Airplane wing

“ In our gliding experiments we had had a number of experiences in which we had landed upon one wing, but the crushing of the wing had absorbed the shock, so that we were not uneasy about the motor in case of a landing of that kind. ”

“ It must be banked to prevent skidding, even as a race-track is banked high on the turns. On its side an airplane will cushion its own bank of proper degree by the use of ailerons. These ailerons are sections of the wing-tips which may be moved either up or down. ”

“ Efficiency of Airplane Wings.—I said at the beginning of this chapter that the airplane was a device for pushing down an enormous quantity of air. A certain amount of force has to be furnished in order to keep the airplane moving, and this force is furnished by the engine and propeller. ”

“ It doesn’t explain who tampered with the rudder cable in the Golden Dart—or why.”
“No,” Bob admitted. “That’s true, it doesn’t. But it’s the best we can do, for the present. And we never know when something may ‘break.’”
“Let’s keep on learning airplane technique,” suggested Curt. “We know we’ve gained there, anyhow.”
“Yes,” Al nodded. “I can name the different parts of a biplane without stumbling over any of them.” He did, “—fuselage; engine; propeller; upper and lower wing; cockpit and its cowling; struts and landing and flying wires; stabilizer, fin, elevator, rudder; ailerons; tail skid ”

“ Stewart rushed the prepared “take” of copy to the city editor’s desk and continued:
“It is from this new metal that the car, planes and truss of the Ocean Flyer are constructed. The aeroplane is modeled in general after the body and wings of a gull in full flight, insuring, by its peculiar construction, not only the greatest speed, but, by an ingenious adaptation of the same gull’s wing, the automatic stability long striven for by aeroplane builders.” ”

“ For a moment after the pilot turns over the controls the plane keeps on a straight course, then the nose begins to lose its normal position on the horizon, a wing dips down, and a blast of air rushes in from one side of the cockpit. ”

“ When the stroke of the wing is downwardly the rear margin is higher than the front edge, so that the downward beat not only raises the body upwardly, but also propels it forwardly.
THE WING MOVEMENT.—The moment the wing starts to swing upwardly the rear end is depressed, and now, as the bird is moving forwardly, the wing surface has a positive angle of incidence, and as the wing rises while the forward motion is taking place, there is no resistance which is effective enough to counteract the momentum which has been set up. ”

“ For the aeroplane is not a discovery, nor an invention, either, in the ordinary sense, but the combined application and the nice adjustment of a dozen worked-out principles and a hundred ingenious devices for riding the baffling and unstable air currents. Every jut and turn, every little projection, every eccentric form of wing or plane or rudder, had its scientific explanation. Yet most boys who see an aeroplane think they can go and build one. ”

“ Aeroplane, a flying-machine deriving its power of sustentation from the reaction of the air driven downwards by the rapid transit of fixed wings or 'planes' through the air. The term 'plane' for the wing of an aeroplane is strictly a misnomer, as the word implies a flat plate, whereas a wing is 'cambered' or curved in section from front to back. This is due to the discovery of Lillienthal (see Aeronautics) that a cambered 'aerofoil' when set at an angle to a wind current gives more 'lift' than a flat plane. ”

“ Men go to Nature when building wings for aeroplanes, and imitate the birds. The wing of a bird arches upward from front to back, most of the curve occurring near the forward edge; and this shape, when applied to an aeroplane wing, is known as its camber. With an aeroplane wing, if its curve is adjusted precisely, the air not only thrusts up from below as a machine passes through it, but has a lifting influence also from above ”

“ Fig. 17.—Diagram showing that in fast airplanes wings are small; in slow airplanes wings are large.
(Above) Small wings; speed 115 mi. per hr.; for fighting. One seat.
(Below) Large wings; speed 80 mi. per hr.; for reconnaissance. Two seats.
Regarding area of wing surface, the pilot does not have to worry in a flight since he can do nothing to change it anyway. All he needs to know is that in different airplanes small wing area accompanies high speed and small weight-carrying capacity, as in the case of the Fokker and Sopwith speed scouts (see Fig. 17) . ”

“ The supporting power of the wings depends partly on their size and partly on their rate of motion. Small wings moving at high speed produce the same supporting pressure of air beneath them as large wings flying at slow speed. The problem of a safe landing could best be solved by building wings whose area could be altered in mid-air. When traveling under full power the pilot would reduce the wing spread, as the smaller wings would then be sufficient to support the weight of the machine and would create less air resistance. ”

“ From observation he gathered how a bird checks its own speed by opposing tail and wing surface to the direction of flight, and thus alights at the proper ‘landing speed.’ He proved the existence of upward air currents by noting how a bird takes off from level earth with wings outstretched and motionless, and, in order to get an efficient substitute for the natural wing, he recommended that there be used something similar to the membrane of the wing of a bat—from this to the doped fabric of an aeroplane wing is but a small step, for both are equally impervious to air. ”

“ Just as the wing of a plane bites into the air to cause lift, the propeller blades, patterned after wing camber, bite into the air to create thrust. Their action on the air is similar to a screw biting its way into wood. ”

“ The structure of each wing is, in fact, very much like the rigging of a sailboat, the main spars taking the place of the mast while the wire stays take that of the shrouds, with this very important difference, that the mast of the boat is provided with a forestay to take the longitudinal pressure when going head to the wind, while the wing of an aeroplane often has no such provision, the longitudinal pressure due to air resistance being taken entirely by the spar. ”

“ Now the wings and fuselage of our airplane are ready, and the rudder, the elevating surfaces and the ailerons are in course of production. They are made in the same manner as the wings, with a wooden framework over which fabric is stretched and “doped.” We begin to think our big bird is almost ready to be put together, but we have forgotten two important items: the engine and the propeller.
The airplane manufacturer usually does not attempt to build his own engines or propellers. ”

