page_title: Early flying machines
section_title: The Wright brothers
hierarchical_section_title: Early flying machines / Heavier than air: sustained flight / Adding power / The Wright brothers
caption_attribution_description: العربية: أول محاولة ناجحة للطيران للطائرة رايت فلاير التي تم انشائها بواسطة الأخوان رايت . طارت الطائرة لمسافة 120 قدم (36.6م) خلال 12 ثانية الساعة 10:35 صباحًا في كيل ديفيل هيلز ، بولاية كارولينا الشمالية . English: First successful flight of the Wright Flyer, by the Wright brothers. The machine traveled 120 ft (36.6 m) in 12 seconds at 10:35 a.m. at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Orville Wright was at the controls of the machine, lying prone on the lower wing with his hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. Wilbur Wright ran alongside to balance the machine, and just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing in the photo. The starting rail, the wing-rest, a coil box, and other items needed for flight preparation are visible behind the machine. This is described as "the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air, powered flight" by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, but is not listed by the FAI as an official record. Français&#160;: L’un des premier vols habités de l’histoire dans un aéronef plus lourd que l’air (36.6 mètres en 12 secondes), par les frères Wright le 17 décembre 1903 à 10h35 sur la plage de Kill Devil Hills en Caroline du Nord. Orville est aux commandes, allongé sur le ventre sur l’aile basse et les hanches dans la nacelle qui servait à contrôler le mouvement des ailes&#160;; Wilbur court le long de l’appareil et vient de lacher l’aile droite. Le rail de lancement, des étais et d’autres équipements nécessaires pour la préparation du vol sont visibles. 日本語: 1903年12月17日、ライト兄弟が人類初の動力飛行機での有人飛行に成功した時の写真。ライトフライヤー号
context_page_description: Early flying machines include all forms of aircraft studied or constructed before the development of the modern aeroplane by 1910. The story of modern flight begins more than a century before the first successful manned aeroplane, and the earliest aircraft thousands of years before.
context_section_description: The Wrights solved both the control and power problems that confronted aeronautical pioneers. They invented roll control using wing warping and combined roll with simultaneous yaw control using a steerable rear rudder. Although wing-warping as a means of roll control was used only briefly during the early history of aviation, the innovation of combining roll and yaw control was a fundamental advance in flight control. For pitch control, the Wrights used a forward elevator (canard), another design element that later became outmoded.
  The Wrights made rigorous wind-tunnel tests of airfoils and flight tests of full-size gliders. They not only built a working powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer, but also significantly advanced the science of aeronautical engineering.
  They concentrated on the controllability of unpowered aircraft before attempting to fly a powered design. From 1900 to 1902, they built and flew a series of three gliders. The first two were much less efficient than the Wrights expected, based on experiments and writings of their 19th-century predecessors. Their 1900 glider had only about half the lift they anticipated, and the 1901 glider performed even more poorly, until makeshift modifications made it serviceable.
  Seeking answers, the Wrights constructed their own wind tunnel and equipped it with a sophisticated measuring device to calculate lift and drag of 200 different model-size wing designs they created. As a result, the Wrights corrected earlier mistakes in calculations of lift and drag and used this knowledge to construct their 1902 glider, third in the series. It became the first manned, heavier-than-air flying machine that was mechanically controllable in all three axes: pitch, roll and yaw. Its pioneering design also included wings with a higher aspect ratio than the previous gliders. The brothers successfully flew the 1902 glider hundreds of times, and it performed far better than their earlier two versions. 
  To obtain adequate power for their engine-driven Flyer, the Wrights designed and built a low-powered internal combustion engine. Using their wind tunnel data, they designed and carved wooden propellers that were more efficient than any before, enabling them to gain adequate performance from their low engine power. The Flyer's design was also influenced by the desire of the Wrights to teach themselves to fly safely without unreasonable risk to life and limb, and to make crashes survivable. The limited engine power resulted in low flying speeds and the need to take off into a headwind.
  According to the Smithsonian Institution and Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the Wrights made the first sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air manned flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on 17 December 1903. The first flight by Orville Wright, of 120 feet (37 m) in 12 seconds, was recorded in a famous photograph. In the fourth flight of the same day, Wilbur Wright flew 852 feet (260 m) in 59 seconds. Modern analysis by Professor Fred E. C. Culick and Henry R. Rex (1985) has demonstrated that the 1903 Wright Flyer was so unstable as to be almost unmanageable by anyone but the Wrights, who had trained themselves in the 1902 glider.
  The Wrights continued developing their flying machines and flying at Huffman Prairie near Dayton, Ohio in 1904–05. After a crash in 1905, they rebuilt the Flyer III and made important design changes. They almost doubled the size of the elevator and rudder and moved them about twice the distance from the wings. They added two fixed vertical vanes (called "blinkers") between the elevators, and gave the wings a very slight dihedral. They disconnected the rudder from the wing-warping control, and as in all future aircraft, placed it on a separate control handle. The Flyer III became the first practical aircraft (though without wheels and using a launching device), flying consistently under full control and bringing its pilot back to the starting point safely and landing without damage. On 5 October 1905, Wilbur 
caption: The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft.
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