Did the Wright brothers “invent the airplane” or did they simply improve on someone else’s invention?

Question

Here’s an example: This description of Wilbur Wright is from Wordweb, an American downloadable dictionary: “United States aviation pioneer who (with his brother Orville Wright) invented the airplane (1867-1912)”

Now here's what wikipedia says: “In 1799, Sir George Cayley set forth the concept of the modern aeroplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control. Cayley was building and flying models of fixed-wing aircraft as early as 1803, and he built a successful passenger-carrying glider in 1853.”

And many more researchers had been working on his invention since then: “Sir Hiram Maxim built a craft that weighed... In 1894, his machine was tested with overhead rails to prevent it from rising. The test showed that it had enough lift to take off."

“Between 1867 and 1896 the German pioneer of human aviation Otto Lilienthal developed heavier-than-air flight. He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights.”

Even the airplane the Wright brothers made was not conceptually complete because it still relied on a catapult for its lift. Then “In 1906, Alberto Santos Dumont made...the first airplane flight unassisted by catapult[15]and set the first world record..."

Therefore it seems that the Wright brothers were simply part of a long list of early pioneers and developers of the aircraft concept (or invention) first laid into foundation by Sir George Cayley.

Answer 1

Saying Cayley "invented" the airplane is like saying Jules Verne "invented" the submarine or that DiVinci "invented" the helicopter.



The Wrights were the first to come up with a controllable, self powered craft capable of sustained flights. They did so by studying the work of Lilienthal and others in the field, but also by systematically studying and experimenting with aerodynamics - they tested hundreds of airfoil designs in a wind tunnel that they had developed. Unlike others proceeding by trial and error, they understood the relationship between power, lift, and drag.

Creating lift was not the critical factor - drag, power and control were. The Wright's were fortunate to have Charles Taylor working with them - he built what may have been the first aluminum gasoline engine for the Flyer - but their genius was displayed in the design of their propellers. Those hand carved pieces of wood had an incredibly efficient design, even by todays standards. Engineering analysis of the designs of many others trying to fly at that time show that the paddle shaped props they used would never produce adequate thrust.



And there were a few powered craft that left the ground before the Wrights - but that does not make them a successful airplane. What those experimenters invented was not the airplane, what they invented was the stall/spin accident. The Wrights invented the idea of 3 axis control - that airplanes needed roll control, and that they must turn by banking.

Answer 2

The wright brothers apparently read up on all the reading matter written by or about the people you mentioned. They did a lot of experimentation with what they had read up on and found some of the information they had read about was no where as perfect as they had hoped and they built their own wind tunnel to develop better wings and other parts. They also developed mathematical calculations to help design more efficient wings.

They did develop their wing warping system although no one else used that system. They used many ideas from other early aviation people but refined the ideas to improve the aircraft. They were also lucky that engines were improving to the point they could build an engine that was light enough and powerful enough to keep their flyers in the air.

I think they were lucky to live in a time when technology was improving to the point where it was modern and sophisticated enough for them to figure out how to put it all together into a working unit.

Answer 3

I think the argument is getting a bit circular here boys and girls.



You can debate the issue until the cows come home about relative merits and contributions made by the likes of Sir George Cayley, Percy Pilcher, Otto Lilienthal, Samuel Langley, Sir Hiram Maxim, Clement Ader, the New Zealand guy whose name I can't quite remember and a whole lot more who had a go at building flying machines with varying degrees of success. But you miss the point.



The Wrights did gather all the data they could from every source they could, but the reason that they cracked the problem where all others had failed was that they saw what all the others had missed. Everyone else reasoned the need to control a flying machine in pitching and yawing planes but the Wrights realised it had to be controlled in the rolling plane too.



That my friends was the breakthrough!



The other pioneers built flying machines but the Wrights built and an AEROPLANE!

(or airplane for those of you with with a transatlantic attitude towards the English language).



Sure, they used wing-warping to do it (ailerons were the brainchild of Curtiss but that's a topic for another argument) but the Wrights did it, they did it first and nobody else had the faintest idea it needed to be done. it seems simple and screamingly obvious to us today but it was groundbreaking then. No one, but no one, realised control of roll was necessary until the Wrights showed them (and thats why the Wrights fought to protect their patents for so long). Nobody could workout how two hicks from the sticks had cracked the problem of flight when the best brains around had failed.



