Milt
You need to get your hands on a copy of "The Wright Flyer, an engineering perspective" by the National Air and Space Museum published by the Smithsonian Institution Press 1987.
It has a paper in it "Aerodynamics, Stability and Control of the 1903 Wright Flyer" by Culick & Jex
It looks bleak viz:
"For our wind tunnel data we estimate that the neutral point of the 1903 Wright Flyer was about 10% of chord aft of the leading edge. The centre of gravity was 30% aft of the leading edge, so the airplane was severely unstable...." -20% static margin " for current aircraft with automatic control the greatest negative static margin which is acceptable is about -5%"
If you would like to see the whole paper pm me and I'll scan it and squirt it to you.
Cheers
W
Last edited by Wunper; 30th September 2005 at 16:51.