Continued, page two. Letters From the West: The Wright Stuff.
"Even while the design team was finishing its work, the build team consisting of 14 Industrial Technology and Education students were already fabricating parts," said Dave Widauf. "Once they were handed the final design, the students each signed up to put in between 20 and 30 hours per week to get the plane built."
Meet the build team:Build Team
The USU Wright Flyer was constructed of graphite/epoxy, fiberglass/epoxy and some Kevlar/epoxy composite materials. Nickel coated graphite was stained to look like wood, and the wings were covered with STITS "polyfiber" Dacron fabric.
"We had lots of help," Widauf explained. "Bill Pratt, who perfected wavy composites, allowed us to use that technology to roll all the tubes we used to make the major structural elements of the plane.
George Hansen of Metal Matrix Composites gave us nickel-coated graphite to use between the wings so the supports look like metal. ATK Thiokol Propulsion, the company that makes the Space Shuttle booster rockets, fabricated the graphite main wing spars."
The team is still experimenting with two engines, a BMW 1150R and a Harley Davidson Twin Cam 88. They expect to use both. "A team of Harley motorcycle engineers came out to see how we were doing," Widauf said, "but when they heard their engine running in the Flyer they were shocked. 'It's too quiet,' they said. 'It just doesn't sound like a Harley!'" According to Widauf, they promised to come back with a redesigned exhaust system that sounds "right."
The students had the plane mostly finished by the end of August, in time for it to be formally dedicated by Utah State University President Kermit Hall and former US Senator-astronaut Jake Garn. Garn will be one of the USU Flyer's demonstration pilots when the plane takes to the air next year.
This project has already brought the students lots of acclaim. Both the History Channel and The Learning Channel are preparing programs about the USU Wright Flyer effort that will air early in 2003. It also brought the more theoretical mechanical engineering students into close contact with the more hands-on aeronautical technology students. "This was the first real team effort between them and it worked out very well," said Project Manager Widauf. "They got so caught up in the spirit of the project that all the design team members who graduated last spring came back from all over the country for the dedication. That was cool as heck."
Through the support of the National Composites Center the USU Wright Flyer project has connected with Inventing Flight, the official Centennial Celebration in the Wright brothers' home base of Dayton, Ohio. The USU Wright Flyer, along with an exact replica Flyer made elsewhere, will fly from the Wrights' former Huffman Prairie field in Dayton, (now part of Wright-Patterson AFB) next July. Senator Garn will be the Utah State pilot.
There are other plans in the works to display the USU Wright Flyer around the state of Utah and around the country to honor aviation heroes in addition to the Wrights. "Part of our plan was to use the Wright Flyer in an outreach program aimed at young people," said Widauf. "We want to light the fire of desire and get more young people interested in aviation, aerospace engineering and technology."
Some have criticized the effort because it is a departure from the original design. Others, like Experimental Aircraft Association President Tom Poberezny, have lauded the project. Poberezny told the Ogden Standard Examiner, "Each approaches honor the Wright Brothers in a different way. Building the plane with modern materials will make the students appreciate what the twosome did a century ago. It highlights, even greater, the engineering feat of the Wright Brothers."
What would the brothers have to say about a group of students trying to improve upon their work? Who knows? But somewhere up in that great hangar in the sky, Orville may be pointing down at northern Utah and saying to brother Wilber, "Would you look at that. They used composites. Isn't that something!"
Letters from the West correspondent John Taylor is a former public affairs director at NASA, a private pilot, and an officer at the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium of which Utah State University is a member. He lives in Logan, Utah. His next Letter will feature the story of Doolittle Raider Chase Nielsen, who survived a crash landing in the ocean and capture by the Japanese following the famous raid on Tokyo during WWII.