part in 00:01:45
trying to solve this problem of flight. 00:01:51
Now, they were in their 20s at the time, young men, owned a bicycle shop, the Wright 00:01:52
Cycle Company right there in Dayton. 00:01:56
But what really propelled them was the death of Otto Lilienthal. 00:01:58
Now, he was a great German glider pilot. 00:02:01
He had made thousands of glider flights. 00:02:04
When the Wrights heard of this, they took a look at this and they said, you know, how 00:02:07
is this possible? 00:02:10
How could he possibly have something go so wrong that it could cause an accident that 00:02:12
he could lose his life in? 00:02:17
At that moment, they decided that they wanted to maybe get involved to see if they could 00:02:20
figure this out. 00:02:25
At first, they didn't have this idea of they're going to go out and invent an airplane. 00:02:26
Their initial idea was simply to study the problem, to learn everything about it they 00:02:32
could, and what their hope was was to be able to come up with possibly some little tidbit 00:02:37
of information that they could add to this body of knowledge that man was accumulating. 00:02:42
And then they figured someday somebody's going to put it together and figure this out. 00:02:47
The Wright brothers recognized early on that the pilot would have a very limited range 00:02:51
of motion in which he could shift his weight. 00:02:54
They realized that a pilot would become fatigued quickly if he was constantly adjusting his 00:02:56
weight to control the craft. 00:03:00
They understood that movable surfaces would be the only way a plane could be controlled. 00:03:01
Wilbur Wright came up with a solution quite by accident. 00:03:06
As he was talking with a customer in the bicycle shop, he was fidgeting with a small cardboard 00:03:09
box. 00:03:13
As he twisted the box back and forth with his fingers, he realized the same principle 00:03:14
could be used on an aircraft's wings. 00:03:18
This idea came to be known as wing warping, allowing the control they'd been looking for. 00:03:20
They tested the idea on a kite glider and were pleased to see how well it worked. 00:03:24
With this discovery, the brothers were well on their way to solving the mystery of flight. 00:03:28
The Wright Cycle Company right there in Dayton was really a key. 00:03:33
A bicycle at the time, late 1800s, was cutting edge technology. 00:03:36
Now, a bicycle is an unstable piece of machinery. 00:03:40
If you just get on it and sit there, you're going to fall off. 00:03:45
Now, even if you start riding it, if you want to turn, you can't simply turn that handlebar. 00:03:47
But if you lean a little into that turn and then turn the handlebar a little, you're making 00:03:53
the turn. 00:03:59
Same thing with an airplane, they figured. 00:04:00
So control was the key. 00:04:02
That's what they were going for. 00:04:04
In the fall of 1900, the brothers tested their first glider design on the Windy Dunes here 00:04:05
at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. 00:04:09
Although the test flights were somewhat successful, the aircraft needed more design modifications. 00:04:11
For the next three years, the brothers would leave Dayton for a few months out of the year 00:04:16
to test their new designs at Kitty Hawk. 00:04:19
In the late summer of 1902, the brothers finally had a glider that worked well. 00:04:22
But that was a turning point for the Wrights. 00:04:26
At that point, they were no longer hobbyists. 00:04:28
They were no longer enthusiasts. 00:04:31
They were now true scientists and engineers. 00:04:33
They had entered a whole new realm. 00:04:37
All that was left to do was find an adequate engine and propeller system, and they felt 00:04:40
that they would soon be flying. 00:04:43
Unfortunately, automobile engines of the time were not up to their exacting standards. 00:04:45
So in typical Wright fashion, they hired their friend Charles Taylor to make an engine especially 00:04:50
suited for their needs. 00:04:54
The engine weighed 180 pounds, and it gave them 12 horsepower. 00:04:55
That's 50% more than they needed. 00:05:00
So they had that engine. 00:05:03
Now that was a four-cylinder, gasoline-powered, water-cooled engine. 00:05:04
I mean, it worked great. 00:05:07
With the engine problem solved, they looked to the propeller. 00:05:09
For years, the Wright brothers assumed that the propeller would be the easiest problem 00:05:12
