December 11, 2003

Michael Braukus 
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1979)

Kathy Barnstorff
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
(Phone: 757/864-9886)

Jennifer Mullen
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va. 
(Phone: 757/683-3580)

RELEASE: 03-407

WIND TUNNEL RESULTS WILL HELP FLYER RECREATE HISTORY

When a historically accurate reproduction of the 1903 Wright Flyer 
airplane tries to fly on the 100th anniversary of powered flight, it 
will have passion, modern engineering science and NASA wind tunnel 
test results helping it aloft. 

Ken Hyde, founder of the Wright Experience in Warrenton, Va., has 
passionately worked for years to uncover the secrets of Orville and 
Wilbur Wright, the Ohio bicycle maker brothers credited with making 
the first successful powered flight.

Hyde and his team have painstakingly recreated propellers, gliders and 
aircraft in an attempt to figure out how the Wright brothers flew for 
12 seconds in 27 mph winds over the sand dunes of North Carolina's 
Outer Banks on Dec.17, 1903. They will get their chance next week at 
the First Flight Centennial Celebration near Kitty Hawk, N.C.

"We have been working almost 10 years on the research aspect of this," 
Hyde said. "The machine we plan to fly is three years in the 
building. I have often been asked why we are doing it. The answer is 
because nobody has done it, and it needs to be done."

Four years ago Hyde turned to NASA's Langley Research Center (LaRC) in 
Hampton, Va., and Old Dominion University (ODU) in Norfolk, Va., to 
better understand the engineering science behind the Wrights' 
efforts.

Hyde started by bringing wooden propellers, hand crafted to Wright 
specifications, to the Full Scale Wind Tunnel, owned by LaRC and 
operated by ODU. Hyde progressed to authentic reproductions of two 
Wright gliders and the Wright Flyer reproduction. ODU engineering 
professors and students tested the equipment. 

"The Wright propellers were 20 years ahead of their time," said 
Professor Robert Ash, Wright test program manager for ODU. "They were 
able to convert engine power into thrust with the efficiency required 
to enable a small and heavy gasoline engine to propel the Wright 
Flyer. The December 17, 1903, flight was not possible without the 
Wright propeller designs, and this contribution has been largely 
overlooked," he said.

According to Ash, what the Wrights didn't do was design a stable 
aircraft. He and others studied hours of wind tunnel test data from 
the two Wright gliders and the reproduction to reach that conclusion. 
"Just like their bicycle heritage, the Wrights deliberately exploited 
instabilities to effect dynamic flight control," Ash said. "Flying 
the Wright Flyer is like trying to keep a bicycle upright in three 
dimensions."

The nature of the aircraft affected the way the four Wright Experience 
pilots trained. They've gotten expert guidance from a simulator, 
created using the LaRC Full Scale Tunnel data, and from a former NASA 
test pilot, Scott Crossfield. Crossfield was the first American to 
fly at twice the speed of sound, more than 50 years ago. 

"They're all very capable aviators," Crossfield said. "But they've had 
to unlearn most of what they know about flying stable airplanes. Very 
few people have flown unstable airplanes."

One of the aviators is Kevin Kochersberger, an associate professor 
from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y. He 
helped manage most of the wind tunnel tests. During training in North 
Carolina last month, he successfully got the Flyer reproduction off 
the ground.

"Being a scientist and engineer are important qualifications for 
flying this aircraft," said Kochersberger. "I've been looking at the 
characteristics of the Wright Flyer for four years. Being in the wind 
tunnel with it really made a difference."

The First Flight Centennial Celebration runs Dec. 12-17 at the Wright 
Brothers' National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. It will feature 
the Wright Flyer recreation flight, appearances by NASA astronauts 
and agency exhibits. 

For information about NASA and the Centennial of Flight on the 
Internet, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov 

	
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