Research on the Control of Aeroplanes

Abstract

IN his most interesting paper, “Research on the Control of Aeroplanes”—published as a supplement to NATURE of May 12—Prof. Melvill Jones says, “they [the Wrights] must have experienced the stall or the approach to the stall.” In point of fact, during their gliding experiments of 1900 and 1901, they were puzzled by the fact that on a turn the warped wing would invariably touch the ground first, or in other words, they found, as modern science has rediscovered, that increasing the angle of the lower wing accentuates instead of curing the tendency to stall. Their remedy was to fit a vertical surface at the rear of the machine, which before the end of the 1902 experimental season was converted into a movable rudder. The point here is that the Wrights originally fitted a rudder not as a directional organ, but as an aid to the wing-warp in maintaining lateral balance.