This
could be considered a project failure. Although initial results were
very promising the project was not continued beyond a prototype. John
Stringfellow was an engineer with amazing skill at making steam
engines. He had a lifelong obsession with flight. He discovered that it
took a rook one foot of wing span to lift half a pound of weight at
twenty miles per hour to hold it in the air. With this knowledge it was not
long before he had constructed a light weight steam engine to rotate a
propeller which could be slung underneath an aeroframe. The wingspan
was 10 feet, spars were of wood, and fabric of silk. The steam engine and
boiler, with paper-thin copper walls, were in a gondola below the
fuselage, a total weight of 9lbs. Two huge propellers rotated in opposite
directions to give lateral stability and with no vertical fin, and it would
veer at the slightest disturbance.
He flew it inside a
lace mills, where the air was still. The narrow space had little room;
so he launched the aircraft along a wire for ten yards. This ensured
that the machine started flying in the right direction, and right
speed. Later he demonstrated it was possible to fly a distance of about 40
yards. However, challenges were beyond the limits of the emerging
technology of the day (specifically engine power and weight). John
Stringfellow did not take his prototype to production and failed . A great idea but ahead of its time by about 50 years.
Wright Brothers 1903
This could be
considered a project success because the prototype flew a sustained and
controlled powered flight for 12 seconds. They systematically broke the
problem down into its 3 major components of takeoff, propulsion and control,
and resolved each of these. They constructed everything from wings to
propeller.
The Wright brothers were bicycle manufacturers used to working with unstable
machines and this gave them an advantage over all the other inventors in the
race. They carefully managed all the critical paths of project and completed
testing. Fearing their rival inventors no public flights between 1903 and
1908 were made as they awaited the patent.
In 1905 they contacted the US War Department and governments in England, France,
Germany, and Russia,
offering to sell a flying machine. They were turned down each time as they
were thought crackpots.
The Wright brothers were great project managers carefully managing the
project to ensure ultimate succeess, and biding their time.
