Wright Flyer: Difference between revisions

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|name = 1903 Wright Flyer
|name = 1903 Wright Flyer
|type = Historical aircraft
|type = Historical aircraft
|fdm = UIUC
|fdm = UIUC, JSB
|status =  
|status =  
|authors = Jim Wilson (3D), Michael Selig, PhD (FDM)
|authors = Jim Wilson (3D), Michael Selig, PhD (FDM)
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Watch your speed carefully--if you try to climb too fast your speed will drop below 20 MPH and you will stall and crash. Keep your airspeed just above 20 MPH at the lowest.
Watch your speed carefully--if you try to climb too fast your speed will drop below 20 MPH and you will stall and crash. Keep your airspeed just above 20 MPH at the lowest.
=== New JBSIM FDM ===
A user <!-- who? --> has created a new JSBSIM FDM for this awesome plane. The FDM is found in FGADDON, and should be included in 3.8 (on the download page).


[[Category:Experimental aircraft]]
[[Category:Experimental aircraft]]

Revision as of 16:31, 21 September 2015

1903 Wright Flyer
1903 Wright Flyer.jpg
Type Historical aircraft
Author(s) Jim Wilson (3D), Michael Selig, PhD (FDM)
FDM UIUC, JSB
--aircraft= wrightFlyer1903
Status Unknown
FlightGear - 1903 Wright Flyer.jpg

The Wright Flyer (often retrospectively referred to as Flyer I and occasionally Kitty Hawk) was the first powered aircraft designed and built by the Wright brothers. The flight is recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics, as "the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight".

The real Wright Flyer survived and is currently at the National Air and Space Museum, with a number of replicas also existing, such as at the Aviodrome in The Netherlands.

The flight dynamics model was developed by Michael Selig at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. The visual model started life as an MSFS aircraft, but was substantially reworked, enhanced, and animated by Jim Wilson of the FlightGear project. The Wright Flyer for FG uses the UIUC Flight Dynamics Model.

More about the Wright Flyer and its historical first flights are on Wikipedia.

Aircraft help

Watch your speed carefully--if you try to climb too fast your speed will drop below 20 MPH and you will stall and crash. Keep your airspeed just above 20 MPH at the lowest.

Takeoff

Stall speed is about 18 MPH. Minimum takeoff speed is 20 MPH. Preferred takeoff speed is 25 MPH.

To take off, put throttle to full. Wait until you have reached 25 MPH (suggest pressing 'h' to display the HUD with elevation information and speed). Gently ease the stick back until you are just climbing. Watch your airspeed to see that it never drops below 20 MPH. Climb at no more than 3-4 degrees of pitch.

Flight

The Wright Flyer has a very narrow band of flyability. The engine is just powerful enough to keep the craft at just above stall speed. That means you have to be very attentive at all times to keep the climb rate moderated so that the speed does not drop below 20MPH. If the speed drops below about 18 MPH, you will stall. The procedure in this case is to pitch down to regain speed. If you pull up too hard and stall while too close to the ground, you will crash. This happened to the Wright brothers several times in their flights in this aircraft.

Safest climb rate is at a pitch angle of 3-4 degrees, maximum climb rate is about 7-8 degrees.

Watch your speed carefully--if you try to climb too fast your speed will drop below 20 MPH and you will stall and crash. Keep your airspeed just above 20 MPH at the lowest.

New JBSIM FDM

A user has created a new JSBSIM FDM for this awesome plane. The FDM is found in FGADDON, and should be included in 3.8 (on the download page).