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133-479: Most of the spectators had never seen a full-size airplane before. The Aero Club of New York said to the media that their aim was "to bring under one roof the various machines of domestic and foreign design so as to enable the visitors to the Palace to see the astonishingly rapid advancement made in the field of aeronautics. " A few days before the exhibition The Philadelphia Inquirer published an article predicting that

266-791: A bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ , he traveled often and the Wrights frequently moved – twelve times before finally returning permanently to Dayton in 1884. In elementary school, Orville was given to mischief and was once expelled. In 1878, when the family lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa , their father brought home a toy helicopter for his two younger sons. The device was based on an invention of French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Pénaud . Made of paper, bamboo and cork with

399-517: A magneto bought from the Dayton Electric Company. There was no battery on the plane. Several lengths of speaking tube ...were used in the radiator. We blocked-tested the motor before crating it for shipment to Kitty Hawk." The 8.5 foot (2.6 m) long propellers were based on airfoil number 9 from their wind tunnel data, which provided the best "gliding angle" for different angles of attack . The propellers were connected to

532-430: A 1-US-gallon (3.8 L; 0.83 imp gal) fuel tank. A sprocket chain drive , borrowing from bicycle technology, powered the twin propellers , which were also made by hand. In order to avoid the risk of torque effects from affecting the aircraft handling, one drive chain was crossed over so that the propellers rotated in opposite directions. According to Taylor: "They figured on four cylinders and estimated

665-522: A 1-in-20 camber . The fabric for the wing was 100% cotton muslin called "Pride of the West", a type used for women's underwear. It had a warp of 107 threads per inch, a weft of 102, and a total thread count of 209. Since they could not find a suitable automobile engine for the task, they commissioned their employee Charlie Taylor to build a new design from scratch, a lightweight 12-horsepower (9-kilowatt) gasoline engine , weighing 180 pounds (82 kg), with

798-406: A 12 horsepower (9 kilowatts) gasoline engine powering two pusher propellers. Employing " wing warping ", it was relatively unstable and very difficult to fly. The Wright brothers flew it four times in a location now part of the town of Kill Devil Hills , about 4 miles (6 kilometers) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina . The airplane flew 852 ft (260 m) on its fourth and final flight, but

931-459: A Richard hand anemometer , attached to the front center strut, recorded the distance covered in meters. Upon returning to Kitty Hawk in 1903, the Wrights completed assembly of the Flyer while practicing on the 1902 Glider from the previous season. On December 14, 1903, they felt ready for their first attempt at powered flight. With the help of men from the nearby government life-saving station ,

1064-416: A few times, but the parachute effect of the forward elevator allowed Wilbur to make a safe flat landing, instead of a nose-dive. These incidents wedded the Wrights even more strongly to the canard design, which they did not give up until 1910. The glider, however, delivered two major disappointments. It produced only about one-third the lift calculated and sometimes pointed opposite the intended direction of

1197-449: A few wing shapes, and the Wrights mistakenly assumed the data would apply to their wings, which had a different shape. The Wrights took a huge step forward and made basic wind tunnel tests on 200 scale-model wings of many shapes and airfoil curves, followed by detailed tests on 38 of them. An important discovery was the benefit of longer narrower wings: in aeronautical terms, wings with a larger aspect ratio (wingspan divided by chord –

1330-415: A flying machine could be controlled and balanced with practice. This was a trend, as many other aviation pioneers were also dedicated cyclists and involved in the bicycle business in various ways. From 1900 until their first powered flights in late 1903, the brothers conducted extensive glider tests that also developed their skills as pilots. Their shop mechanic Charles Taylor became an important part of

1463-409: A flying machine, but rather a system of aerodynamic control that manipulated a flying machine's surfaces. From the beginning of their aeronautical work, Wilbur and Orville focused on developing a reliable method of pilot control as the key to solving "the flying problem". This approach differed significantly from other experimenters of the time who put more emphasis on developing powerful engines. Using

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1596-454: A good way for a flying machine to turn – to "bank" or "lean" into the turn just like a bird – and just like a person riding a bicycle, an experience with which they were thoroughly familiar. Equally important, they hoped this method would enable recovery when the wind tilted the machine to one side (lateral balance). They puzzled over how to achieve the same effect with man-made wings and eventually discovered wing-warping when Wilbur idly twisted

1729-405: A greater quantity of air than a single relatively slow propeller and not disturb airflow over the leading edge of the wings. Wilbur made a March 1903 entry in his notebook indicating the prototype propeller was 66% efficient. Modern wind tunnel tests on reproduction 1903 propellers show they were more than 75% efficient under the conditions of the first flights, "a remarkable feat", and actually had

1862-451: A hard-to-control aircraft. The Wrights' pioneering use of "roll control " by twisting the wings to change wingtip angle in relation to the airstream led to the more practical use of ailerons by their imitators, such as Glenn Curtiss and Henri Farman . The Wrights' original concept of simultaneous coordinated roll and yaw control (rear rudder deflection), which they discovered in 1902, perfected in 1903–1905, and patented in 1906, represents

1995-557: A long inner-tube box at the bicycle shop. Other aeronautical investigators regarded flight as if it were not so different from surface locomotion, except the surface would be elevated. They thought in terms of a ship's rudder for steering, while the flying machine remained essentially level in the air, as did a train or an automobile or a ship at the surface. The idea of deliberately leaning, or rolling, to one side seemed either undesirable or did not enter their thinking. Some of these other investigators, including Langley and Chanute, sought

2128-414: A peak efficiency of 82%. The Wrights wrote to several engine manufacturers, but none could meet their need for a sufficiently light-weight powerplant. They turned to their shop mechanic, Charlie Taylor , who built an engine in just six weeks in close consultation with the brothers. To keep the weight down the engine block was cast from aluminum, a rare practice at the time. The Wright/Taylor engine had

2261-457: A primitive version of a carburetor , and had no fuel pump . Gasoline was gravity -fed from the fuel tank mounted on a wing strut into a chamber next to the cylinders where it was mixed with air: The fuel-air mixture was then vaporized by heat from the crankcase, forcing it into the cylinders. Wright Flyer The Wright Flyer (also known as the Kitty Hawk , Flyer I or

2394-421: A propeller rpm of 351, with a thrust of 132 pounds (60 kg), more than enough for their 700-pound (320 kg) flyer. The Wright Flyer was a canard biplane configuration, with a wingspan of 40 feet 4 inches (12.29 m), a camber of 1-20, a wing area of 510 square feet (47 m ), and a length of 21 feet 1 inch (6.43 m). The right wing was 4 inches (10 cm) longer because

2527-410: A rubber band to twirl its rotor, it was about 1 ft (30 cm) long. Wilbur and Orville played with it until it broke, and then built their own. In later years, they pointed to their experience with the toy as the spark of their interest in flying. Both brothers attended high school, but did not receive diplomas. The family's abrupt move in 1884 from Richmond, Indiana , to Dayton , Ohio, where

2660-452: A serial killer. Wilbur lost his front teeth. He had been vigorous and athletic until then, and although his injuries did not appear especially severe, he became withdrawn. He had planned to attend Yale. Instead, he spent the next few years largely housebound. During this time he cared for his mother, who was terminally ill with tuberculosis, read extensively in his father's library and ably assisted his father during times of controversy within

2793-448: A small home-built wind tunnel , the Wrights also collected more accurate data than any before, enabling them to design more efficient wings and propellers. The brothers gained the mechanical skills essential to their success by working for years in their Dayton, Ohio -based shop with printing presses, bicycles, motors, and other machinery. Their work with bicycles, in particular, influenced their belief that an unstable vehicle such as

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2926-414: A tail was not necessary, and their first two gliders did not have one. According to some Wright biographers, Wilbur probably did all the gliding until 1902, perhaps to exercise his authority as older brother and to protect Orville from harm as he did not want to have to explain to their father, Bishop Wright, if Orville got injured. * (This airfoil caused severe stability problems; the Wrights modified

3059-483: A thorough report about the 1900–1901 glider experiments and complemented his talk with a lantern slide show of photographs. Wilbur's speech was the first public account of the brothers' experiments. A report was published in the Journal of the society, which was then separately published as an offprint titled Some Aeronautical Experiments in a 300 copy printing. Lilienthal had made "whirling arm" tests on only

3192-402: A time with so few materials and at so little expense". In their September 1908 Century Magazine article, the Wrights explained, "The calculations on which all flying machines had been based were unreliable, and ... every experiment was simply groping in the dark ... We cast it all aside and decided to rely entirely upon our own investigations." The 1902 glider wing had a flatter airfoil, with

3325-488: A trove of valuable data never before known and showed that the poor lift of the 1900 and 1901 gliders was entirely due to an incorrect Smeaton value, and that Lilienthal's published data were fairly accurate for the tests he had done. Before the detailed wind tunnel tests, Wilbur traveled to Chicago at Chanute's invitation to give a lecture to the Western Society of Engineers on September 18, 1901. He presented

3458-402: A turn – a problem later known as adverse yaw – when Wilbur used the wing-warping control. On the trip home a deeply dejected Wilbur remarked to Orville that man would not fly in a thousand years. The poor lift of the gliders led the Wrights to question the accuracy of Lilienthal's data, as well as the " Smeaton coefficient" of air pressure, a value which had been in use for over 100 years and

3591-405: A wheeled wooden section. The two tandem ball bearing wheels were made from bicycle hubs. A restraining wire held the plane back, while the engine was running and the propellers turning, until the pilot was ready to be released. The Wright Flyer had three instruments on board. A Veeder engine revolution recorder measured the number of propeller turns. A stopwatch recorded the flight time, and

3724-547: A young man had been a member of Alexander Graham Bell's team Aerial Experiment Association , which included Glenn Curtiss, and later a famous pioneer pilot. During the stay at Halifax, Garber and McCurdy reminisced about the pioneer aviation days and the Wright Brothers. McCurdy also offered Garber any assistance he needed to get the Flyer home. The Wright Flyer was put on display in the Arts and Industries Building of

3857-420: The 1903 Flyer ) made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane —on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown by brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright , it marked the beginning of the pioneer era of aviation . The aircraft is a single-place biplane design with anhedral (drooping) wings, front double elevator (a canard ) and rear double rudder. It used

3990-783: The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle , and then back to Earth in the Command module Columbia . This artifact is on display at the visitors center at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1986, separate portions of original wood and fabric, as well as a note by Orville Wright, were taken by North Carolina native astronaut Michael Smith aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L , which

4123-686: The Flyer as an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, but the Smithsonian declined, saying it would be willing to display other aeronautical artifacts from the brothers. Wilbur died in 1912, and in 1916 Orville brought the Flyer out of storage and prepared it for display at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He replaced parts of the wing covering, the props, and the engine's crankcase, crankshaft, and flywheel. The crankcase, crankshaft, and flywheel of

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4256-485: The Flyer nearly got disposed of by the Wrights. In early 1912 Roy Knabenshue , the Wrights Exhibition team manager, had a conversation with Wilbur and asked Wilbur what they planned to do with the Flyer . Wilbur said they most likely will burn it, as they had the 1904 machine. According to Taylor, Knabenshue talked Wilbur out of disposing of the machine for historical purposes. In 1910 the Wrights offered

4389-554: The Flyer to the United States. The Flyer stayed at the Science Museum until a replica could be built, based on the original. This change of heart by the Smithsonian is also mired in controversy – the Flyer was sold to the Smithsonian under several contractual conditions , one of which reads: Neither the Smithsonian Institution or its successors, nor any museum or other agency, bureau or facilities administered for

4522-545: The Flyer , which she had received in her inheritance from Orville. She expressed her wish to see the aircraft restored. The fabric covering on the aircraft at the time, which came from the 1927 restoration, was discolored and marked with water spots. Metal fasteners holding the wing uprights together had begun to corrode, marking the nearby fabric. Work began in 1985. The restoration was supervised by Senior Curator Robert Mikesh and assisted by Wright Brothers expert Tom Crouch. Museum director Walter J. Boyne decided to perform

4655-532: The Kitty Hawk to London for display at the museum. It remained there in "the place of honour", except during World War II when it was moved to an underground storage facility 100 miles (160 km) away, near Corsham . In 1942, the Smithsonian Institution, under a new secretary, Charles Abbot , published a list of 35 Curtiss modifications to the Aerodrome and a retraction of its long-held claims for

4788-684: The Kitty Hawk was made to Livingston L. Satterthwaite, the American Civil Air Attaché at a ceremony attended by representatives of the various flying organizations in the UK and by some British aviation pioneers such as Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe . On November 11, 1948, the Kitty Hawk arrived in North America on board the Mauretania with 1,111 passengers. When the liner docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia , Paul E. Garber of

4921-622: The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The Flyer was based on the Wrights' experience testing gliders at Kitty Hawk between 1900 and 1902. Their last glider, the 1902 Glider , led directly to the design of the Wright Flyer . The Wrights built the aircraft in 1903 using spruce for straight members of the airframe (such as wing spars) and ash wood for curved components (wing ribs). The wings were designed with

5054-581: The New York Times According to the New York Times report, General Grant was pleased with the "comprehensiveness" of the airplane show. The United States Aeronautical Reserve had an exhibition booth with interesting airplane displays and a demonstration on January 5, 1911 of early wireless communication technology utilizing the "Wilcox aeroplane equipped with [Harry M. Horton|Horton] wireless apparatus" used to communicate from

5187-711: The Smithsonian's National Air Museum met the aircraft and took command of the proceedings, overseeing its transfer to the US Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Palau , which repatriated the aircraft by way of New York Harbor. The rest of the journey to Washington continued on flatbed truck. While in Halifax Garber met John A. D. McCurdy , at the time the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. McCurdy as

5320-682: The Wright Military Flyer became the world's first military aircraft after successful tests on June 3, 1909. This airplane was purchased by the army but was never used in combat; it was, however, used to train some pilots. It was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1911 and is on display in the Early Flight exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum . A modified version, the Wright Model B ,

5453-500: The Wright brothers , Lovelace-Thompson, Blériot , Moisant , Burgess Company and Curtiss ( Glenn Curtiss ), New York's Waldon-Dyott Company monoplane ( George Miller Dyott ), C. & A. Wittemann ( Wittemann brothers ) of Staten Island, a Santos-Dumont Demoiselle airplane imported from France, and "A dozen other machines of types, not as well-known, several of them of odd and novel construction". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, "All

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5586-426: The camber reduced to a ratio of 1-in-24, in contrast to the previous thicker wing. The larger aspect ratio was achieved by increasing the wingspan and shortening the chord. The glider also had a new structural feature: A fixed, rear vertical rudder, which the brothers hoped would eliminate turning problems. However, the 1902 glider encountered trouble in crosswinds and steep banked turns, when it sometimes spiraled into

5719-404: The coefficient of drag replaces the coefficient of lift , computing drag instead of lift. They used this equation to answer the question, "Is there enough power in the engine to produce a thrust adequate to overcome the drag of the total frame ...," in the words of Combs. The Wrights then "... measured the pull in pounds on various parts of their aircraft, including the pull on each of

5852-802: The industrial show , Chappelle's airplane was displayed at the headquarters of the United States Aeronautical Reserve, 53 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Later that year Chappelle helped in the startup founding of the first African-American airplane company, of which he was a vice-president. 40°45′16″N 73°58′27″W  /  40.75444°N 73.97425°W  / 40.75444; -73.97425 Wright brothers The Wright brothers , Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were American aviation pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flying

5985-630: The "Show will be an Eye-Opener" and that "the managers of the International Show at the Grand Central Palace, say that aside from record-breaking attendance of visitors at the exhibition, in connection with which is to be held with the First International Aviation Show, that it will be an eye-opener as a 'Dealer's' Show." The full-size airplanes were displayed well, and included machines from

6118-514: The 100th anniversary of their first flight. In 1981, discussion began on the need to restore the Wright Flyer from the aging it sustained after many decades on display. During the ceremonies celebrating the 78th anniversary of the first flights, Mrs. Harold S. Miller (Ivonette Wright, Lorin's daughter), one of the Wright brothers' nieces, presented the Museum with the original covering of one wing of

6251-546: The 1985 restoration were intended to last 75 years (to 2060) before another restoration would be required. In 1978, 23-year-old Ken Kellett built a replica Wright Flyer in Colorado and flew it at Kitty Hawk on the 75th and 80th anniversaries of the first flight there. Construction took a year and cost $ 3,000. As the 100th anniversary on December 17, 2003, approached, the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission along with other organizations opened bids for companies to recreate

6384-604: The Brethren Church, but also expressed unease over his own lack of ambition. Orville dropped out of high school after his junior year to start a printing business in 1889, having designed and built his own printing press with Wilbur's help. Wilbur joined the print shop, and in March the brothers launched a weekly newspaper, the West Side News . Subsequent issues listed Orville as publisher and Wilbur as editor on

6517-456: The Smeaton coefficient; Chanute identified up to 50 of them. Wilbur knew that Langley, for example, had used a lower number than the traditional one. Intent on confirming the correct Smeaton value, Wilbur performed his own calculations using measurements collected during kite and free flights of the 1901 glider. His results correctly showed that the coefficient was very close to 0.0033 (similar to

6650-590: The Smithsonian on December 17, 1948, 45 years to the day after the aircraft's only successful flights. (Orville did not live to see this, as he had died that January.) In 1976, it was moved to the Milestones of Flight Gallery of the new National Air and Space Museum . Since 2003 it has resided in a special exhibit in the museum titled "The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age," in recognition of

6783-531: The United States and across the world, making this perhaps the most reproduced single aircraft of the "pioneer" era in history, rivaling the number of copies – some of which are airworthy – of Louis Blériot 's cross-Channel Bleriot XI from 1909. In 1969, portions of the original fabric and wood from the Wright Flyer traveled to the Moon and its surface in Neil Armstrong 's personal preference kit aboard

