PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew in 1908.
Old 24th Jun 2014, 19:07
  #595 (permalink)  
longer ron
 
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It also had not one but two new control systems. When flying the Flyer III in 1908 with upright seating, the brothers had devised a new control system with three separate levers for wing warping, elevator, and rudder . Orville seemed to have no problem with them, but Will found them confusing. When he crashed the Flyer III on 14 May 1908, he blamed his inexperience with the controls. Later that year when Wilbur assembled a Model A the brothers had shipped to France, he replaced the controls with a system of his own devising. Orville stuck with the original 3-lever system when building the Model A he demonstrated later that year at Fort Myer, but made some improvements when he built his next airplane. The end result was that Wright airplanes manufactured in Europe generally had a "Wilbur" control system, while those made in America had an "Orville." For a short time, you could order Wright airplanes with either Wilbur or Orville controls, your preference.

Both types of controls featured two levers -- one to actuate the elevator and the other to warp the wings and move the rudder. The warp/rudder lever was between the two seats; the elevator levers were to the right of the right seat and the left of the left seat. If a pilot switched seats, he also had to "switch hands.
So Simplex - the 1908 Flyer already had two possible control system layouts and you are saying that the Wrights then reverted to the original control system as well - just to take hundreds of fake photographs and even going to the trouble of staging many crashes just to make it look realistic ....
It would make a great film but quite frankly they did not have the time to do all that in 1908,there are not many pilots who will purposely crash their aircraft and I would put money on the Wright brothers not wanting to hurt themselves on purpose LOL
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