THE KNOWLEDGE MEDIA INSTITUTE

History of Flight

Key events

Flights of fancy

Models

Aerodynamics

How planes fly

Historical development

Aero-engines

Flyers

Cayley

Lilienthal

Phillips

The Wright Brothers

Santos-Dumont

Cody

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About FirstFlight

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The Wright Brothers - flight-sim

Flight-sim based on a simplified flight model to give the impression of what it might have been like to pilot the flyer?



Older Shockwave version below - based on Hooven's dynamic model. You will need to be able to run the Shockwave plug-in to use this.

web version
Wilbur & Orville became skilled pilots in their two years of test flights with gliders, and were prepared to trade off instability in normal flight for increased control in turbulent conditions. The canard configuration is generally recognised to have saved the Wright Brothers from serious accidents as they learned to fly. However the resulting longitudinal instability certainly made for some interesting flights!

These simulations are based on Hooven's dynamic model and let you experience just how difficult it was to control the 1903 Flyer. They require very fast reactions and leave you full of admiration for the skilled flying of the Wright Brothers.


download (Mac OS)