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6916-480: The United States of America by the Smithsonian Institution or its successors shall publish or permit to be displayed a statement or label in connection with or in respect of any aircraft model or design of earlier date than the Wright Aeroplane of 1903, claiming in effect that such aircraft was capable of carrying a man under its own power in controlled flight. On October 18, 1948, the official handover of

7049-492: The Wright Brothers for the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft. Instead, they honored the former Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley , whose 1903 tests of his Aerodrome on the Potomac were not successful. Walcott was a friend of Langley and wanted to see Langley's place in aviation history restored. In 1914, Glenn Curtiss had recently exhausted the appeal process in a patent infringement legal battle with

7182-509: The Wright children had middle names. Instead, their father tried hard to give them distinctive first names. Wilbur was named for Willbur Fisk and Orville for Orville Dewey , both clergymen that Milton Wright admired. They were "Will" and "Orv" to their friends and in Dayton, their neighbors knew them simply as "the Bishop's kids", or "the Bishop's boys". Because of their father's position as

7315-453: The Wrights moved the Flyer and its launching rail to the incline of a nearby sand dune, Big Kill Devil Hill , intending to make a gravity-assisted takeoff. The brothers tossed a coin to decide who would get the first chance at piloting, and Wilbur won. The airplane left the rail, but Wilbur pulled up too sharply, stalled, and came down after covering 105 ft (32 m) in 3 1 ⁄ 2 seconds, sustaining little damage. Repairs after

7448-412: The Wrights. Curtiss sought to prove Langley's machine, which failed piloted tests nine days before the Wrights' successful flight in 1903, capable of controlled, piloted flight in an attempt to invalidate the Wrights' wide-sweeping patents. The Aerodrome was removed from exhibit at the Smithsonian and prepared for flight at Keuka Lake, New York . Curtiss called the preparations "restoration" claiming that

7581-413: The abortive first flight took three days. When they were ready again on December 17, the wind was averaging more than 20 mph (32 km/h), so the brothers laid the launching rail on level ground, pointed into the wind, near their camp. This time the wind, instead of an inclined launch, provided the necessary airspeed for takeoff. Because Wilbur had already had the first chance, Orville took his turn at

7714-430: The air with no previous flying experience. Although agreeing with Lilienthal's idea of practice, the Wrights saw that his method of balance and control by shifting his body weight was inadequate. They were determined to find something better. On the basis of observation, Wilbur concluded that birds changed the angle of the ends of their wings to make their bodies roll right or left. The brothers decided this would also be

7847-608: The airplane to the land-based news media and to test distance with steamships out at sea. The Aeronautical Society and the United States Aeronautical Reserve had their full-size airplane displays in the second gallery among other full-size airplanes. Charles W. Chappelle , a member of the United States Aeronautical Reserve , exhibited a full-size airplane which won him a medal for being the only African-American to invent and display an airplane. His airplane design attracted attention and investors. After

7980-427: The bore and stroke at four inches. It took me six weeks to make that engine. The completed engine weighed 180 pounds and developed 12 horsepower at 1025 revolutions per minute...The body of the first engine was of cast aluminum, and was bored out on the lathe for independent cylinders. The pistons were cast iron, and these were turned down and grooved for piston rings. The rings were cast iron, too. A one-gallon fuel tank

8113-650: The bottom of Kill Devil Hill. Although the aircraft had previously made several successful test flights, poor weather, rain, and weak winds prevented a successful flight on the anniversary. Hyde's reproduction is displayed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The Los Angeles Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) built a full-scale replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer between 1979 and 1993 using plans from

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8246-611: The brothers built the powered Wright Flyer , using their preferred material for construction, spruce , a strong and lightweight wood, and Pride of the West muslin for surface coverings. They also designed and carved their own wooden propellers, and had a purpose-built gasoline engine fabricated in their bicycle shop. They thought propeller design would be a simple matter and intended to adapt data from shipbuilding. However, their library research disclosed no established formulae for either marine or air propellers, and they found themselves with no sure starting point. They discussed and argued

8379-455: The brothers favored his strategy: to practice gliding in order to master the art of control before attempting motor-driven flight. The death of British aeronaut Percy Pilcher in another hang gliding crash in October 1899 only reinforced their opinion that a reliable method of pilot control was the key to successful – and safe – flight. At the outset of their experiments they regarded control as

8512-402: The brothers put wing warping to the test by building and flying a biplane kite with a 5-foot (1.5 m) wingspan, and a curved wing with a 1-foot (0.30 m) chord . When the wings were warped, or twisted, the trailing edge that was warped down produced more lift than the opposite wing, causing a rolling motion. The warping was controlled by four lines between kite and crossed sticks held by

8645-404: The brothers tested their engine on the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, but before they could tune the engine, the propeller hubs came loose. The drive shafts were sent back to Dayton for repair, and returned on 20 November. A hairline crack was discovered in one of the propeller shafts. Orville returned to Dayton on 30 November to make new spring steel shafts. On December 12, the brothers installed

8778-420: The camber on-site.) The brothers flew the glider for only a few days in the early autumn of 1900 at Kitty Hawk. In the first tests, probably on October 3, Wilbur was aboard while the glider flew as a kite not far above the ground with men below holding tether ropes. Most of the kite tests were unpiloted, with sandbags or chains and even a local boy as ballast. They tested wing-warping using control ropes from

8911-400: The change in direction – was done with roll control using wing-warping. The principles remained the same when ailerons superseded wing-warping. With their new method, the Wrights achieved true control in turns for the first time on October 9, a major milestone. From September 20 until the last weeks of October, they flew over a thousand flights. The longest duration was up to 26 seconds, and

9044-449: The controls. His first flight lasted 12 seconds for a total distance of 120 ft (37 m) – shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747 . Taking turns, the Wrights made four brief, low-altitude flights that day. The flight paths were all essentially straight; turns were not attempted. Each flight ended in a bumpy and unintended landing. The last flight, by Wilbur, covered 852 ft (260 m) in 59 seconds, much longer than each of

