In article ,
"Dave Kearton" writes:
"John Carrier" wrote in message
...
Over the past couple days I've watched TV stories about a couple of
programs

Snip

. The
apparent lack of flight training (the guy is practicing in a Citabria)
looks
like a large hurdle. I suspect the flyer needs rather specialized
technique
compared to conventional aircraft.

Anyone know of any other efforts in the reenactment effort?

R / John





Would make more sense (maybe) to get a bicycle repairman who's never been in
a plane before to be the pilot.


...or maybe his brother ...

A couple of points, Dave. The Wrights weren't bicycle repairment,
they were bicycle _manufacturers_, designing and building their own
bikes (The Wright Flyer, as a matter of fact) from the ground up. Not
the same thing at all.

They also took the most systematic and scientific approach to solving
the problem of heavier than air flight than anybody who'd gone
before. When they realized that Lilienthal's data was incorrect, they
derived everything from scratch, using various test rigs adn their own
wind tunnels. By 1903, they knew more about air propeller efficienfy
adn stability and control than anyone. They also took teh same
systematic approach to flying. They began flying gliders at Kitty
Hawk in 1900, and spent 1900, 1901, and 1902 perfecting the control of
their aircraft, and learning to fly. (As an aside, that's one of the
things that amazes me about nearly all of the early experimenters,
(Adler, Langley, Maxim), or would-be experimenters (Whitehead, ahd
that bloke in New Zealand whose name escapes me at the moment) All of
them seemed to be of the idea that all they had to do was build their
machine, jump into it, and fly it. It doesn't work that way,
especially with the poor understanding of stability, and lack of
3-axis control that they had. Manley's (Langley's Test Pilot)
swimming improved quite a bit, though) After tje extensive
experiments of 1900-1903, I'd say that by Dec 1903, the Wrights had
more flight time than anyone else.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster