Instrumentation helps to recreate Wright Flyer
A
Honeywell Sensing and Control product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Mar 16, 2004
A century after Ohio brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew their Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Ohioans again played a major role in the history of flight.
A century after Ohio brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew their Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Ohioans again played a major role in the history of flight.
The Sensotec Test and Measurement business of Honeywell Sensing and Control provided instrumentation that helped test the reproduction plane built by The Wright Experience of Warrenton, Virginia, for the Experimental Aircraft Association.
Other teams have simply constructed a plane similar to the Wright Flyer.
But the Wright Experience flight engineers examined the original plane (now in the Smithsonian Institution) and used notes left behind by the Wright Brothers, computer simulations, and air-tunnel testing to build the world's most accurate reproduction.
Honeywell provided an essential piece of the highly reliable test and measurement instrumentation that helped the team succeed.
The firm's wireless telemetry system enabled the flight engineers to measure how efficiently the plane's engine was able to turn its propellers.
The Wrights' propeller design enabled them to get the maximum possible power from their small engine and was the key factor that made their plane fly in 1903.
Modern engineers have found the Wrights' design to be very nearly as efficient as that now used in modern aircraft.
Honeywell engineer Andy Bell, a long-time aviation enthusiast, travelled to Warrenton, where the plane was built, to work with the flight engineers.
Bell consulted on the design for the harness that held the Honeywell equipment on the plane during its wind-tunnel tests and first two test flights.
Although weather prevented the reproduction model from becoming airborne at the December 17, 2003, Centennial Celebration attended by President Bush, the little 605-pound plane did actually fly on the earlier test flights.
The flight team praised the quality of the Honeywell instruments, and Bell described Honeywell's participation in the project as "an exciting way to celebrate 100 years of flight".
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