I think that’s true- I’d be interested in a dramatic movie about the path to man-powered flight. Ron Howard or Tom Hanks would be good choices as directors/producers.
I am surprised no one has done it already.
Doug McIntyre, who is currently the morning annoucer at KABC radio in Los Angeles, is a big fan of the Wright brothers, and also has script writing experience. When he was the host of the Red Eye Radio program, I heard him mention that he had long wanted to do a movie about the Wrights, and was sure the centennial in 2003 would be the perfect opportunity, but he couldn’t get the studios interested. If I remember correctly, the story just isn’t considered dramatic enough and doesn’t have enough human interest elements for big studio consideration.
I wonder who he talked…maybe I need to talk to him…hmmmm…maybe I should apply for a patent of some kind…
Agreed…there’s always obstacles…no one was interested in “Rocky”
And that movie was nothing but human interest
[Late to this thread - sorry.]
This is truly weird - in what way did Chanute “show them what to do” ??
They had a long and involved correspondence with Chanute, but reading it seems clearly to indicate that their thinking was ahead of his from early in the game. Chanute was devoted to the idea of inherent stability in a flying machine, whereas the Wrights, pretty much from the start, saw that an airplane had to be easily controllable, which argues against strong inherent stability.
It’s been suggested that their experience building bicycles contributed to this insight - a bicycle is a perfect example of a machine that has little to no inherent stability, but is able to stay upright due to operator inputs. But apparently nothing in what they wrote compels the view that their approach to flying machine stability derived from their experience with bicycles.
Chanute’s biggest contribution was encouraging the Wrights after their (to them) disappointing results at Kitty Hawk in 1901. He’d been present during part of their time at Kill Devil Hills, had seen some of what they’d accomplished, and understood its significance. He invited Wilbur to speak to the Western Society of Engineers on the subject of their gliding experiments, which helped Wilbur get quickly past his prediction that “not within a thousand years would men ever fly.”
Gott im Himmel. Where did you get this notion?
Their correspondence was extensive, and large amounts of it has been preserved. I’d be interesting in considering any shred of evidence that there is any truth to your assertion.
Their relationship is a little murky, in no small part because the Wrights denied much of it after succeeding, and in part because Chanute wanted them to be more open about what they were doing for the sake of advancing the Dream of Flight rather than patent protection. Chanute also got them thinking in terms of a biplane with a truss structure, something familiar to him from his previous career with railroad bridges. His broader contribution was teaching them the engineering process, although the Wrights were naturals at it anyway. Chanute certainly deserves a bigger part in history than “Who’s he?”.
Several biographies of them. Crouch’s is good.
I am skeptical of that claim. The Wrights used a canard presumably because it seemed logical to them – you can see where the elevators are just at a glance. They only switched to the posterior elevator arrangement with the Model B production airplane, so it appears that the canard was not that big a stability problem. As for the anhedral wings, they chose that arrangement because they flew in gusty winds and had determined it to be safer than dihedral, at least for what they were doing.
Just look at the most popular style of modern hang glider, the delta wing designed by Rogallo, incredibly stable yet very controllable.
You should take a look at what he was up to in April through June of 1914.
For a payment of $2000, he was extensively modifying Langley’s Aerodrome and making short hops in it to support the claim that it was the first flying machine “capable of sustained free flight”. The incentive for him was not so much the money (which was nothing to sneeze at, being equal to about $50k today) but the hope that demonstration of a controllable flying machine pre-dating the Wright’s 1903 flight would undermine their patent claims against him.
This was serious sleaze, the nastiness of which he was in a better position than almost anyone to understand. Curtiss deserves to be remembered as an important aviation pioneer, but this piece of scumbaggery should be remembered along with the rest.
Their extensive correspondence survives. Where and when did the Wrights deny any of it?
I’d be hard put to support the notion that he did much teaching of the Wrights.
He does, and indeed he has this.
Do any of these put forward any evidence that the Wright’s basic motivation was to get filthy rich? Can you point to this? Why does nothing along these lines appear in the historical record of what they said or wrote?
Glenn Curtiss didn’t have a clue about the aerodynamics involved in flight. He was an accomplished engine builder but an amateur engineer.
The Wright’s used a canard ( what they called a horizontal rudder) because they understood how the center of pressure would move along the top surface of the wing giving them the control of pitch that they needed a lot quicker and more precise than trying to move a body slung under a glider. They also learned that a machine designed for max stability is in fact less controllable. They wanted a machine as neutral in stability as they could make it so that THEY could control it. So they discarded the dihedral wing design and reversed it. The horizontal rudder was put in front to absorb contact with the ground first as protection for the pilot.They did not want to die as others had done in testing and flying their machines…
Well, there’s your character-driven plot, then! Think what could be done with it! The anguish at the heart of an apparently emotionless mechanic! A man who changed the world through imagination and diligence but was still too small-minded to be a true visionary! The creepy incestuous UST!
Forget historical accuracy. Wright Brothers: Vampire Hunter would be a sure hit.
Correct…and add that the Smithsonian Institute was also a participant in this scheme. This played a big part as to why the original Wright flyer stayed on display in France for decades before being returned and put on display in the U.S.
Correction…dihedral was abandoned at kittyhawk only, due to the effect of crosswinds at kittyhawk.After 1905, dihedral design returned.
They were looking for stability with control…posts at 1 am after working all day shouldn’t be attempted…there is a balance between inherent stability and neutral stability…
You know, I wouldn’t have said a movie about staid old John Harvey Kellogg would work, yet* The Road To Wellville* is hilarious. So do something like that.