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FAILURE
The sand dune with the monument on top is the site of numerous failed attempts at controlled flight. The pathway at the base of the hill is the beginning of the runway that the plane was towed along to reach airspeed. DAY 24: MAY 15, 2013
I had breakfast this morning at Bob’s Grill in Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks. The sign over of the door said this, “Eat, and get the hell out”. Probably should have got the hell out before eating. They served me burnt potatoes. Gasoline cost 30 cents per gallon more than anywhere else in the state. The reason for going to the outer bank was to visit Kittyhawk, and go see the wild horses of Corolla.
Kittyhawk Orville and Wilbur Wright were a couple of bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio who were obsessed with the notion of building a motorized kite that they could ride around in. It was a crazy idea. Their dad told them that; “if God had meant man to fly like a bird he would not have put all of the traction down here on Earth”. Their first several attempts to fly had failed and by 1901 Orville was about to give up and turn his hand to motorized bicycles. Their previous attempts failed because they could not overcome the three vital elements of control. The tree elements
HANGER
The structure on the left is a replica of the hanger where the airplane was assembled and adjustments made. The structure on the right is a replica of the living quarters. The Wright Brothers were fond of their comforts, but that building had no restroom facilities. were pitch, yaw, and roll. Yaw enabled a plane to fly straight from one place to another. Pitch enabled a plane to gain or lose altitude, and roll enabled a plane to change its course. Using an arrangement of levers and pulleys they found a way to control pitch and yaw but it required the use of both hands. What was needed was a way of controlling all three elements using just one hand. They thought it prudent to use their other hand to hold on to the contraption for dear life. One day Wilbur got to playing with the cover from an empty box of matches and it came to him how to control roll by changing the configuration of the lift surfaces or wings. It then came to him that by controlling roll you could also manage yaw. It was kind of like sailing a boat. A boat will go around in a circle by connecting the tiller to the boom. A plane can go into a turn by rolling the wings and rolling the wings would control the yaw, or rudder component. In another stroke of genius Wilbur saw that the way to manage roll was to
RUNWAY OBSTRUCTION
The monument for first flight is placed at the point on the runway where lift off was made. That big granite boulder would be a navigational hazard now that would likely cause a crash during take off. alter the center of gravity by using a movable slide for the pilot’s seat. It was a rickety arrangement, but it worked in a wind tunnel. The control issues were beginning to be understood, but there was another problem. The whole plane had to reach air speed before it could lift off the ground. In their previous attempts they tried to leap into the air from atop a sand dune at Kittyhawk, North Carolina which was in the outer bank and always quite windy. The plane they had built was too heavy for that. They could not use wheels to move the plane along the ground because of the sand. The wheels would bog down in it. Wheels were a good idea for takeoff, but they had to be kept above the sand. Wheels were a bad idea for landing. Wheels were needed for takeoff and skids were needed for landing. They solved the problem by building a set of rails down a low slope and mounting a four wheeled truck on the rails, and attaching the plane with skids onto the truck. The whole thing was towed down the rails until it reached air speed and left the ground.
ORVILLE SCHMORVILLE
These geese scoff at the whole notion of first flight. To prove their point they all jumped into the air and flew in tight formation straight down the flight path. It took them about 4 seconds to fly clear o the end of it. A coin toss determined who got to make the first attempt at flight. Orville lost, so he had to fly the plane. On December 17, 1903 they made four flights. The first one went 120 feet, the second went about 150 feet, the third flight went a bit further, and the last flight went 759 feet. A goose could easily outfly the first airplane, but aviation took off that day. Less than 66 years later man would set foot on the moon.
Wild Horses Some horses got dumped over the side of Spanish ships during heavy weather sometime shortly after the Lost Colony disappeared. They swam ashore on the Outer Bank and have been living been living there happily ever since. They have adapted their diet to native vegetation that would kill a normal horse, and they can no longer eat hay like other horses. They have become so inbred that those hammerheads have no practical use except as eye candy for tourists. You can only see them on a guided tour by special arrangement. Over the past 400 years they survived every hurricane. After a drive of 247 miles I am visiting old friends, Jim and Barbara Maysilles, near Durham, NC. We went out to dinner in a quaint little place called Hillsboro.
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