?? Lift Reserve Indicator ??

"wright1902glider" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hmmm....

http://www.waldowrights.com/pictures.asp

Check out the 8th photo down, left hand column. Watever that thingy
is... I remember it being an airspeed indicator, but I could be wrong.
Its been a while.

I shared a hangar with these guys at Celebrate Freedon 2004 in Camden,
SC. Rob is a really nice guy and is only about 6'7". Dunno how he fits
in that plane. His tent was off to the left of Kermett Weeks' P51-C. I
was to the right and behind. The Berlin airlift Museum's C-54 was just
to the right of me. I went up with him and 3 other fellows at dusk on
Sunday night after the show. Extremely cool.

Any guesses on who invented the vane-type AOA? I'm gonna have to look
that one up. I know that Orville was working with similar devices from
about 1909 through the 1920's. Early Wright machines were extremely
pitch sensitive. Most had an AOA window of -2 to +10 degrees. Any more
or less could, and frequently did, mean death.

Harry


I'm pretty sure that the thingy in the photo is the airspeed indicator of
the New Standard, and is the one that looks to me like an AoA indicator
marked as airspeed. IMHO, it would have worked quite well for the purpose
intended in those days (when no controller ever requested you to "say
airspeed"); but would not have been an especially accurate measure of AoA
due to the interference of the wings. In short, lousy for verifying
engineering specs, and better than a more accurate instrument for just
keeping pilots and passengers healthy and airplanes intact.

Peter