What is the latest that the airplane could be developed?

Feasibly what is the latest that the airplane could have been developed? Was it inevitable that it would have come about within the first half-decade of the 20th century?
 
Feasibly what is the latest that the airplane could have been developed? Was it inevitable that it would have come about within the first half-decade of the 20th century?
First half decade, perhaps not. However, I think the time was right such that the airplane would be developed within the first decade or so. Gliders had a lot of extensive study from Cayley's work in basic aerodynamic theory (identifying the four forces in flight and the basic concepts of stability) between 1804 and 1850, with later pioneers like Otto Lilienthal who stretched the stability and range of gliders tremendously by the 1890s. Langley had flown an unmanned steam-powered (!) aircraft for 3/4 of a mile in 1896. The Wrights made several breakthroughs with their Flyers, and I'd wager that their scientific approach and determination to produce a practical flying machine in spite of discouraging crashes helped advance the practical aircraft by several years, though I'm a bit biased by having gone to college in Dayton.

Still, if you believe the stories, it seems like half a dozen other people stumbling to workable designs as well, and it seems like an idea whose time had come. If not for the Wrights' conceptual advancement of three-axis controls, it might have taken a bit longer to evolve to more robust aircraft, but it seems like something that would have been figured out (as it were) on the fly once somebody else got an airplane capable of flying a few miles at a time.

Without more changes further back, I'd gamble that even without the Wrights, the latest the practical airplane might have been delayed was another decade.
 
Yeah, it was a big thing at the time, and sooner or later someone will stumble across a workable idea.
 
I looked at this last year as preliminary to considering less developed air power in both world wars. At the outside it looks like you dont replicate the start of common flight circa 1906-10 until maybe 1916?
 
While the Wrights were the first to seriously address the needed control issues, their solution (wing warping) was a dead end.

Ja. Someone would have come up with a viable plane within a few years. Certainly by 1910. I really doubt you could push it any further back (at least with a post 1900 PoD).
 
Yeah, it was a big thing at the time, and sooner or later someone will stumble across a workable idea.

Problem is the others were doing exactly that, stumbling. The Wrights got tired of stumbling & did what the others had not done & reexamined Smeatons numbers. They tested for the correct data using a wind tunnel, something no one else was trying. The hit or miss method got Lillenthal killed & was getting the others nowhere. Until other experimenters sat back & revisited the core approach as the Wrights did around 1901-02 progress will be very slow.
 
Problem is the others were doing exactly that, stumbling. The Wrights got tired of stumbling & did what the others had not done & reexamined Smeatons numbers. They tested for the correct data using a wind tunnel, something no one else was trying. The hit or miss method got Lillenthal killed & was getting the others nowhere. Until other experimenters sat back & revisited the core approach as the Wrights did around 1901-02 progress will be very slow.
Enough people were doing it that I still can't see things held back more than about a decade.
 

Driftless

Donor
Yeah, it was a big thing at the time, and sooner or later someone will stumble across a workable idea.

Problem is the others were doing exactly that, stumbling. The Wrights got tired of stumbling & did what the others had not done & reexamined Smeatons numbers. They tested for the correct data using a wind tunnel, something no one else was trying. The hit or miss method got Lillenthal killed & was getting the others nowhere. Until other experimenters sat back & revisited the core approach as the Wrights did around 1901-02 progress will be very slow.

While the Wrights were the first to seriously address the needed control issues, their solution (wing warping) was a dead end.

Ja. Someone would have come up with a viable plane within a few years. Certainly by 1910. I really doubt you could push it any further back (at least with a post 1900 PoD).

I agree with the idea that the two things that separated the Wrights from earlier experimenters, was they determined the absolute need for 3 axis control, and their scientific method for testing ways to accomplish their goal.

Wing warping, while emulating bird flight, was a deadend. However, the aileron concept went back to the mid 1800's.

There were enough experimenters going along different tracks, and for some the desire to be first short-circuited good sense. Still, there were a number of others with engineering minds and sufficient financial backing that the technical issues would have been sorted out sooner, rather than later. My guess by no later than 1908: Alberto Santos Dumont, Glenn Curtis, or several other candidates would have achieved powered, controlled, heavier-than-air flight.
 