to solve on the aircraft. 00:05:16
Their original design was based on a ship's propeller, but they ultimately found that 00:05:18
this design was not sufficient for their needs. 00:05:21
The Wrights were the first ones to figure out that a propeller for an aircraft truly 00:05:24
needs to be a rotary wing, something that can create lift. 00:05:30
And you just rotate that 90 degrees, you got thrust. 00:05:35
After months of tackling complex mathematics and theoretical physics, the brothers designed 00:05:39
their own propellers. 00:05:44
Now, they hand-made these propellers out of laminated spruce. 00:05:45
They put all of this together on the craft, and when they were done, they had a unique 00:05:51
piece of machinery. 00:05:57
Something that could do what no other machine in the world had ever done before. 00:05:59
They were confident of that. 00:06:03
They knew it, but they had yet to prove it. 00:06:04
After winning a coin toss to decide who would try first, Wilbur climbed into the plane December 00:06:08
14, 1903. 00:06:12
Unfortunately, this first flight attempt failed, causing minor damage to the plane. 00:06:14
So three days later, after repairs had been made, it was Orville's turn to attempt flight. 00:06:18
Now, as they were getting ready to launch that craft, Orville and Wilbur kind of went 00:06:24
to one side and had a little short conversation. 00:06:28
The witnesses said when they left, they shook hands like two people that may never see each 00:06:30
other again. 00:06:35
Now, they come back. 00:06:36
He gets on board that craft, lays down in that pilot position there. 00:06:37
Now, Wilbur's got to take his place out on the wing. 00:06:41
They're ready to go. 00:06:44
Orville releases that wire, and that craft starts down the rail. 00:06:46
Wilbur's running along, holding on to that wing, keeping up just fine until at 1035 in 00:06:50
the morning, 17 December, 1903, it lifts into the air. 00:06:54
And for the first time in the history of the world, we have controlled, powered flight. 00:06:58
First flight, 12 seconds, only went 120 feet. 00:07:05
But it was truly the first controlled, powered flight by man. 00:07:09
Now, they made three more flights that day, total of four flights, and they alternated. 00:07:16
Wilbur made the fourth and the longest flight. 00:07:22
The third flight was only 200 feet, but the fourth flight was 852 feet in 59 seconds. 00:07:25
That really proved it to the world that they had really done it. 00:07:32
What have we seen since then? 00:07:38
I mean, we got a space station in orbit right now. 00:07:40
I mean, we put a man on the moon. 00:07:43
We have literally come from Wilbur's footprints in the sand right here to Neil Armstrong's 00:07:45
footprints on the moon. 00:07:50
Now, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he had with him, had it tucked inside a space 00:07:52
suit, he had a small patch of cloth from that original Wright Brothers 1903 powered flyer. 00:07:57
And I can think of no finer tribute to the Wrights than that. 00:08:02
That's all from the Wright Memorial. 00:08:08
I'm out of here. 00:08:09
Oh, but before I go, did you know that Orville Wright was not only the first person to fly, 00:08:10
but he was also involved in the first fatal aircraft accident? 00:08:15
The first person killed in an airplane accident was Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge. 00:08:18
On September 17th, 1908, airplane inventor Orville Wright took Lieutenant Selfridge up 00:08:22
on a demonstration flight for the U.S. Army. 00:08:26
During the flight, one of the propellers separated, causing Wright to lose control. 00:08:29
The plane fell 75 feet to the ground, killing Lieutenant Selfridge, while Orville Wright 00:08:34
suffered a broken leg and pelvis. 00:08:38
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Idioma/s:
en
Niveles educativos:
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Autor/es:
NASA LaRC Office of Education
Subido por:
EducaMadrid
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
Visualizaciones:
542
Fecha:
28 de mayo de 2007 - 17:05
Visibilidad:
Público
Enlace Relacionado:
NASAs center for distance learning
Duración:
08′ 43″
Relación de aspecto:
4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
Resolución:
480x360 píxeles
Tamaño:
50.79 MBytes

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