When Wilbur Wright toured in Europe in 1908 collective hands were slapped to foreheads with cries of, "Well I'll be damned! Zut Alors! and Gott in Himmel! Why didn't we think of that". Colin Chapman once said, anyone can make a bridge that stands up but it takes an engineer to make one that 'just' stands up. Many men made machines that could hop, skip and jump but it took the Wrights to make an aeroplane that could fly!

Answer 4

Cayley, if memory serves, was the first person to build a successful heavier than air flying machine. Essentially, he invented the hang glider. He was the first one to identify the four forces that act on an aircraft- lift, gravity, thrust and drag. Personally, I don't think he gets enough credit for the pioneering work he did.



Otto Lilienthal and Octave Chanute were the next, advancing gliders into a far more practical design than what Cayley had. Chanute was especially influential, inventing the biplane wing that would dominate aviation until after World War I, and collecting and publishing all extant scientific data on aviation available at the end of the 19th century. Chanute was one of those dreamers who wanted to see mankind fly, rather than be the one to patent the airplane and make money off of it. As a result, he shared his findings freely with anyone who was interested, including Orville and Wilbur Wright. The help he provided the Wrights was invaluable, and saved them years of research.



The race to build the first practical airplane really came down to Samuel Pierpont Langley and the Wright brothers. Early on, the Wrights, using Chanute's data, realized their prototype gliders were not performing how the numbers predicted they would. They built a wind tunnel and conducted their own experiments, discovered Chanute's data on aerodynamic lift was flawed, and used the new data to redesign their gliders. Once they had the lift they were looking for, they turned to the issue of control. They were the first to identify the concept of roll, pitch and yaw to steer and airplane, and developed the idea that an airplane needed to be banked, not just yawed, to turn. As a result, the invented a system of warping the wings to do this. They also designed their early aircraft with anhedral wings, meaning the tips were lower than the center. This made the airplane easier to roll, and as a result, easier to steer. The downside was that it also made the airplane highly unstable. However, they had an aircraft they knew would fly, and knew they could steer, and by the end of 1903 they were able to put an engine powering two contrarotating propellers on their craft, and launch it as the first practical airplane. They really do deserve a large portion of the credit due to the scientific manner in which they studied, experimented, and solved the problems Cayley, Lilienthal and Chanute never could. That being said, the earlier pioneers' work was a huge stepping stone for them.





Langley managed to launch unmanned powered aircraft on test flights before the Wrights, but his manned aerodromes crashed on takeoff, and once the Wrights beat him into the air with a practical plane, he gave up further development.



A latecomer to the party was Glenn Curtiss. He replaced the Wrights wing-warping system with moveable flaps (ailerons) mounted on rigid wings. This allowed the wings to be stronger, permitting the construction of bigger, faster, more maneuverable aircraft. He also discovered that planes performed better with the elevators and rudder mounted behind the wing. The Wright flyers had the elevator in front of the wing. Ailerons and the tail-mounted elevator are still used in the majority of aircraft today. Curtis also made a few refinement's to Langley's aerodrome design, and managed to build a working version of it.

Answer 5

The distinction is still disputed by some. The Wrights were widely recognized at the time for their breakthrough achievements. Others made progress before them and some worked simultaneously but separately and may or may not have had similar successes before the Wrights. The Wright's airplane was controllable and their demonstration could be repeated and demonstrated in public venues, which they did many times, gaining celebrity status. If somebody did the same thing before the Wrights, the evidence was not made well-known.

Answer 6

You can go further back in history to the Montgolfier Brothers, who proved that human flight was possible by successfully launching the first human in a hot air balloon in 1783.



There were several scientists and inventors from all around the world who were experimenting on manned flight in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Wright Brothers DID NOT "invent" the airplane from scratch. They built their aircraft based on the published experimental results of others who were trying to do the same thing. What the Wrights actually accomplished was the first documented manned flight (and safe landing) using an engine powered and operator controlled aircraft.



The Wright Flyer DID NOT use a catapult to "create lift." It used a catapult to accelerate and launch the aircraft, similar to what modern jet fighters use to launch off the deck of an aircraft carrier. The WINGS of the aircraft created lift to make the airplane fly.

Answer 7

The French FIA which records aviation achievements lists Santos-Dumont and his aircraft 14bis as being the first TRUE aircraft to fly. The argument being that the 14bis had a wheeled undercarriage and took off entirely under its own power (in 1906). The Wright brothers used a rail as has been commented upon and later a catapult system. Despite quite a lot of research for a philatelic project I am working on based on the history of aviation I am inclined to respect the Wright Brothers claim to have invented the first fixed wing powered controllable aircraft.

