Juan David's Newsletter - July 10, 2022
Early History of Flight
Morning,
I want to share a couple of things:
UIUC Talkshow Interview with the professor who ignited my flying fascination
If you’re short on time, watch our heated exchange at 55:18
The good thing about learning on the internet is that people will roast the shit out of you. That’s fine. I’m interested in learning, not feeling good about myself by trying to be “right.”
You know I like experiments so here’s a video recording of a writing session where I taught myself about the thrust equation
All about flying! From curious facts to interesting thoughts about flying cars.
Now onto today’s essay.
Early History of Flight
This essay draft is part of an upcoming mega essay (or book) of an exploration of teaching myself EVERYTHING on Flying from Hidden History to Hardcore Engineering.
Many people think we need to know how things work first in order to make them possible. Many times, it’s the opposite. We make them work, then we figure out why it works.
With the plane that seems to be the case. The Wright Brothers didn’t even graduate from high school nor attended college.
But before we start talking about the Wright Brothers, let’s go back but way back to the first ideas of flying, especially those ideas that were forgotten or dismissed because they were not possible at the time.
Throughout history, there have been many legends and myths about flying. From a winged horse called Pegasus to Icarus flying near the sun and burning his wings.
Real or not, the mystery of flying has always fucking amazed humans.
The first efforts started with the discovery of the kite around 400 BC in Asia. They were used for fun and religious ceremonies. I loved flying kites as a kid. I remember I built my own kite back when I was 5 or 6. It was a beautiful shitty green kite, and the first time I built it, it didn’t work (much like the drone project) so I had to try multiple times but when it flew, it was such a great feeling. I’m sure the feeling was even greater in around 400 BC.
The first ideas about flying were biomimetics, meaning they were inspired by nature. If we talk about flying, we have to talk about birds. Therefore, many of the first designs had wings but not much progress was made. Bird flight is where everyone looks at first because, well…birds are already doing what we want so it makes sense!
But this proved to be faulty because well birds are biologically different from humans. Wings were made of feathers or lightweight wood. When wings were attached to arms to see if they could fly. As you can probably guess, the results were catastrophic. The reason? The muscles!! Human arms cannot move with the strength of a bird.
In the 1480s, Leonard da Vinci made the first real flight studies. He had theories and drawings. He envisioned the ornithopter which was a flying machine that was never created but whose concepts gave inspiration to the modern-day helicopter.
One of these flight studies was da Vinci's Codex on the Flight of Birds which goes on and described in great detail how birds use their wings, how the wind affects flight, and some early designs for a human flight machine.
The biggest takeaway from da Vinci’s book is that birds use the wind to their advantage to fly better, faster, and more energy-efficient. That was a clever insight and my reaction was “Why don’t drones adapt to the wind similar to how bird do it?” You could achieve this by creating an AI system similar to self-driving cars. This is an idea we may come back to later depending on if I make progress.
300 years later, the Montgolfier brothers invented the first hot air balloon. They filled silk bags with hot air which they called “electric smoke.” The silk bag was attached to a basket. The hot air then rose and allowed the balloon to be lighter than the air. They made successful launches despite fully understanding the scientific principles. The first passengers were a sheep, rooster, and duck. They reached a height of about 6,000 feet and traveled more than a mile. A few months later, the brothers began sending men up.
Improving Our Understanding
da Vinci made progress but then two hundred years later there was another guy named George Cayley who made lots of scientific and engineering progress on understanding how and why things flight. Over fifty years, he iterated on glider design and that’s where he discovered two important things.
First, he designed a type of wing so that air would flow over wings correctly.
Secondly, he realized and correctly predicted that there would be a need for power if we wanted to fly for a long time. George Cayley was also the first person to understand the basic principles and forces of flying such as weight, lift, drag, and thrust.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, flying started to get more real. From both changing the public perception to being possible.
In the 1890s, Otto Lilienthal enthusiastically changed the public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines. Otto is best known for designing the first glider that could fly a person and a glider that could fly long distances. He was obsessed with the idea of flight and he wrote a book on aerodynamics, a book the Wright Brothers used as the basis for their designs.
Lilienthal accurately described the flight of birds, especially storks. On a book that is very much like da Vinci but a lot more mathematical. Below, it’s an example.
After more than 2500 flights and a total flying time of five hours, Lilienthal was killed after losing control because of a strong gust and crashed into the ground.
All the way across the Atlantic Ocean, there was another man named Samuel P. Langley who wanted to create a flying machine with power so he built a model of a plane called an aerodrome, which included a steam-powered engine. His models were a start in the right direction but his planes never really worked. He successfully flew an unmanned model aircraft but Langley had no effective way of controlling the plane.
Afterward, the Wright Brothers picked up from here and the rest is ….is not history, it’s our ability to FLY in the SKIES.
I find the history of flight so beautiful that it almost makes me cry. It deeply touches my soul as it describes the human spirit along with its challenges such as death and despair but also amazement and bliss.
This is the human race. This is us. The collective knowledge of almost 14 billion years. The collaborative and inherited tears of sorrow and ecstasy.
We must continue moving forward. What will be our role to advance the knowledge of the human race? Doing so is one of the most meaningful things you can do.
I won’t let down those behind me. Sky? Space? Whatever else is out there? The human race is coming.
or
Let’s fly-rocket-and UFO,
Juan David Campolargo
🎵 Song I listened to while writing this: The Difference.