Re: The joy of FORTRAN

On 3/9/25 9:56 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:

c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> writes:
 

On 3/9/25 3:07 AM, rbowman wrote:

    [ snip ]
 

It uses wing warping rather than ailerons. I asked him how he learned to
fly it and he said you keep taxing a little faster and getting a few feet
higher off the ground until you decide to go for it.

 

Wing-warping decidedly WORKS. The downside is that it only works at very LOW
speeds. Beyond that the necessary flexibility works against you - flapping/
oscillation sets in. Seeing this, Curtiss came to the idea of the aileron.

 The original Tom Swift books date to before Curtiss, so that Tom Swift's
airplane (or was it still aeroplane?) used wing warping.

   Ailerons were by far the better solution. Kinda
   surprised the Wright's didn't think of them. Far
   more mechanically simple than warping. Oh well,
   you can't think of *everything* ....
   Ah, if they'd only had FORTRAN to work all the
   fine numbers  :-)
   The Wrights once caught Curtiss "spying" on their
   plane ... but he really wasn't trying to steal the
   design, instead noting where it sucked.
   Was watching a doc the other day ... seems that
   Rolls, of Rolls-Royce fame, was the first person
   in the UK to buy a Wright Flyer. 200+ flights,
   even 1st across the Channel. Then he fatally
   crashed it .......
   Very light planes - no matter the control method -
   just are not great in gusty winds. Try to land a
   C-150 in a gusty crosswind sometime - you HAVE to
   stay right on TOP of it or ELSE.
   Once landed a Cessna when a huge headwind gust came
   up when I was just four or five feet above the runway.
   QUICKLY 'flew' it down because in a few secs the
   headwind would stop and I've had had zero airspeed.
   Instead, landed at zero GROUND speed. Freaky. In
   distant retrospect I was the only kid they'd rent
   a plane on gusty days - had a knack for it.
   Ah ... "Tom Swift and his Air Glider -or- Seeking the
   Platinum Treasure" (1912). Found 'em on archive.org
   Never read any Tom Swifts ...
   See Russians are involved ... Vlad loves his platinum too.