How the Wright Brothers Changed Everything We Know About Flying

We all know the Wright Brothers changed the history of flying—but what exactly was their groundbreaking discovery? For the pioneers of human aviation, one of the trickiest problems was figuring out how to steer the early craft. Then, the Wright Brothers changed everything by using bike parts and watching...birds? Learn all about it in a new episode of SciShow! Hosted by: Hank Green.

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[johnopalko]

The mechanic who built the engine for the Wright Flyer was Charles E. Taylor. He worked with the Wrights until 1920. The FAA's Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award is named in his honor. His picture appears on FAA mechanic certificates. The Wright Brothers appear on pilot certificates.

[nirui.o]

Just imagine the pilot say: ladies and gentlemens, we're about go land at LAX, I hope you've enjoyed the ride and now please shift your legs towards right side of the aircraft, we need every legs onboard to ensure a safe and swift landing. Thank you.

[uplink-on-yt]

> The "Wright Flyer" was a textbook example of how engineering happens

This is the takeaway from this video. People make it sound like inventions happen when somebody wakes up in the morning, has a genius idea, and builds the thing. The long effort before the build is brushed off.

[jliller]

What the Wright Brothers Should Actually Be Famous For: having the foresight to bring witnesses and a photographer so there was no question about their first flight.

[thorjelly]

Kind of amazing that Leonardo Da Vinci was still designing flying machines over 250 years after his death, guy was dedicated

[TC-renv]

crazy what war does... in a twelve year span we went from “how do we get this off the ground?” to “how many bombs will it drop?”

[Vesperitis]

"The Kitty Hawk engine was only twice as powerful as two lawnmowers"
*Me:* _(goes to strap two lawnmowers together)_

[rheivenjunoblianda]

We all know that it was Tom and Jerry that made the first *"powered"* flight

[Jobobn]

Excellent episode! As a scientist, I see too much of the icon-veneration in STEM translate into a kind of assumptive myth that these individuals developed their groundbreaking discoveries in a vacuum, which is incredibly inaccurate. It also leads to a sort of "cowboy" expectation/mentality in students that runs counter to how actual science is done--especially in the modern age.

[LeafseasonMagbag]

Orville Wright actually survived to 1948.
He living from the age of the horse-and-buggy to the dawn of the jet engine and supersonic flight

[thi]

Can already feel brazilian people going after SciShow for not metioning Santos Dummont.

[meltheredcap]

"Stability is kind of important if you want to be able to land." I dunno about that... I think unstable aircraft still manage to land. Often faster than stable ones!

[VAXHeadroom]

In my mind, the wind tunnel testing was their key breakthrough. The assumption that the data from Lilienthal were correct were almost universally accepted; the Wrights level of detailed testing was THE key thing that made their fliers successful.

[apedley]

My great great grandad once went to an airshow where nothing got off the ground. I don't think there are many fields of human invention that more aptly demonstrate to the layman the progress that we have made in science and technology in such a short time. Going from not being able to fly, to having supersonic craft, and enormous transport/passenger crafts in barely over 100 years.

[budmeister]

I've been to the Huffman Flying Field, which is in the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base area, where the Wright Brothers learned how to turn their aircraft. And their incentive to turn was a large, thorny honey locust tree in the middle of the field.

[SAYYAM]

"Rigorous cycles of design" coz they had a cycle shop !

[MaxCruise]

Charlie Taylor needs more of a mention that a "local mechanic."
Charlie Taylor worked for the Wrights.
Charlie Taylor designed and built the first engine.
His contribution was important beyond measure.

[olbradley]

0:33 I don't mean to sound mean but I don't think that Leonardo da Vinci was alive in 1789.

[aaronsimpson]

The timing of this video is fantastic. I'm a sophomore aerospace engineer and for my group project right now we decided we wanted to re create the Wright flyer with modern technology (carbon fiber, electric motor etc) and we've been doing a bunch of calculations for it over the past few weeks on its airfoil, drag and lift coefficients, range and endurance etc. With the changes we've made, we've been able to improve it's calculated performance quite a bit. I just thought it was a funny coincidence that this video was uploaded while I've been doing all this research on it.

[stevendonaldson]

Excellent video. As a retired aeronautical engineer and now amateur aviation historian, as well as sailplane pilot, I can also say that the Wrights achieved another breakthrough that only pilots seem to understand: overcoming adverse yaw. You see, they knew that to turn a plane left, for example, that their left wing had to reduce lift, and their right wing had to produce lift, hence rolling the plane. The problem they found in their 1902 glider was that, since the left wing produced less lift, it also produced less drag. And since the right wing produced more lift, it produced more drag. So, even though the plane rolled to the left, it would yaw to the right, and this combination would cause their glider to crash, over and over again. They called it "oil drilling." In the middle of one sleepless night at Kitty Hawk, one of them realized that they had to add rudder to the turn in the direction of the turn to overcome this adverse yaw. The next day they modified the rudder to do this, and they mastered the turn immediately. Full three axis control is why we can fly today, thanks to the Wrights.