Visitors:
• Charlise Prestwood
• Conner Sauter
• J. E. Madison
• Alex Hsain
• Anna-Claire Bousquet
Break
Presentation: “Reproducing History: Flying the Wright Brothers’ 1902 Glider,” Rick Young, member of the Quest Lyceum Project development team.
Rick Young began his talk by discussing why he has such a great interest in flying. He told us that was truly inspired by his father, who passed away last year at the age of 91. Rick grew up in Orlando and spent lots of time at Cape Canaveral, including playing touch football with astronauts on the beach.
A lot of his interest in flight involved how the Wright Brothers continued to design and re-design their attempts at flight. Rick had a good understanding of the history that led up to their successful flights at Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk. The designing of hang-gliders contributed to many of the experimental versions of the early plane. Many engineering experts came in the early 1900’s to help Orville and Wilbur improve their control system, enabling them to be successful in flight. Starting with the basic shape, the Wright Brothers made structural changes to the wing shape by changing its curvature, dimensions, adding pulleys, and adding different styles of struts at different angles.
The 1903 glider does not exist anymore. During one of the hard crashes, it blew into pieces and was taken away by the wind. This model was rebuilt much later and is now hanging in the Smithsonian Museum. Some of the planes were built using used parts from earlier versions. The Wright Brothers eventually ended up with a fully controllable 3-axis flying machine.
Many of the photos taken back in the early 1900’s were so remarkably clear, it allowed Rick to expand the photo to an extremely big size and still have remarkable clarity. From the large photos, measurements could be taken and used to re-build the experimental versions of the plane. In fact, the remarkable version in the rotunda of the Science Museum of Virginia was built by Rick Young!!!
Rick’s family flew another re-built version in a NOVA special about the Wright Brothers and their accomplishments.
Rick described the Wright Brothers as ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things, which is his definition of a ‘genius’.
This was a very interesting and enjoyable presentation.