The Airfoils

Following the unsuccessful testing of the 1901 glider, the Wrights returned to Dayton convinced their failure was a result of using other experimenter's faulty data. The Wrights developed a systematic series of wind tunnel tests designed to carefully study and compare progressive changes in wing shapes. The Wrights built the wind tunnel, balances (instruments to measure forces in a wind tunnel), and airfoils. Within 3 months, the Wrights had the most comprehensive set of lift and drag data in the world. Ultimately, a variation of Airfoil #12, which had the "highest dynamic efficiency of all the surfaces," would be placed on the 1903 Wright Flyer.

Airfoil No. 12, created in 1901 by the Wright Brothers

Although 100-200 tests were run, not all of the airfoils have survived and for certain airfoils, data are missing. Subsequently, there are:

• Airfoils for which some data exists, but the physical airfoil no longer exists (the missing airfoils). Sometimes a sketch of the airfoil is available.
• Existing airfoils for which all or some of the data are missing.
• Airfoils or data with anomalies.
• Airfoils with specific historical significance.

Using modern computer numerical methods, engineers will attempt to reconstruct the shape of the missing airfoils, determine the missing test data, and solve unanswered questions regarding some of the airfoils.

Models of selected Wright airfoils will be computer generated. These computer models will be representations of Wright airfoils in the Franklin Institute's collection for which particular aerodynamic data are available. First, engineers will validate that the computer methods will reproduce results similar to that of the Wrights' experimental data for selected airfoils (some of the airfoils numbered 1-19). Once the computer codes reliably reproduce known results, we'll try and solve some of the "mysteries."

The Educational Technology Programs department at The Franklin Institute Science Museum has photographed all of the airfoils. You can see them in our photo galleries. Gallery 1 has pictures of Airfoils 1-34. Gallery 2 has pictures of Airfoils 35-56. The engineers are preparing for the first simulation.

1903 Wright Flyer

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight, Cislunar Aerospace, Inc. chose to do a simple demonstration of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) using the 1903 Wright Flyer as our model in 1998.

A copy of the 1903 Wright Flyer blueprints was purchased from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. These blueprints provide all the information needed to make a computer model of the Wright Flyer. In order to save time and computer memory, we assume that the Wright Flyer is bilaterally symmetric, so that we only need to create a computation grid for half the aircraft.

In reality, one wing of the 1903 Wright Flyer is longer than the other and we would like to improve our computer simulation. We'll explain why as we start the simulations.