Just over a month away from the 104th anniversary of flight itself, the world's largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380, took its maiden voyage. This behemoth airliner sports four massive engines, two decks, and an array of exotic materials that give the term "aerospace material" a whole new meaning. With a whopping price tag of $319.2 million, it sure isn't cheap, but it's a great example of how far we've come since the Wright brothers' faithful flight in 1903.
Both Orville and Wilbur Wright received high school educations but not diplomas. They began their careers as printers and later became bicycle salesmen and repairers. Their success as the first to sustain "heavier-than-air" human flight is amazing considering their humble beginnings, coupled with the relatively uncharted waters of aeronautics at the time.
Almost all airplanes need two things for flight: thrust and lift. Lift is a pressure differential that forms when air moves over certain shapes. Thrust is the force that pushes or pulls the aircraft forward, pushing air over the wings and in turn, generating lift. Without either element, an airplane can no longer be classified as such. Without thrust, the vehicle is simply a glider, and without lift, the vehicle can't even get off the ground.
At the time of Orville and Wilbur's experiments, the problem of lift had already been targeted and explored. Several German scientists created magnificent gliders that "flew" for rather impressive distances. The Wright brothers used many pre-existing ideas about wing design while expanding upon others in hopes of generating more lift. Their greatest accomplishment was when they successfully married an engine to one of their gliders. This single act was an incredible feat of engineering at the time. The design considerations were many: The total aircraft mass needed to be kept to a minimum, the materials needed to be strong but light, wing design needed to create sufficient lift.
The brothers were also the first to devise a system for controlling an aircraft's movement and direction. Unlike a car, an airplane can't be fitted with a steering wheel. Automobiles only move in two directions and can essentially only turn on a single axis. Airplanes, on the other hand, move in three dimensions and thus need to turn along three separate axes known as pitch, yaw, and roll. The system of control that the Wright brothers devised became the predecessor to almost all mechanical systems used today.
2008 Woodie Awards
