Wings Reading Assignment #2

Wings Reading Assignment #2

By Joseph Bradley-Hutchison

1. Did flight have any influence outside of aviation? If so, how?

Aviation had a tremendous impact on pilots from all around the world, but also, influenced many artists to “participate in technologies that will shape the future.”  A wealthy Italian poet named Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was eager to try this, and became one of the leading figures in the artistic movement known as Futurism.  This movement was not simply about painting amazing pictures of airplanes, but also incorporated poetry and novels as well.  Russians took to the movement in very enthusiastically way as well, and produced one of the best-known futurist artist, Kazimir Malevich.  Furthermore, the Russian writer Vasily Vasilyevich Kamensky continued to preach the ideas of futurism, and believed that the airplane was “the truest achievement of our time” (Crouch, 122-123). 

The birth of human flight also, and more importantly, influenced pop culture in a huge way.  Songwriter Tin Pan Alley wrote many tunes inspired by the “flying-machine craze,” and playwright George M. Cohan was inspired to write plays that were centered on pilots.  Airplanes were also appearing on such items as clocks, fans, pencil boxes, cigarette cases, pitchers, plates, ginger jars, and many other household objects.  Model aircraft, aviation dolls, and a wide variety of aviation inspired games and puzzles were the toys of choice among children.  Overall, the image of an airplane could be used to sell whatever, and served as a good marketing tool for any business (Crouch, 123).

Aviation pushed the way for science and technology, but also pushed the way toward a society that found the airplane as the symbol of human achievement and progression.  Artists were strongly influenced to incorporate aviation into their works, poets and authors were inspired to write about the great pilots of these airplanes, and several businesses found a new avenue of art to put onto their products because of the impact it possessed on the general public.  Therefore, the impact of aviation on the general public created a new society based around the cultural symbol of the airplane, and inspired many to depict this great human achievement by transforming it into an artistic movement. 

2. How did this new field of aviation affect science?

The Wright Brothers were not necessarily relying on scientific theory or the fundamental laws of physics to achieve their flight, but were simply relying on their skills as engineers.  It was not until many scientists from around the world tried to understand how the Wright Brothers achieved flight was when scientists began to realize how innovative their plane really was, which became the science of wings (Crouch, 124).  Each factor of their flight was addressed, and forced a question into many scientists’ minds that asked, how was it possible for man to fly?

Two pioneering aerodynamicists, who worked independently of each other, started the road to explaining this phenomenon.  The German mathematician, Wilhelm Kutta, and the Russian scientist, Nikolai E. Joukowski, presented papers in the early 20^th century that developed the technique of calculating the amount of lift generated by a spinning cylinder.  An English engineer, Frederick Lanchester, took the next step by explaining how the circulation of air around a cambered, or curved wing could generate lift.  Lanchester found difficulty putting his theory into math, which the German engineer, Ludwig Prandtl, had no trouble in solving for him.  Prandtl wrote widely about Lanchester’s results, and published much in the topic of fluid dynamics.  Prandtl’s main achievement was uniting the fields of theoretical science with practical engineering, which created a new field of science and engineering that impacted the way engineers were trained in airplane design all around the world (Crouch, 124-125).

Therefore, aviation impacted science in not just simply achieving a grand human innovation, but explaining why it was possible for humans to achieve this innovation.  Science had, and always has been, the field in which the questions of how the world works were explained through scientific inquiry, and the birth of aviation only gave these early 20^th century scientists another phenomenon to explain through scientific theory.  As the science of aviation improved among those engineers willing to learn it, then so will the innovations and progressions of flight as well.

3. Who took the lead in establishing aviation as a business and what effect did it have on the rest of the world?

The birth of flight was in the United States, but the leading nation within the business of flying was the French.  The French were the first to successfully transform the experimental aircraft workshops into large-scale industrial factories.  From 1909-1913 the French aircraft builders were able to produce 1,023 airplanes, which 732 were sold domestically and the other 291 were sold outside the country.  The French pilot, businessman, and aircraft designer, Louis Blériot, contributed much in the variety of different aircraft designs during this period as well.  He produced over 45 different aircrafts that ranged from canards based on his earlier models to flying buses capable of transporting up to eight passengers.  One of his most successful models was the Blériot XI, which by 1911 would sell for $2,350 (Crouch, 126-127).

The impact of the French aircraft industries gave the world a key source of flying machines for the purpose of military warfare, and also, for ambitious pilots who wished to take to the air.  By the outbreak of WW1 the French Gnome factory produced over 20,000 different models by the end of the war.  They were able to employ 650-800 workers altogether, and their product was widely used by the many armies of Europe.  It later gave European automobile manufacturers a new product to produce and sell to aircraft companies that involved the producing of aircraft engines (Crouch, 132).

The French took the invention of the Wright Brothers and truly created a series of workable industries to design and ship these aircrafts throughout the world.  It inspired many other industries around the world to invest within this successful business, and to build and distribute these products in an efficient manner.  Therefore, the French were the first to market these products to the world, but from these leading French businesses came a new wave of new industries involving the producing and designing of airplanes.