Gentlemen,
You are correct in detecting that I'm not wholeheartedly a fan of Orville and Wilbur. I admire their achievement , but Chanute's comments express my views as well. While the distinction between laminar and turbulent flow was quantified as far back as about 1830 by Belanger (then called "fluvial" and "torrential"), it was largely an area of interest of civil engineers (flow thru pipes and weirs). I don't fault the Wrights for not being aware of scale effects, but the negative consequences of their work should also be mentioned.
That being said, its only fair to mention that literally everybody after Stringfellow/Henson who tried to build a flying or gliding device used thin cambered wing sections (except Maxim who employed a thin flat wing section). As someone observed earlier, there was a lot of copying going on.
As for wind tunnels. an alternative approach would have been to test a full scale wing, or even flying machine, on a parallel arm balance, mounted on, but ahead of a railroad flatcar pushed by a locomotive. A relatively cheap rental in those days, and potentially lots of fun.
In my alternate world, Sam Langley and Charles Manley would have built a better stress analysed and braced "Airodrome" with skids and a takeoff dolly or weak catapult like the Wrights. Fly this inherently stable and more than adequately powered ship from a large open field and into the history books.
Dynasoar
I'll give you their negative effect; the dominance of bipes alone, resulting from
Flyer I, deserves some scalding.
I'll also give you the flatcar idea, which I also like.
I'm less sure it was easy to gain access; the cars would have to be rented from somebody, & there would (inevitably) be somebody else who needed the car more, & would be willing to pay more--wouldn't there? (Absent "piggybacking", which requires, perhaps, more creative thinking than was in play at the time.) Nor would the loco rental exactly be cheap, & those are going to be in pretty well continuous operation.
And Manley, IMO, deserves a medal. He did a better job than Taylor by far; I can't help wonder how
Flyer I would have looked, & performed, with 150hp or so, instead of 12.
Langley, OTOH, deserves a roasting IMO. He was a blowhard (I hesitate to say charlatan, but...). He doesn't deserve mention in the same breath with the Wrights IMO. Whatever the Wrights got wrong, I still say, their systematic approach, the careful experimentation, rather than the "slap it together & jump off a roof" that was usual at the time, earns them pride of place.
