Tests Show 1902 Wright Glider Was Difficult to Fly

We have been hard at work ready our 1902 Wright Glider reproduction for its first test flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. We had hoped to make these flights before December 17, 1999, but our preliminary static tests have forced us to reconsider.

Over Thanksgiving Weekend (1999), we took the glider out to Barnhart Memorial Airport near New Carlisle, Ohio to fine-tune the rigging, check the center of gravity (CG) and test the control effectiveness. We hit some bumps in the rigging, but finally got the machine in trim. Then we came hard up against bigger problems.

With a pilot in place, the CG is too far aft. For a canard airplane to fly safely, the CG should be in the vicinity of the leading edge. If it's too far aft, the canard will tend to lift the nose and stall the aircraft. We had to add 50 pounds of weight to the nose of the glider to get the CG close to where we wanted it.

In addition to CG problems, the canard-cum-elevator is improperly balanced and its range of movement is much too wide. As a result, it tends to over-control the pitch of the airplane, sending it into a dive or a stall.

Because we have remained faithful to history in our reconstruction, these problems were probably present in the original 1902 glider. They don't make aircraft impossible to fly, but they make it somewhat difficult and dangerous. Many of the crashes and hard landings recorded by Wilbur and Orville could be the results of an aft CG and/or a temperamental elevator. These problems are also consistent with the videotapes of Rick Young's 1902 glider reproduction. During most flights, the pilot is working the elevator pretty hard.

If our mission were archaeology rather than education, we might go ahead with some test flights. But it isn't - our purpose is to tell the Wright story in an inspiring way. There's nothing inspiring about crashing a replica and reducing the efforts of dozens of volunteers to toothpicks.

At the same time, we're beginning to get requests to show the glider from schools and museums as far away as Dallas, Texas (see the next story), and we don't want to risk disappointing people just as we're getting started. For these reasons, we've decided to build a second glider for flight research. This new glider will remain close to history, but will provide means to adjust the CG, canard balance, and control travel. This will help to find a configuration that makes the original design safer and easier to fly. And if we do decide to fly the original replica for the insights it might give us into the Wright story, we'll be better able to manage the risk after we've gained sufficient experience with the test model.

We hope to have this second glider ready to fly by the spring of 2000.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

On the grounds at Barnhart Memorial, about 5 miles from Huffman Prairie.

Rigging the glider.

Testing the center of gravity with the glider empty.

A detail of the canard pivot on the glider.