T&C 4/2004: Centenial of Flight in Recent Literature

International Journal of Professional Aviation Training & Testing Research, 2016

On 17 December 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright entered the record books when their heavier-than-air flying machine became the first capable of manned, powered, sustained, and controlled flight. However, the Wrights did not invent the airplane. This is a general misconception. A closer examination of aviation history reveals that the accomplishment of the Wright brothers was the final step in a work that started much earlier than them. A review of the literature demonstrates that some historians may have disregarded certain unpopular characteristics in the Wrights' behaviors, namely their legal battles with the rest of the aviation world to attain wealth and recognition.

The Journal of Military History, 2005

Waller's discovery of IG file should give historians pause. Why did historians and biographers not discover these facts regarding Mitchell's personal life over the past seventy years? Are our research methods fundamentally deficient? Waller is a journalist, not a trained historian; yet he was able to ferret out key documents and facts that others could not. Perhaps it is time for us to go back to school. Overall, this is an excellent and readable account of Mitchell's personal life and the court-martial that ended his career. But Waller covers not at all the very important subject of Billy Mitchell the air theorist. It was in this arena that Mitchell's star shone mostly brightly. For this story, the reader must return to the study by Alfred Hurley written forty years ago. It is time to update this aspect of Mitchell's life.

The Aeronautical Journal

In this second Aeronautical Journal paper providing a technical appraisal of the Wright brothers’ achievements, the authors use modelling and simulation and associated flight dynamics analysis to present the development of the first practical aeroplane. The aircraft in question, the Wright Flyer III, was deemed fit for service by the Wrights in October 1905, and had evolved significantly from the first powered aircraft of 17 December 1903. The appraisal tries to shed light on many of the flight handling problems that the Wright brothers faced during this, their third phase of aeronautical endeavour, in 1904 and 1905. They retained their unstable configuration born in the 1901 and 1902 gliders, gradually refining the performance and handling until they considered the aircraft was ready for market. Their process of refinement has been reconstructed in simulation within the Liverpool Wright project, highlighting the many important developments during a period when Wilbur and Orville’s ...

The Wind and Beyond A Documentary Journey into the History of Aerodynamics in America Volume II: Reinventing the Airplane The Wind and Beyond Vol. II

Textus, 2005