9177-576: The craft. Abbot went on to list four regrets including the role the Institution played in supporting unsuccessful defendants in patent litigation by the Wrights, misinformation about modifications made to the Aerodrome after Wright Flyer ' s first flight, and public statements attributing the "first aeroplane capable of sustained free flight with a man" to Secretary Langley. The entry in the 1942 Annual Report of Smithsonian Institution begins with

9310-643: The crowd, as it was a 1910 "new model built for Claude Grahame-White , the English winner of the Coupe Internationale d'Aviation ...", General Frederick Dent Grant discussed the airplane safety issues, and the tragic airplane deaths of Moisant and Archibald Hoxsey with Captain T. T. Lovelace the director of the First Industrial Airplane Show, and with Wright brothers' representative J. Clifford Turpin , according to

9443-502: The dramatic glides by Otto Lilienthal in Germany. 1896 brought three important aeronautical events. In May, Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley successfully flew an unmanned steam-powered fixed-wing model aircraft. In mid-year, Chicago engineer and aviation authority Octave Chanute brought together several men who tested various types of gliders over the sand dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan. In August, Lilienthal

9576-424: The elevator, which the brothers called a "front rudder", "I found the control of the front rudder quite difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center and thus had a tendency to turn itself when started so that the rudder was turned too far on one side and then too far on the other." Thus, these early flights suffered from overcontrol. The Wright Brothers returned home to Dayton for Christmas after

9709-576: The elusive ideal of "inherent stability", believing the pilot of a flying machine would not be able to react quickly enough to wind disturbances to use mechanical controls effectively. The Wright brothers, on the other hand, wanted the pilot to have absolute control. For that reason, their early designs made no concessions toward built-in stability (such as dihedral wings). They deliberately designed their 1903 first powered flyer with anhedral (drooping) wings, which are inherently unstable, but less susceptible to upset by gusty cross winds. On July 27, 1899,

9842-488: The engine by chains from the Indianapolis Chain Company, with a sprocket gear reduction of 23-to-8. Wilbur had calculated that slower turning blades generated greater thrust, and two of them were better than a single blade turning faster. Made from three laminations of spruce , the tips were covered with duck canvas , and the entire propeller painted with aluminum paint. On November 5, 1903,

9975-456: The engine was 30 to 40 pounds (14 to 18 kg) heavier than Orville or Wilbur. Unoccupied, the machine weighed 605 pounds (274 kg). As with the gliders, the pilot flew lying on his stomach on the lower wing with his head toward the front of the craft in an effort to reduce drag. The pilot was left of center while the engine was right of center. He steered by moving a hip cradle in the direction he wished to fly. The cradle pulled wires to warp

10108-468: The evening a crowd gathered around the various types of aeroplanes. The machine that came in for the biggest amount of attention was that with which Johnny Moisant crossed the English Channel. When the news became known that Moisant had been killed at New Orleans, the machine was immediately draped in the colors of mourning." The Burgess Company and Curtiss airplane also drew much attention from

10241-399: The family had lived during the 1870s, prevented Wilbur from receiving his diploma after finishing four years of high school. The diploma was awarded posthumously to Wilbur on April 16, 1994, which would have been his 127th birthday. In late 1885 or early 1886, while playing an ice-skating game with friends Wilbur was struck in the face by a hockey stick by Oliver Crook Haugh, who later became

10374-544: The first circle, followed in 1905 by the first truly practical fixed-wing aircraft , the Wright Flyer III . The brothers' breakthrough invention was their creation of a three-axis control system , which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium. Their system of aircraft controls made fixed-wing powered flight possible and remains standard on airplanes of all kinds. Their first U.S. patent did not claim invention of

10507-456: The first person singular became the plural "we" and "our". Author James Tobin asserts, "it is impossible to imagine Orville, bright as he was, supplying the driving force that started their work and kept it going from the back room of a store in Ohio to conferences with capitalists, presidents, and kings. Will did that. He was the leader, from the beginning to the end." Despite Lilienthal's fate,

10640-422: The first to achieve controlled heavier-than-air flight, but some of the mechanical techniques the Wrights used to accomplish this were not influential for the development of aviation as a whole, although their theoretical achievements were. The Flyer design depended on wing-warping controlled by a hip cradle under the pilot, and a foreplane or "canard" for pitch control, features which would not scale and produced

10773-482: The flights of the Kitty Hawk Flyer . While they had abandoned their other gliders, they realized the historical significance of the Flyer . They shipped the heavily damaged craft back to Dayton, where it remained stored in crates behind a Wright Company shed for nine years. The Great Dayton Flood of March 1913 covered the Flyer in mud and water for 11 days. Charlie Taylor relates in a 1948 article that

10906-533: The general theory and understanding of flight mechanics hindered them... Indeed, the most serious gap in their knowledge was probably the basic reason for their unwitting mistake in selecting their canard configuration." According to aviation author Harry Combs, "Wright designs incorporated a 'balanced' forward elevator...the movable surface extending an equal distance on both sides of its hinge or pivot axis, as opposed to an 'in-trail' configuration... which would have enhanced controllability in flight." Orville wrote of

11039-491: The glider banked into a turn, rudder pressure overcame the effect of differential drag and pointed the nose of the aircraft in the direction of the turn, eliminating adverse yaw. In short, the Wrights discovered the true purpose of the movable vertical rudder. Its role was not to change the direction of flight, as a rudder does in sailing, but rather, to aim or align the aircraft correctly during banking turns and when leveling off from turns and wind disturbances. The actual turn –

11172-407: The government meteorologist stationed there. Kitty Hawk, although remote, was closer to Dayton than other places Chanute had suggested, including California and Florida. The spot also gave them privacy from reporters, who had turned the 1896 Chanute experiments at Lake Michigan into something of a circus. Chanute visited them in camp each season from 1901 to 1903 and saw gliding experiments, but not

11305-417: The ground – a phenomenon the brothers called "well digging". According to Combs , "They knew that when the earlier 1901 glider banked, it would begin to slide sideways through the air, and if the side motion was left uncorrected, or took place too quickly, the glider would go into an uncontrolled pivoting motion. Now, with vertical fins added to correct this, the glider again went into a pivoting motion, but in

