Jeff's Lunchbreak

On December 17th, 1903, the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur, became the first people to achieve an accomplishment that people had been dreaming of for millenia - controlled, powered flight. Now, they weren't lone geniuses working in a vacuum. Others had had earlier limited successes, and people would have figured everything out eventually even without the Wrights (and were largely on the path to doing so, since the Wrights kept so much of their own research a secret), but the Wright brothers had a systematic, logical approach, putting them years ahead of their contemporaries. When they gave their first public demonstrations in France in 1908, crowds were awestruck. They certainly deserve the honor of being the first to flight.

To quote myself from a previous entry, "Flying has become so common place today that we take it for granted. People complain about the cramped seats, the long lines to get through security, the bad food (if you even get any) on flights. But just remember how long people have dreamt of flight, for how long people looked to the skies wanting to emulate the birds. Flying used to be the stuff of myth and legends, reserved for the gods. Now, we can all get in an airplane, and soar above the clouds. It really is something special."

Here are a few of the better aviation related pages/entries on this site that would make for good reading for Wright Brothers Day. The first entry on the last is brand new today.

• Responding to a Flat-Earther Question: How Much Force Does It Take to Accelerate an Aircraft Sideways as It Flies North-South - Goes through the derivation of the formulas for a simple estimate of the answer to the question in the title. It's a negigible force, but still interesting to figure out.
   
• Did Gustave Whitehead Beat the Wright Brothers as the First To Fly - There seems to be a perennial claim that Gustave Whitehead deserves the credit as the first person to fly. And while he did do some early experiments, the available evidence indicates that he wasn't particularly successful. There's an especially interesting rebuke of a photo claimed to show Whitehead in flight.
   
• My Favorite Airplanes - Exactly what it sounds like - my top 10 favorite airplanes, with photos and short descriptions.
   
• A Plane Christmas Greeting - This is a poem written by my late Uncle Bud. We both shared a love of aviation. This is his version of "The Night Before Christmas", with an aviation twist.
   
• Instructions to fold a Post-It Note Glider - Instructions to fold a glider from a Post-It Note that actually works surprisingly well. It even got picked up and included in a book celebrating the Post-It Note's 25th anniversarry.
   
• Flying - A short ode to flying, and why it's still such a marvel even now that it's commonplace.

So as you go about your business today, take a moment to look up and find an airplane, and marvel a little at the achievement.

Much of the content of this entry was recycled, sometimes verbatim, from previous Wright Brothers Day entries.