“ The vacuum made over the lower wing is interfered with by the upper plane, and thus neutralizes somewhat the lifting and flying efficiency of the upper wing. Since a plane must reverse all its stresses when looping, the double supports of the biplane make it less susceptible to doubling up and falling. ”

“ An air pilot’s ship is to him what the valuable race-horse represents to the track plunger—a thing to be guarded at all times as the day of the great turf events draws closer since some desperate gambler might attempt to dope the animal in order to win his heavy wagers.
So too, it would be a simple thing to disable the motor of a plane or else so damage a wing that it must be out of the question for the craft to pursue its customary duties until it had been taken to a repair shop and put in condition. ”

“ Wings of this type can never be used on an airplane which is intended to travel at high speed. They were used on the heavy bombing and battle planes of the Great War, for they are capable of lifting a very great weight. ”

“ Wire, Locking—A wire used to prevent a turnbuckle barrel or other fitting from losing its adjustment.
Wing—Strictly speaking, a wing is one of the surfaces of an ornithopter. The term is, however, often applied to the lifting surface of an aeroplane when such surface is divided into two parts, one being the left-hand “wing,” and the other the right-hand “wing.” ”

“ There are two things to say in favor of the monoplane: first, that the passengers have an unobstructed view forward and range of gun fire upward because there is no wing above them; second, the aerodynamic efficiency of the monoplane is superior to any other type. But when the bird design is applied to a man-carrying apparatus, it becomes impracticable to construct spars to take the place of the bird’s wing bones; and therefore to give the wings proper strength it becomes necessary to truss them with numerous tension wires stretching from the running gear out to various portions of the wings. ”

“ The sea-plane, when a flight is made, is launched upon the water down a slipway; then the pilot and his passenger embark, the motor is started, and the propeller draws the machine across the water at a rapidly increasing pace. The floats raise themselves higher and higher upon the water, as the air-planes exercise a growing lift, until they only just skim the surface. And now comes the moment when the airman, drawing back his elevating lever, seeks to raise his craft from the water into the air. ”

“ Watch the successful model as it gains its altitude, settles down to a horizontal flight, is perhaps knocked off its course by a cross current, and steadies itself with a graceful curve and proceeds on its way.
All these problems must be anticipated. The young aviator must ingeniously arrange his planes and ballast in advance. The regular sky pilot, on the other hand, meets the problems of the air as he encounters them, by flexing his wings against disturbing currents or by banking to maintain an even keel at a turn. ”

“ When, some five years ago, work on this annual was first commenced, the military aviator was an idle dream. Fighting men in dirigibles were a bare possibility; but nothing more than that. Every amateur building an aeroplane (or even merely intending to build one) in his back garden was a possible "conqueror of the air." The aeroplane was going to oust the motor car as a sporting vehicle—everyone was quite certain about that! Beyond that, nothing!
To-day everything is completely changed and except as a war machine the aeroplane is of little interest or use to anyone. ”

“ At every stage of this development the aviators are indebted to the birds for information. The successful aëroplanes have great width compared to their depth, they gain stability by flexing the tips of the wings, and their planes are arched upward and forward exactly as are the wings of a bird. The aviator arranges his center of gravity after the same general model, below the planes and well forward. He places his engine forward, just as the bird has its strongest muscles in the chest, and he builds his frame of hollow tubes like the bones of a bird. ”

“ Those relating to the balancing and steering of the machine after it is actually in flight. Of these difficulties two are already to a certain extent solved. Men already know how to construct wings or aeroplanes which, when driven through air at sufficient speed, will not only sustain the weight of the wings themselves, but also that of the engine, and of the engineer as well. ”

“ Arriving there the Pilot turns the Aeroplane in order to face the wind and thus secure a quick “get-off.” Then he opens the throttle fully and the mighty voice of the Engine roars out “Now see me clear that hedge!” and the Aeroplane races forward at its minimum angle of incidence. Tail up, and with ever-increasing speed, it rushes towards the hedge under the lee of which it has lately been at rest; and then, just as the Observer involuntarily pulls back an imaginary “joy-stick,” the Pilot moves the real one and places the machine at its best climbing angle. ”

“ His body and head taper to a point at the front in order to decrease the forward air resistance. The weight of his body is distributed more toward the front, thus counterbalancing any tendency to whirl over backward. His tail increases the stern resistance, thus helping to draw the center of pressure back to correspond to the center of weight. [94]
DIAGRAM SHOWING THE ESSENTIAL PARTS OF AN AIRPLANE
We begin to see some reasons why a man equipped with wings could never be taught to fly,—as well as how perfectly the form of the bird is planned to correspond to his mode of travel. ”

“ On a clear night, however, with flambeaux, search-light flares, etc., a pilot has little trouble in landing, for [152] the straightaway can be as illuminated as it is in broad daylight. Nevertheless, when the aircraft is high in the sky, owing to the vast distances of infinite space, the speed at which an aeroplane moves, and the drift out of its regular course, due to the wind, it is often difficult for the flier to keep his bearings. ”

“ Through those in front the pilot may glance when descending from a flight, so as to judge his distance from the ground, while the others are utilised by the observer, as he turns to look from side to side. This biplane, and many others, is balanced against sideway roll by ailerons, and not by warping the wings. ”

“ I’ve finally worked out the complete tetrahedral aeroplane, following some plans of Alexander Graham Bell—the man who invented the telephone. You see, boys, with all these little planes put together, the air can get hold of lots more surface than it can on the ordinary aeroplane. It doesn’t make any difference which way the aeroplane is turned, there’s always planes for the air to get under and hold the machine. An ordinary aeroplane is like the sides of a wooden box that honey comes in, and mine is like the honey itself, with all the hundreds of little walls of wax. ”