11438-480: The ground. The glider was also tested unmanned while suspended from a small homemade tower. Wilbur, but not Orville, made about a dozen free glides on only a single day, October 20. For those tests the brothers trekked four miles (6   km) south to the Kill Devil Hills , a group of sand dunes up to 100 feet (30 m) high (where they made camp in each of the next three years). Although the glider's lift

11571-416: The horizontal wheel. Attached vertically to the wheel were an airfoil and a flat plate mounted 90° away. As air passed by the airfoil, the lift it generated, if unopposed, would cause the wheel to rotate. The flat plate was oriented so its drag would push the wheel in the opposite direction of the airfoil. The airfoil and flat plate were made in specific sizes such that, according to Lilienthal's measurements,

11704-439: The kite flyer. In return, the kite was under lateral control. In 1900 the brothers went to Kitty Hawk , North Carolina, to begin their manned gliding experiments. In his reply to Wilbur's first letter, Octave Chanute had suggested the mid-Atlantic coast for its regular breezes and soft sandy landing surface. Wilbur also requested and examined U.S. Weather Bureau data, and decided on Kitty Hawk after receiving information from

11837-583: The lift generated by the airfoil would exactly counterbalance the drag generated by the flat plate and the wheel would not turn. However, when the brothers tested the device, the wheel did turn. The experiment confirmed their suspicion that either the standard Smeaton coefficient or Lilienthal's coefficients of lift and drag – or all of them – were in error. They then built a six-foot (1.8 m) wind tunnel in their shop, and between October and December 1901 conducted systematic tests on dozens of miniature wings. The "balances" they devised and mounted inside

11970-529: The litigation and continued their own development. The legal fight in the U.S. had a crushing effect on the nascent American aircraft industry, and even by the time of America's entry into World War I, in 1917, the U.S. had "only six [American made] airplanes, and fourteen trained pilots". The numbers increased substantially over the subsequent years but during the war, all of the fighter aircraft flown by Americans were designed and built in Europe. The Wright Flyer

12103-501: The longest distance more than 600 feet (180 m). Having demonstrated lift, control, and stability, the brothers now turned their focus to the problem of power. Thus did three-axis control evolve: wing-warping for roll (lateral motion), forward elevator for pitch (up and down) and rear rudder for yaw (side to side). On March 23, 1903, the Wrights applied for their famous patent for a "Flying Machine", based on their successful 1902 glider. Some aviation historians believe that applying

12236-510: The masthead. In April 1890 they converted the paper to a daily, The Evening Item , but it lasted only four months. They then focused on commercial printing. One of their clients was Orville's friend and classmate, Paul Laurence Dunbar , who rose to international acclaim as a ground-breaking African-American poet and writer. For a brief period the Wrights printed the Dayton Tattler , a weekly newspaper that Dunbar edited. Capitalizing on

12369-526: The material they thought was needed to be self-sufficient at Kitty Hawk. Besides living in tents once again, they built a combination workshop and hangar. Measuring 25 feet (7.6 m) long by 16 feet (4.9 m) wide, the ends opened upward for easy glider access. Hoping to improve lift, they built the 1901 glider with a much larger wing area and made dozens of flights in July and August for distances of 50 to 400 ft (15 to 122 m). The glider stalled

12502-677: The national bicycle craze (spurred by the invention of the safety bicycle and its substantial advantages over the penny-farthing design), in December 1892 the brothers opened a repair and sales shop (the Wright Cycle Exchange, later the Wright Cycle Company ) and in 1896 began manufacturing their own brand. They used this endeavor to fund their growing interest in flight. In the early or mid-1890s they saw newspaper or magazine articles and probably photographs of

12635-447: The new shafts on the Wright Flyer and tested it on their 60-foot (18 m) launching rail system that included a wheeled launching dolly . According to Orville: "We had designed our propellers to give 90 pounds (41 kg) thrust at a speed of 330 rev. per minute (about 950 of engine), which we had figured would be the required amount for the machine weighing 630 pounds (290 kg)." In practice tests, they were able to achieve

12768-432: The number Langley used), not the traditional 0.0054, which would significantly exaggerate predicted lift. The brothers decided to find out if Lilienthal's data for lift coefficients were correct. They devised an experimental apparatus which consisted of a freely rotating bicycle wheel mounted horizontally in front of the handlebars of a bicycle. The brothers took turns pedaling the bicycle vigorously, creating air flow over

12901-465: The only addition to the design was pontoons to support testing on the lake but critics including patent attorney Griffith Brewer called them alterations of the original design. Curtiss flew the modified Aerodrome , hopping a few feet off the surface of the lake for 5 seconds at a time. Between 1916 and 1928, the Wright Flyer was prepared and assembled for exhibition under the supervision of Orville by Wright Company mechanic Jim Jacobs several times. It

13034-419: The opposite direction, with the nose swinging downward." Orville apparently visualized that the fixed rudder resisted the effect of corrective wing-warping when attempting to level off from a turn. He wrote in his diary that on the night of October 2, "I studied out a new vertical rudder". The brothers then decided to make the rear rudder movable to solve the problem. They hinged the rudder and connected it to

13167-594: The original Wright Flyer published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1950. Constructed in advance of the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight, the replica was intended for wind tunnel testing to provide a historically accurate aerodynamic database of the Wright Flyer design. The aircraft went on display at the March Field Air Museum in Riverside, California . Numerous static display-only, nonflying reproductions are on display around

13300-635: The original engine had been sent to the Aero Club of America in New York for an exhibit in 1906 and were never returned to the Wrights. The replacement crankcase, crankshaft and flywheel came from the experimental engine Charlie Taylor had built in 1904 and used for testing in the bicycle shop. A replica crankcase of the Flyer is on display at the visitor center at the Wright Brothers National Memorial . The Smithsonian Institution , and primarily its then-secretary Charles Walcott , refused to give credit to

