The Air Will Never Be Conquered

Just as the Wrights indirectly taught all of us to fly, the re-creation of that first flight on December 17, 2003 holds a lesson for every pilot-the weather still rules the air. Every aircraft has its limits set by the weather, not by any amount of pilot skill, and that may be the only aspect of aviation that hasn't changed in the last 100 years.

The weather limitations of the 1903 Flyer are incredibly restrictive. The airplane is so short on power that it can't lift off without at least a steady 10 knots of breeze. If the wind builds to much over 20 knots, control of the Flyer is impossible. Warm temperatures, humidity and any other factor that degrades engine power output and wing efficiency also prevent the Flyer from flying.

Everybody involved in the centennial of flight project knew these limitations for the Flyer because they had been established when the Wright brothers' 1903 encampment was re-enacted last November at Kill Devil Hills. The EAA's Countdown to Kitty Hawk people used that time to test fly the Flyer and recorded two successful flights, and one spectacular-looking crash. The successful flights took place with winds between 10 and 20 knots, and the margins of control and lift were very narrow.

When the wind picked up to over 20 knots, the Flyer became violently uncontrollable. As soon as nose-up control input was applied to the canard the airplane pitched up instantly, and just as quickly nosed over into the ground. The entire pitch excursion to crash took maybe one second. It was clear that too much wind was downright hazardous, while too little wasn't a threat to safety but would keep the Flyer on the ground.

With thousands waiting to see the Flyer fly, and after years of work to re-create the airplane with every detail faithful to the original, the desire to attempt to fly was overwhelming. When the wind flirted with 10 knots on that rainy Wednesday at the Wright Memorial Park it seemed like the time to give it a try. After all, everybody involved in the decision-making knew that the airplane and pilot would come to no harm in such light winds, and there just might be enough breeze to lift the Flyer for a few feet. There was never any intention to exceed the Wrights' first 120-foot flight in any case.

For some reason the engine did not produce the expected propeller rpm, perhaps because of the high humidity and drizzle. To make matters worse, the wind died to almost nothing just as the Flyer started down the rail, and the results were recorded for all the world to see. All of us at the celebration masked our disappointment, saying things like "It was the effort that really mattered," and "We always knew that it was a long shot that it would fly on the appointed day with all of the variables beyond anybody's control." But what everybody I know who was there agreed on with conviction is that re-creating the Flyer was worth the effort no matter the outcome on the appointed day.

What was most important to me was seeing the Flyer under power. Though I have seen the actual airplane-or at least the one with the most original parts-in the Air & Space Museum, and the Smithsonian before that, several times, it was always static. The airplane looks fragile but reasonably rigid with its struts and wires. But in reality the Flyer may be the most flexible craft to ever fly. I knew that the wings were twisted by the pilot's hip cradle to control bank angle, but it never sank in that in order to twist, the wings had to be very flexible. But when the crude four-cylinder engine started banging away, and the long props started to spin, the Flyer flopped around like a wet Golden Retriever. The frequency of the movement is so low that vibration isn't the right word to describe it. Flexing and twisting are more accurate terms.

Hearing the sound of the engine exhaust and the whir of the chain and propellers also made the re-creation worth all of the effort. To see and hear the Flyer come to life at the very spot where the first flight took place was as important as a successful flight could have ever been for the true enthusiast. Museums are invaluable for protecting and displaying irreplaceable airplanes and artifacts, but they can't show you the soul of an airplane that is only revealed when it is under power. The EAA and the Wright Experience brought the Flyer to life, something seen only by a handful of people ever, and not for 100 years.

Despite the success of the Flyer in 1903, the Wrights recognized its many limitations, never repaired it, never flew it again, and began immediately to work on expanding the capabilities of their invention. They had taken advantage of ideal weather and wind conditions on that December day, but they did not wait for those conditions to repeat to fly again. In one day the Flyer had taught its lessons to the brothers, and I hope the re-creation of the airplane reminds all of us of those lessons. Every airplane has its limits, and even the best pilot can't exceed them.

Wind Shear Forecast I don't know how long the terminal forecasts (TAF) have contained wind shear predictions, but I have noticed more of them, and for stronger winds, in the fall and early winter of 2003 than at any time that I can remember.

On Christmas Eve the TAFs for the New York area airports contained a startling prediction that the wind would be blowing from 180 degrees at 50 knots at 2,000 feet. Winds at the surface were forecast to be less than 15 knots from 150 degrees. That's a tough forecast to believe, but this has been the windiest year aloft, and on the surface, for that matter, that I can remember. I have encountered 80-knot winds briefly as low as 8,000 feet, and had the misery of flying into 60-knot plus winds for more than 400 nm at 6,000 feet.

Richard Collins studies the weather more than any pilot I know, and I asked him what's going on. He offered no theories for why the wind has been so strong, but he did concur that this is the windiest year he can ever remember.

The demonstrated crosswind value for a Baron 58 is 22 knots, and that's a lot of wind to be blowing 90 degrees to your takeoff or landing runway, but I think a gust when I was departing Hagerstown may have been that high. The tower was reporting wind direction as 310 degrees, 40 degrees right of the runway heading, gusting to 35 knots. That was attention getting but within the capability of the airplane. But just as I neared rotation speed, with nearly full aileron holding the wings level, a gust started to move my Baron sideways without lifting the upwind wing. I had not experienced that before and was happy to be able to lift off before the sideways slide got out of hand. Even with the wings level and the ailerons holding pressure on the upwind main gear the tires only have so much grip on the pavement and that gust found the limit of tire traction.

A Wright Review Of the many books, videos and television programs about the Wright brothers that were produced in anticipation of last year's centennial of flight celebration, I enjoyed an audio book by National Public Radio's Noah Adams more than any other. Adams has been host of NPR's All Things Considered for many years and is now a special correspondent for NPR. If you like his work on NPR, and you like the style of programs produced for that network as I do, you will enjoy Adams' audio book The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur & Orville Wright.

Adams is not a pilot, but he is an aviation enthusiast, and more important, he became intensely interested in the Wright brothers and their family as people, not merely great inventors. His work humanizes the Wrights like no other that I have encountered, and he helped me to understand their behavior, particularly during the bleak period following the first flights when they seemed to do more to retard aviation advancement than to promote it. Adams travels to all of the historic sites of early aviation to observe what remains of the events that took place there, and to visit with descendants of people involved. For example, I never imagined how difficult it was for the Wrights to reach the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1900, but Adams finds and interviews descendents of the watermen who would have hauled the Wrights on the grueling boat trip to Kitty Hawk. He goes to Huffman Prairie at Dayton, speaks with historians in many places, goes hang gliding at Jockey's Ridge near Kitty Hawk, and searches archives for details of the Wrights' lives. He even spends days at Oshkosh to measure what the Wrights' work has wrought a century later.

The book is appropriately in audio form with five CDs delivering about five hours of programming, just right for listening to in the car. Random House Audio produced the work, and it is available wherever books are sold. List price for the CD set is $29.95.