Newcommen Society - The Wright Brothers’ Last Laugh – The World’s Return to Unstable Flight

With their background in design and construction as bicycle mechanics, The Wright Brothers set out to build a flying machine. Nevertheless, success took half a decade of experimental engineering & even the Wrights themselves didn’t think much of their world renowned flight on 17th December 1903. On that day, they were lucky but they were only halfway there. Proper flying did not come until 1905.

The Wrights were not enthusiastic amateurs. As genuine engineers, they read the literature before starting work. An early insight, coming from bicycle design, was that aircraft not only had to be controlled, but a degree of instability was useful. The lecture will review what they did and summarise the Wrights’ other engineering achievements.

In the decades that followed, the unstable aircraft was considered an idiotic concept. Today, however, advanced fighters and even some commercial aircraft have adopted the Wrights’ approach. Instability gives better manoeuvrability, lower aircraft weight, and reduced fuel consumption. But there are dangers.