How hard was it to fly the first plane?

Question

I know they flew it but how hard was it

Answer 1

The 1903 Wright Flyer was not very stable.

An airplane is stable if it tends to return to level flight after a small disturbance like a gust of wind. For example, if a gust pushes the nose of a stable airplane up, the nose will come back down and the airplane will keep flying straight ahead without the pilot touching the controls.

If a gust pushes the nose of an unstable airplane up, the nose will keep rising and rising until the pilot forces it back down. But once the pilot has the nose going back down it will keep going down until the pilot brings it back up. You can see how this can quickly become very difficult. It's like balancing a ruler on your finger.

The Flyer was unstable in the pitch direction which means the nose would tend to rise and fall like I described. The things that make an airplane either stable or unstable in the pitch direction are not obvious without knowledge of aerodynamics and the Wright brothers did not have that knowledge. Aerodynamics had barely been invented at the time.

You might notice the Flyer's horizontal stabilizer is at the front of the airplane, not the back. Some people blame that for the Flyer's pitch instability but that isn't correct. It is possible to make an airplane stable with the horizontal stabilizer in the front. The real problem was that the Wrights didn't understand the aerodynamics.

The Flyer was tricky to fly, but not impossible. Even though they did not understand the principles at the time, the brothers did enough testing to avoid a really bad design.

Answer 2

I'll answer your question based on the assumption that you are talking about the Wright Brother's first powered airplane. I'll tell you exactly how hard it was. Hard enough that only the Wrights were able to fly it. The Wright Brother's first powered airplane has been copied a number of times by aircraft builders, right down to the last nut and bolt, and exactly none of them have ever been able to reproduce the flight the Wright Brothers accomplished. Yes, people have been able to fly faster, farther, higher, and longer than the Wrights ever dreamed of in aircraft that are technologically light years ahead of the original Wright airplane, but never in an exact copy of the plane that did it first. And since the original plane was destroyed and no longer exists, the Wright Brothers are the only ones who knew.

Answer 3

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 Century of Flight has the Wright Flyer in it. You can get some idea from that how hard it was to fly it. I have flown it several times in differing wind conditions and having a 30 knot headwind of fun. The nose of the plane bounces up and down like mad.

Answer 4

The Bros. made over a thousand flights with gliders off of Kill Devil Hills before the finally got a power flight off the ground. So maybe not that hard as far as they were concerned.

Answer 5

Not very hard, the Wright Brothers had it figured out before they
made there first flight a science it was a light, slow mover, they
taught themselves on these first flights.