So about 5 years later then? Not that this would really delay things much, the big limiter then was engines. Actually, unless Glenn Curtis starts suing every other pioneer for breech of patents like the Wrights did, the aeronautical industry in the US will actually be slightly more ahead in this timeline.
 
So about 5 years later then? Not that this would really delay things much, the big limiter then was engines. Actually, unless Glenn Curtis starts suing every other pioneer for breech of patents like the Wrights did, the aeronautical industry in the US will actually be slightly more ahead in this timeline.

Ya. That's my thought.
 
Wing warping, while emulating bird flight, was a deadend. However, the aileron concept went back to the mid 1800's.

Not quite a dead-end. The Northrop-Grumman seamless mission-adaptive control surface, MAW, or MACW, is wing-warping. Material technology catches up.

That said, what about Louis Bleriot, who's Bleriot XI introduced many features which are more recognizable as those of modern aircraft? He didn't use scientific method, but rather the "do it wrong 'till you get it right" method, along with lots of bandages, crutches and casts. He accepted wing warping, rather than various less than perfect aileron devises, and did traverse the Manche.
 

Driftless

Donor
Not quite a dead-end. The Northrop-Grumman seamless mission-adaptive control surface, MAW, or MACW, is wing-warping. Material technology catches up.

That said, what about Louis Bleriot, who's Bleriot XI introduced many features which are more recognizable as those of modern aircraft? He didn't use scientific method, but rather the "do it wrong 'till you get it right" method, along with lots of bandages, crutches and casts. He accepted wing warping, rather than various less than perfect aileron devises, and did traverse the Manche.

Busted me there on the wing warp.... :) It just took a hunnert years to return to the idea.... The wing warping idea is intuitive - especially for those early pioneers shifting over from ultralight gliders. Shift your weight in a harness and the plane creaks and groans and re-shapes it's flying contour and then the course changes. Looking at some of the earliest planes, there was all kinds of wing and control formats that pioneers tried with varying levels of success

As you note, Bleriot was definitely one of those guys that could have figured out how not to crash first and then figure out how to fly after that. There's certainly a few more that might have filled that role.
 
Busted me there on the wing warp.... :) It just took a hunnert years to return to the idea.... The wing warping idea is intuitive - especially for those early pioneers shifting over from ultralight gliders. Shift your weight in a harness and the plane creaks and groans and re-shapes it's flying contour and then the course changes. Looking at some of the earliest planes, there was all kinds of wing and control formats that pioneers tried with varying levels of success

As you note, Bleriot was definitely one of those guys that could have figured out how not to crash first and then figure out how to fly after that. There's certainly a few more that might have filled that role.

After Bleriot flew across the channel, he did crash. Someone named Clyde Cessna, whose name lingers on, found a Bleriot XI in 1911, in Oklahoma and built a copy. He crashed it several times, at $100 repairs per time on average, reportedly, before his first successful flight. He established a company that built monoplanes, with wheeled undercarriage, tractor engine, enclosed fuselage containing the pilot, tail group at the rear, stick and rudder bar controls etc. He did not build biplane box kites. A sign of things to come.
 
Before wing warping, Bleriot used wing-tip ailerons, but was happy enough to change. Another try was differential elevons, or stabilators, just like your F-16. For pitch control, he tried the stabliators, separate stab and all-moving tailplane, fixed inner stab and all-moving outer elevator, just all-moving tailplane, like the Bell X-1, and just plain now conventional stabilizer with hinged rear elevator. That's science.

65-2.jpg
 
Not quite a dead-end. The Northrop-Grumman seamless mission-adaptive control surface, MAW, or MACW, is wing-warping. Material technology catches up.

That said, what about Louis Bleriot, who's Bleriot XI introduced many features which are more recognizable as those of modern aircraft? He didn't use scientific method, but rather the "do it wrong 'till you get it right" method, along with lots of bandages, crutches and casts. He accepted wing warping, rather than various less than perfect aileron devises, and did traverse the Manche.
Depends how soon the Wrights are butterflied. A lot of his aeronautical stuff was based on their 1902 glider.
 
Top