13433-471: The original flight. The Wright Experience, led by Ken Hyde, won the bid and painstakingly recreated reproductions of the original Wright Flyer , plus many of the prototype gliders and kites and subsequent Wright aircraft. The completed Flyer reproduction was brought to Kitty Hawk and pilot Kevin Kochersberger attempted to recreate the original flight at 10:35 on December 17, 2003, on level ground near

13566-431: The pilot's warping "cradle", so a single movement by the pilot simultaneously controlled wing-warping and rudder deflection. The apparatus made the trailing edge of the rudder turn away from whichever end of the wings had more drag (and lift) due to warping. The opposing pressure produced by turning the rudder enabled corrective wing-warping to reliably restore level flight after a turn or a wind disturbance. Furthermore, when

13699-473: The powered flights. The Wrights based the design of their kite and full-size gliders on work done in the 1890s by other aviation pioneers. They adopted the basic design of the Chanute-Herring biplane hang glider ("double-decker" as the Wrights called it), which flew well in the 1896 experiments near Chicago, and used aeronautical data on lift that Otto Lilienthal had published. The Wrights designed

13832-428: The question, sometimes heatedly, until they concluded that an aeronautical propeller is essentially a wing rotating in the vertical plane. On that basis, they used data from more wind tunnel tests to design their propellers. The finished blades were just over eight feet long, made of three laminations of glued spruce. The Wrights decided on twin " pusher " propellers (counter-rotating to cancel torque), which would act on

13965-399: The restoration in full view of the public. The wooden framework was cleaned, and corrosion on metal parts removed. The covering was the only part of the aircraft replaced. The new covering was more accurate to the original than that of the 1927 restoration. To preserve the original paint on the engine, the restorers coated it in inert wax before putting on a new coat of paint. The effects of

14098-723: The solution to controlled flight and is used today on virtually every fixed-wing aircraft. The Wright patent included the use of hinged rather than warped surfaces for the forward elevator and rear rudder. Other features that made the Flyer a success were highly efficient wings and propellers, which resulted from the Wrights' exacting wind tunnel tests and made the most of the marginal power delivered by their early homebuilt engines; slow flying speeds (and hence survivable accidents); and an incremental test/development approach. The future of aircraft design lay with rigid wings, ailerons and rear control surfaces. A British patent of 1868 for aileron technology had apparently been completely forgotten by

14231-432: The statement "It is everywhere acknowledged that the Wright brothers were the first to make sustained flights in a heavier-than-air machine at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903" and closes with a promise that "Should Dr. Wright decide to deposit the plane ... it would be given the highest place of honor which it is due". The following year, Orville, after exchanging several letters with Abbot, agreed to return

14364-421: The system of three-axis flight control on the 1902 glider was equal to, or even more significant, than the addition of power to the 1903 Flyer. Peter Jakab of the Smithsonian asserts that perfection of the 1902 glider essentially represents invention of the airplane. In addition to developing the lift equation, the brothers also developed the equation for drag. It is of the same form as the lift equation, except

14497-531: The team, building their first airplane engine in close collaboration with the brothers. The Wright brothers' status as inventors of the airplane has been subject to numerous counter-claims. Much controversy persists over the many competing claims of early aviators . Wilbur and Orville Wright were two of seven children born to Milton Wright (1828–1917), a clergyman of English and Dutch ancestry, and Susan Catherine Koerner (1831–1889), of German and Swiss ancestry. Milton Wright's mother, Catherine Reeder,

14630-403: The three previous flights of 120, 175 and 200 feet (37, 53 and 61 m) in 12, 12, and 15 seconds respectively. The fourth flight's landing broke the front elevator supports, which the Wrights hoped to repair for a possible four-mile (6 km) flight to Kitty Hawk village. Soon after, a heavy gust picked up the Flyer and tumbled it end over end, damaging it beyond any hope of quick repair. It

14763-654: The time the 20th century dawned. After a single statement to the press in January 1904 and a failed public demonstration in May, the Wright Brothers did not publicize their efforts, and other aviators who were working on the problem of flight (notably Alberto Santos-Dumont ) were thought by the press to have preceded them by many years. After their successful demonstration flight in France on August 8, 1908, they were accepted as pioneers and received extensive media coverage. In 1909,

14896-422: The tunnel to hold the wings looked crude, made of bicycle spokes and scrap metal, but were "as critical to the ultimate success of the Wright brothers as were the gliders." The devices allowed the brothers to balance lift against drag and accurately calculate the performance of each wing. They could also see which wings worked well as they looked through the viewing window in the top of the tunnel. The tests yielded

15029-414: The unsolved third part of "the flying problem". The other two parts – wings and engines – they believed were already sufficiently promising. The Wright brothers' plan thus differed sharply from more experienced practitioners of the day, notably Ader , Maxim , and Langley , who all built powerful engines, attached them to airframes equipped with untested control devices, and expected to take to

15162-717: The wing and land on his feet with his arms wrapped over the framework. Within a few glides, however, they discovered the pilot could remain prone on the wing, headfirst, without undue danger when landing. They made all their flights in that position for the next five years. Before returning to Kitty Hawk in the summer of 1901, Wilbur published two articles, "The Angle of Incidence" in The Aeronautical Journal , and "The Horizontal Position During Gliding Flight" in Illustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen . The brothers brought all of

15295-429: The wing's front-to-back dimension). Such shapes offered much better lift-to-drag ratio than the stubbier wings the brothers had tried so far. With this knowledge, and a more accurate Smeaton number, the Wrights designed their 1902 glider. The wind tunnel tests, made from October to December 1901, were described by biographer Fred Howard as "the most crucial and fruitful aeronautical experiments ever conducted in so short

15428-405: The wings , and simultaneously turn the rudder , for coordinated flight. The pilot operated the elevator lever with his left hand, while holding a strut with his right. The Wright Flyer ' s "runway" was a 60-foot (18 m) track of 2x4s , which the brothers nicknamed the "Junction Railroad". The Wright Flyer skids rested on a launching dolly, consisting of a 6-foot (1.8 m) plank, with

15561-451: The wings of the Wright glider were braced by wires in their own version of Chanute's modified Pratt truss , a bridge-building design he used for his biplane glider (initially built as a triplane). The Wrights mounted the horizontal elevator in front of the wings rather than behind, apparently believing this feature would help to avoid, or protect them from, a nosedive and crash like the one that killed Lilienthal. Wilbur incorrectly believed

