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.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?
Yeah, it was a big thing at the time, and sooner or later someone will stumble across a workable idea.
Enough people were doing it that I still can't see things held back more than about a decade.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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
... He didn't use scientific method, but rather the "do it wrong 'till you get it right" method, ....
Depends how soon the Wrights are butterflied. A lot of his aeronautical stuff was based on their 1902 glider.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.