[HN Gopher] Flight-Testing of Otto Lilienthal's Monoplane Design...
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       Flight-Testing of Otto Lilienthal's Monoplane Design from 1893
        
       Author : croemer
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2024-01-28 12:34 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arc.aiaa.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arc.aiaa.org)
        
       | coldcode wrote:
       | In this modern age where inventions are generally built on those
       | who came before, it's hard to imagine how inventive this design
       | was with so little prior history (and how crazy it was to fly at
       | all). I wonder if the Wright brothers would have been as
       | successful as they were without Lilienthal thinking about it
       | first.
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | I think the big thing this experiment showed was how important
         | wind tunnel testing was. It also reinforced that the big
         | problem wasn't getting a vehicle in the air, it was controlling
         | it once you did so. This seems obvious now, but back in the
         | 19th century the control schemes were often inadequate or
         | poorly tested so flights usually ended in crashes that
         | destroyed the vehicle. Yet another lesson from the wind tunnel
         | testing. Even in this article they spend a lot of time trying
         | to work out how to trim the glider. Once you add a gasoline
         | engine to a glider trying to control it by swinging your legs
         | around is just not adequate.
        
       | IlPeach wrote:
       | Cool and all... But a video would have been interesting as well.
        
         | soperj wrote:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AZjozlvyZ4
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-30 23:00 UTC)