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Aviation History
1928
1928 - 1158.PDF
DECEMBER 20, 1928 WILBUR WRIGHT ANNIVERSARY BANQUET WHEN, twenty-five years ago, Wilbur and Orville Wrightmade their historic flight, the first ever made in a power- driven aircraft, few people would have visioned the amazingprogress which would be made in the succeeding quarter of a century. The machine on which the flights were madein December, 1903, is now in the South Kensington Museum, and on Monday, December 17, 1928, a banquet was held inthe museum to celebrate these flights—the tables being arranged round the machine itself. Colonel Sir Henry Lyons,F.R.S., Director of the Science Museum, had given every facility to the Royal Aeronautical Society for arranging thisunique banquet, and many distinguished guests foregathered in honour of the event. Colonel the Master of Sempill, A.F.C., A.F.R.Ae.S.,President of the Society, presided. At the banquet the prizes awarded by the Council werepresented. These included the R.38 Memorial Prize for the best paper on some subject of a technical nature, preferencebeing given to papers which related to airships. The prize was awarded to Mr. H. Roxbee Cox, Ph.D., D.I.C., B.Sc,A.F.R.Ae.S., for his paper on " The External Forces on an Airship Structure with Special Reference to the Require-ments of Rigid Airship Design." The Sir Charles Wakefield Gold Medal, awarded to thedesigner of any invention or apparatus tending towards safety in flying, was awarded to Mr.F. Handley Page, C.B.E.,F.R.Ae.S., for his work on the Automatic Slot. The Simms Gold Medal, for the best paper read in any yearbefore the Society on a science allied to aeronautics, e.g., meteorology, wireless telegraphy or instruments, to CaptainF. Entwistle for his paper on " Fog," read before the Society on December 8, 1927.The Taylor Gold Medal, for the most valuable paper sub- mitted or read during the previous Session, was awarded toMr. R. K. Pierson, B.Sc, F.R.Ae.S., for his paper on " The Use of the Wind Tunnel for Performance Prediction."The Society's Silver Medal, for an advance in aeronautical design, was awarded to Mr. B. N. Wallis, for his work onR.100. Following the dinner a brief address was given by Mr.Griffith Brewer, F.R.Ae.S., a Member of Council, and for many years closely associated with the Wright Brothers, onthe Wright machine. Afterwards those present took the opportunity of examining the Aeronautical Section of theMuseum, and some models of historic aeroplanes displayed by Maj. Villiers. These included the 1903 Wright Bros.'biplane ; Mr. A. V. Roe's biplane, on which he made a flight at Brooklands on June 8, 1908; the Cody British Armybiplane of 1909; the 1909 Roe triplane (9 h.p. Jap engine) ; Bleriot's cross-channel monoplane of 1909 ; HenryFarman's biplane on which he made a world's duration record flight of 4 hrs. 18 mins. on March 3, 1909; and theSupermarine-Napier S-5 monoplane, on which Flight-Lieut. Webster won for England the Schneider Trophy in 1927. The company, having honoured the toasts of the King, thePresident of the United States of America and the Royal Family, the Chairman read a number of congratulatorymessages from various kindred associations, as follows :— From Mr. Orville Wright.—" I am on the way to KittyHawk to visit the. spot on which the first flight was made, 25 years ago, with the machine around which you are nowgathered. Heartiest greetings to all members and guests assembled on this occasion.—Wright." From the International Civil Aeronautics Conference atWashington.—"The International Civil Aeronautics Con- ference of Washington greets your gathering on the 25thanniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight.—William P. MacCracken, Junr."" The International Civil Aeronautics Conference assembled in Washington acknowledges your greeting on this historicoccasion, the 25th anniversary of the first flight ever made by man in a power-driven heavier-than-air machine. TheConference learns, with considerable satisfaction, of the arrangements that have been made to honour that epoch-making event in Great Britain and considers it appropriate that this ceremony should take place around the originalWright aeroplane, now housed in the Science Museum in London, for the benefit of visitors from all parts of the world.The Conference is very happy to be, in spirit at least, associated with the Royal Aeronautical Society in marking an achieve-ment which certainly opened a new era to civilisation.— William P. MacCracken, Jnr., Chairman, International CivilAeronautics Conference." From the Aero Club of France.