Inventing Flight

Preface vii Prologue The Miracle of Flight 1(5) One Imaginings 6(16) Setbacks 7(3) Insights 10(4) Devices 14(8) Two Configurations 22(18) George Cayley and the Concept of Flight 25(3) William Samuel Henson and the Aerial Steam Carriage 28(7) Alphonse Penaud and Inherent Stability 35(5) Three Experiments 40(17) Flight Testing 40(2) Laboratory Experiments 42(8) Trial and Error 50(7) Four Aerodynamics 57(32) George Cayley 57(2) Otto Lilienthal 59(15) Samuel Langley 74(15) Five Technology: Collecting Data 89(23) What the Wrights Knew 90(5) Thinking about Improvements 95(17) Six Technology: Further Trials 112(18) A New Glide 112(7) Working in the Laboratory 119(6) To Publish or Not to Publish 125(5) Seven Technology: A Working Aircraft 130(23) Field Testing at Kitty Hawk 130(7) Working on Powered Machines 137(12) Success 149(4) Epilogue 153(6) Appendixes A: Langley's Power Law 159(3) B: How the Wrights Misinterpreted the Lilienthal Tables 162(3) C: Wright's Calculation of the Flyer Velocity 165(2) Notes 167(4) Suggested Further Reading 171(2) Index 173