WRIGHT BROTHERS Aeroplane Company
A Closer Look

he Wright "Kite" was the Wright brothers first aeronautical experiment. Actually, it wasn't a kite at all but a small glider designed to test a revolutionary new method of controlling an airplane. Early in the summer of 1899, Wilbur Wright had discovered that he could twist or "warp" the wings of a biplane by drawing the "corners" (where the struts joined the wings) together with cables. When the wings twisted, the angles of attack (the angles at which the wings meet the wind)  changed -- one end of each wing would be angled up, producing more lift, while the opposite ends were angled down, producing less. This would cause the biplane to roll. This is what history remembers as the aileron principle, and it was the first step toward producing an effective control system for an airplane.

Wilbur built a small glider with a 5- or 6-foot wingspan, patterned after the "double-decker" glider which Octave Chanute first tested in 1896. Wilbur, however, eliminated the fore and aft bracing wires and attached the wings to the struts with "wire hinges" -- cotter pins looped through one another. This allowed the wings and struts to move back and forth. He attached control lines to the four front corners of the model, allowing him to twist the wings from the ground. When he flew the kite in late July of 1899, it behaved precisely as he hoped -- he could roll it right or left with a small movement of his wrists. Thus encouraged, he and Orville planned their first man-carrying glider.

We built and flew the reproduction shown here in 1999, exactly 100 years after Wilbur had tested the original. There wasn't much to go on. There are no pictures of the kite, and the only drawings are three small sketches that Wilbur made in 1912 for the Wright patent suit against Glenn Curtiss. Wilbur gives some very sketchy descriptions in a few letters, but hardly enough to build a copy. Instead of working from plans or photos, we reviewed the aeronautical information the Wrights had gathered in 1899, the glider designs they were familiar with, the Wright glider design that came after the kite, and the tools and materials they worked with. After a few harrowing flying experiments of our own, we arrived at the configuration you see here. His kite has a spruce and ash frame lashed together with waxed linen "lacing cord." It's covered in muslin set at a bias to the ribs and spars -- the warp and woof threads run at angles to the frame parts, helping to brace it.

We departed Wilbur's sketch in two important ways. First -- and most important -- the wing camber is completely different. Wilbur shows deep arch -- a section of a circle. When we copied this, the kite was too unstable to fly. The deep arch caused the center of pressure on the wing to reverse itself with small changes in angle of attack, traveling back and forth so quickly that the kite actually fluttered in the air like it was going to shake itself to pieces. After getting some advice from a professional kite designer, we found that a shallow elliptical camber or even a flat camber is much easier to control. Wilbur and Orville must have made the same discovery. This would explain why they showed up in Kitty Hawk in 1900 with a glider that had a shallow, elliptical camber when the prevalent aeronautical wisdom of the time was to use a deep arch. The camber on the kite shown here is about 1/20, with the peak close to the leading edge -- the same as the 1900 glider.

The second departure is that we simplified the wing construction, eliminating the wires at the leading a trailing edges and moving the spars out to the edges. The Wright brothers never made an airplane with wires at the leading and trailing edges; we sincerely doubt that they would have done so for a kite. They Wrights rarely built anything on their aircraft that wasn't functional and necessary; there is no reason to presume that they weren't just as careful when building kites. The point of this particular kite is test whether wing warping is an effective aerodynamic control. All that was required was a simple rectangular frame. Remember, Wilbur made the kite sketches 13 years after building the kite. His sketches were copied and given a more professional look by a court illustrator who may or may not have had some familiarity with airplane construction. You can't take the 1912 sketches as gospel.

The Wright Kite is what kite flyers call a "quad" -- four control lines, attached to two sticks. Angle one stick forward and the other back to warp the wings.	The tail is also movable and functions as an elevator. Angle both sticks in the same direction to pitch the kite up or down. For the initial flights, however, you should tighten the bracing strings so the tail remains stationary.	All the parts of the kite are lashed together with "lacing cord" -- a common building material in the 1890s. Lacing cord was to the Victorian handyman was duct tape is to today's do-it-yourselfer.	Where the muslin wing covering stretches over a rib, the cover is cut back and the edges are whipped to prevent them from tearing.
Each rib slips through a pocket sewn in the wing covering. The spars are drilled with tiny holes and the wing covering is tacked to it.	A close-up on the lower right corner of the kite, showing how the struts are hinged to the spars with cotter pins. The cotter pins are whip-lashed to the struts and spars. Not only does this hold the hardware in place, it keeps the wood from splintering.	Before you fly the kite, you must make sure that all four lines are precisely the same length. Keep them short -- no more than 10 feet long. Adjust the bracing strings so the tail is angled up about 5 degrees. On your initial flights, you just want to concentrate on rolling the aircraft. You can tackle pitch control later.	Here's the kite, ready to fly. If the wind is strong enough, you can launch it like an airplane. With it resting on the ground, tug on the two bottom strings. In lighter winds, have someone hold it up as high as possible and tug on the  bottom strings.
If the wind is steady, the kite will lift off just like an airplane. Don't try to run with the kite -- it doesn't work.	The first few moments of flight are very squirrelly. You have only a few seconds to get control before the kite noses over or rolls into the ground.	If you have trouble launching and getting control of the kite, try shortening the strings. The longer the strings, the longer the delay between your control movements and the time the kite actually responds.	Here's how to roll the kite -- angle the control sticks in opposite directions, Normally, you shouldn't have to angle them this far.
Once you've gotten a little practice, you should be able to make slower, gentler rolls.	However, the kite will rarely stay still in the sky as it did for this one photo. It requires constant attention and control inputs from you to keep it from crashing.	Once you're confident that you can roll the kite, loosen the bracing strings so there's just a little play in them and you can rock the wings back and forth without twisting them.	Do this by angling the control sticks in the same direction. As the wings rock, the tail will go up or down. This, in turn, will cause the kite to climb or dive.
When you get the hang of this, you can fly the kite low to the ground...	High in the air...	Or anywhere in between.	After cracking up our cloth replica several times, we decided to build a 2/3 scale kite using silkspan to cover the wings. The small kite isn't any easier to fly, but it's much easier to repair.

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