Answer 8

There is good verbal evidence that one Gustave Whitehead flew his ''Aeroplane 21'' in Bridgeport Connecticut sometime in 1901



Certainly, the aircraft was well capable of flight and is alleged to have flown about a mile.



It is known that the Wrights were aware of this. It is also known that one of the conditions under which the Smithsonian holds the Wright Flyer under trust from the Wright's estate is that they never acknowledge anyone as having flown before the Wrights.



If the Wrights are so secure in their claim, one wonders why they felt the need to impose this condition



Just a thought!

Answer 9

The Wrights did NOT "invent" an airplane. They used, and furthered, technology that others had used, to develop a controllable flying machine. Their most important achievement was learning to fly. There were several other flyable aircraft before the Wrights successful flight. Most crashed.

Answer 10

Robert's answer is probably the most comprehensive on this topic, and it covers the bases pretty well.



As an engineer and as a pilot, I can appreciate all angles on this, but it never ceases to amaze me how contentious this single question can become. I think that the best way to look at this though is to understand that virtually all complex scientific achievements--light bulbs, automobiles, nuclear reactors, discovery of new medical treatments--can't be looked at in a vacuum with the assumption of a single "inventor". The truth is that all of these things are the result of many, many contributions from a wide variety of individuals, often in quite different scientific disciplines. When we talk about a primary inventor for some of these things what we're really trying to describe is a person who acted as a catalyst--someone who was able to take all of the understanding of the principles at that moment and combined them to create something truly practical and game changing. In many cases, such an individual will have done very little of the underlying scientific analysis themselves but rather, they had the vision to see the whole whereas all of the others saw only their individual parts.



I think this last statement is very true of the airplane. The Wrights were clearly intelligent and we owe them their due respect, however, they were not scientists in a traditional sense and they had neither the training nor the understanding of many of the underlying forces they were working with. Yet despite this, they were able to connect the dots from those who had generated the underlying data. They were able to have the vision to see all of the individual pieces in ways that despite all of their advanced academic training, many of the world's scientists could not. For this reason, the Wrights most certainly do deserve praise for what they've done.



I should note that this concept of shared credit is a key component of advancement of knowledge in general. Notwithstanding many corporate research facilities (especially in the realm of pharmaceuticals) where secrets are guarded closely, the vast majority of the scientific community is built upon an open knowledge framework. Scientists publish not just to receive credit for what they've done but to provide building blocks for other scientists to further their work. As an engineer, I don't get upset when someone takes my work and expands upon it or uses it for something else--rather, I'm thrilled to see that someone found some value in it and might take it to lengths that I hadn't thought of. Such open thinking is how we've been able to accomplish more in the last century than all other generations of humanity combined. As Newton famously remarked, "If I've seen further than most men, it's because I've stood on the shoulders of giants." Even he understood that it's important to give credit where credit is due.

Answer 11

No they didn't improve on someone Else's invention the took the concept/problem of flight and solved it starting with the wright bros flyer which was a glider and worked on it until they invented mechanical flight. Some of the basics like propeller configuration and contour of the wing are basically unchanged to this day. there is a difference between a concept and an invention. they were the first to develop the concept of flight into the invention of mechanical flight. others were close but failed like sir goerge cayley

Answer 12

They invented the first heavier than air machine that could take off of a level surface, get into the air and be controllable about all 3 axis (which was their crowning achievement) and land safely on the same level surface from which it took off. By doing so, they invented the first practical airplane.

Answer 13

I suspect they improved on someone else's idea. But as the Wrights Brothers got their idea to work, they took the credit

Answer 14

Controlled, sustained flight is the issue, and they accomplished that. The rail was used since they were on a sandy area. Ever try to ride a bike on a beach? They used that area for the ocean breeze to help aid in the lift. Maybe you should visit Kitty Hawk some time and see what it is like.

Answer 15

Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers

Answer 16

they did not invent the airplane....they were simply the first to get one that was powered by an engine off the ground

Answer 17

Cayley's math was all wrong and the Wright's threw out all of his constants and redid with actual measurements the work to correct the aerodynamic equations.

Answer 18

There are several better candidates to have "invented the airplane".