15694-416: The wings of the biplane in level position in known wind velocities ... They also devised a formula for power-to-weight ratio and propeller efficiency that would answer whether or not they could supply to the propellers the power necessary to deliver the thrust to maintain flight ... they even computed the thrust of their propellers to within 1 percent of the thrust actually delivered ..." In 1903

15827-420: The wings with camber , a curvature of the top surface. The brothers did not discover this principle, but took advantage of it. The better lift of a cambered surface compared to a flat one was first discussed scientifically by Sir George Cayley . Lilienthal, whose work the Wrights carefully studied, used cambered wings in his gliders, proving in flight the advantage over flat surfaces. The wooden uprights between

15960-425: The work of Sir George Cayley , Chanute, Lilienthal, Leonardo da Vinci , and Langley, they began their mechanical aeronautical experimentation that year. The Wright brothers always presented a unified image to the public, sharing equally in the credit for their invention. Biographers note that Wilbur took the initiative in 1899 and 1900, writing of "my" machine and "my" plans before Orville became deeply involved when

16093-526: The world's first successful airplane . They made the first controlled, sustained flight of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, four miles (6 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina , at what is now known as Kill Devil Hills . In 1904 the Wright brothers developed the Wright Flyer II , which made longer-duration flights including

16226-656: Was destroyed soon after liftoff . The portions of wood and fabric and Wright's note were recovered from the wreck of the Shuttle and are on display at the North Carolina Museum of History . A small piece of the Wright Flyer ' s wing fabric is attached to a cable underneath the solar panel of the helicopter Ingenuity , which became the first vehicle to perform a controlled atmospheric flight on Mars on April 19, 2021. Before moving on for further exploration and testing, Ingenuity ' s first base on Mars

16359-588: Was born near Millville, Indiana , in 1867; Orville in Dayton, Ohio , in 1871. The brothers never married. The other Wright siblings were Reuchlin (1861–1920), Lorin (1862–1939), Katharine (1874–1929), and twins Otis and Ida (born 1870, died in infancy). The direct paternal ancestry goes back to a Samuel Wright (b. 1606 in Essex , England) who sailed to America and settled in Massachusetts in 1636 . None of

16492-862: Was briefly exhibited at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1916, the New York Aero Shows in 1917 and 1919, a Society of Automotive Engineers meeting in Dayton, Ohio in 1918, and the National Air Races in Dayton in 1924. In 1925, Orville attempted to pressure the Smithsonian by warning that he would send the Flyer to the Science Museum in London if the Institution refused to recognize his and Wilbur's accomplishment. The threat did not achieve its intended effect, and on January 28, 1928, Orville shipped

16625-450: Was conceived as a control-canard, as the Wrights were more concerned with control than stability. It was found to be unstable and barely controllable. During flight tests near Dayton the Wrights added ballast to the nose of the aircraft to move the center of gravity forward and reduce pitch instability. The Wright Brothers did not understand the basics of pitch stability of the canard configuration. F.E.C. Culick stated, "The backward state of

16758-478: Was damaged on landing, and wrecked minutes later when powerful gusts blew it over. The aircraft never flew again but was shipped home and subsequently restored by Orville. The aircraft was initially displayed in a place of honor at the London Science Museum until 1948 when the resolution of an acrimonious priority dispute finally allowed it to be displayed in the Smithsonian. It is now exhibited in

16891-651: Was descended from the progenitor of the Vanderbilt family  – one of America's richest families – and the Huguenot Gano family of New Rochelle, New York . Wilbur and Orville were the 3rd great nephews of John Gano , the Revolutionary War Brigade Chaplain, who allegedly baptized President George Washington . Through John Gano they were 5th cousins 1 time removed of billionaire and aviator Howard Hughes . Wilbur

17024-497: Was killed in the plunge of his glider. These events lodged in the minds of the brothers, especially Lilienthal's death. The Wright brothers later cited his death as the point when their serious interest in flight research began. Wilbur said, "Lilienthal was without question the greatest of the precursors, and the world owes to him a great debt." In May 1899 Wilbur wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution requesting information and publications about aeronautics. Drawing on

17157-409: Was less than expected, the brothers were encouraged because the craft's front elevator worked well and they had no accidents. However, the small number of free glides meant they were not able to give wing-warping a true test. The pilot lay flat on the lower wing, as planned, to reduce aerodynamic drag. As a glide ended, the pilot was supposed to lower himself to a vertical position through an opening in

17290-512: Was never flown again. In 1904, the Wrights continued refining their designs and piloting techniques in order to obtain fully controlled flight. Major progress toward this goal was achieved with a new machine called the Wright Flyer II in 1904 and even more decisively in 1905 with the third, Wright Flyer III , in which Wilbur made a 39-minute, 24-mile (39 km) nonstop circling flight on October 5. The Flyer series of aircraft were

17423-443: Was part of the accepted equation for lift. L = lift in pounds k = coefficient of air pressure (Smeaton coefficient) S = total area of lifting surface in square feet V = velocity (headwind plus ground speed) in miles per hour C L = coefficient of lift (varies with wing shape) The Wrights used this equation to calculate the amount of lift that a wing would produce. Over the years a wide variety of values had been measured for

17556-472: Was produced in larger numbers by the Wright brothers and was used by the army "for training pilots and conducting aerial experiments" including tests of "a bombsight and bomb-dropping device". The issue of patent control was correctly seen as critical by the Wrights, and they acquired a wide American patent, intended to give them ownership of basic aerodynamic control. This was fought in both American and European courts. European designers were little affected by

17689-429: Was suspended from a wing strut, and the gasoline fed by gravity down a tube to the engine. The fuel valve was an ordinary gaslight petcock . There was no carburetor as we know it today. The fuel was fed into a shallow chamber in the manifold. No spark plug. The spark was made by opening and closing of two contact points inside the combustion chamber. Dry batteries were used for starting the engine and then we switched onto

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