—" As President of theHistorical Commission and Centre de Documentation of the Aero Club of France, also as an old pupil of Wilbur Wright,I associate myself warmly with the commemoration of the first flights of the Wright Brothers.—Paul Tissandier."The Master of Sempill, proceeding, said the council, after very carefully considering who should have the privilege ofaddressing them that night upon the subject of the first flight, decided that Mr. Griffith Brewer should be selected. TheChairman mentioned a few particulars of the aeronautical work accomplished by Mr. Brewer, who, he said, was a man ofvery great modesty, and of his association with and help to the Royal Aeronautical Society, finally pointing out that itwas due to his influence that they were enabled to be dining together under the Wright Bros.' original machine.Mr. Griffith Brewer, who said he felt deeply the great honour done him in being enabled to speak to the work of these greatpioneers, then gave a concise and intimate review of the persevering experiments which ultimately led the WrightBrothers to their great successful achievement. Mr. Griffith Brewer, in giving his account of the earlywork of the Wright Brothers, said in order to appreciate the early work of Wilbur and Orville Wright, which cul-minated in the invention, construction, and the flying of the first aeroplane, it is necessary to take our minds backto the end of the last century, when there was a flying problem but not as yet a flying art. " Many of us here," he said, " will recollect that at thattime, when one wished to emphasise that something was impossible, it was common to say : ' You might as well tryto fly.' No one quibbled at this definition of the impossible. " One day in the early nineties, when I was piloting a balloonunder the tuition of the late Mr. Percival Spencer, he pointed out Baldwin's Park ahead of us in our line of flight, whereSir Hiram Maxim was building a gigantic aeroplane. In those days a balloon was always a welcome visitor, so withouthesitation I opened the valve and we made a good landing inthepark. Mr. House, who was in charge of the construc-tion at that time, invited us into the shed, where he showed us the machine and explained what they expected the machineto do. When Mr. Spencer and I left Baldwin's Park, we agreed that the machine was extremely interesting, but wewere quite convinced in our minds that mechanical flight was still impossible. " The Wright Brothers did not become seriously interestedin the problem of flight until several years after the Maxim machine had been built. They learned from the literaturethen available that acknowledged leaders in science such as Sir George Cayley, the Hon. Chas. Parsons, and Sir HiramMaxim, had all "studied the problem, and comprised that school which believed that the best method of attainingflight was to build a power machine and then learn to fly it. " There was another group, which included Otto Lilienthal,Octave Chanute and Pilcher, who believed in learning to fly on a glider before building the power machine. " The Wrights, having learnt from the books what hadbeen already tried, recognised that the main problem was that of equilibrium, and not merely the application ofpower to wings which would support that power. They, therefore, decided to build a glider, and to fly it as a kitein a high wind, with one of the brothers on board, so as to learn to balance it. "Their first departure from book practice was the systemof balancing the glider by changing the angles of wing tips, instead of by attempting to change the position of thepilot. This last method had proved fatal to Lilienthal and Pilcher. " Wilbur explained their choice of learning to fly on themachine itself, when he said that there were two ways of learning to ride a horse; one way was to mount and learnby actual practice how each motion could be met; and the other was to sit on a fence and watch the horse and figure outthe best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks. The latter system, Wilbur Wright said, was the safest; but the formerturned out the larger proportion of good riders. "This explains the Wrights'methods in their flying experi-ments. Nothing was assumed to function in any particular way until it had first been tested and proved to be true. "Their first glider had an area of 165 ft., and they tookit to Kitty Hawk, where they had been told by the Weather - Bureau that the strongest winds prevailed. The wings werenot made to any particular formula, but to a guessed curve of 1 in 22. 1064
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