Reinventing the Wing; The Aircraft of Alexander Graham Bell

[@johnforsyth7987]

I did not know that Mr. Bell was so interested in the field of aviation. Thank you for another informative video where I learned something new today. Please consider doing a video on the Travelair Company in Wichita, Kansas. This is where 3 American plane builders worked together to frow the industry. These three gentlemen were Clyde Cessna, Walther Beech and Lloyd Stearman. These three men helped turn a cow town into a center for aviation manufacturing. Which it still is today.

[@uingaeoc3905]

and the Boeing plant was created there too.

[@crabby7668]

Fascinating. I didn't know Bell had an interest in aviation. That first cygnet looks more like an early radar array than a plane. It is always interesting to see how large some of the early planes became.

[@sealove79able]

Bell helicopters?

[@crabby7668]

@@sealove79able were they directly connected to Alexander Graham Bell though? I always assumed it was a different bell that started that company.

[@sealove79able]

@@crabby7668 Thank you. I am not sure about that.

[@iskandartaib]

Main problem I think - when you make lift, you also make drag. This wing design probably produced a lot of lift but also produced a lot of drag. Probably a lot more parasitic drag than conventional wings, but also a great deal of induced drag. They'd work as kites since, with kites, the airspeed is fixed by the wind velocity, the string (provided it doesn't break) provides as much "thrust" as needed to overcome the drag. A less draggy wing would make a better kite, since it could function with a lighter string.

[@chefchaudard3580]

Greg's airplanes and automobile channel has done videos about the Wright brothers. He shows that the brothers had a good understanding of flight mechanics for the time and that it was key to their success. Many others only had a partial view and that explains their failures.

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

All those angled surfaces means much of the lift generated has a strong horizontal component which is entirely thrown away, but its drag remains. His misunderstanding of such basic concepts even after the Wright Brothers is astounding. Wikipedia says the first enclosed wind tunnel was invented in 1871, 30 years before the Wright Brothers used one to such great effect.

[@iskandartaib]

@@grizwoldphantasia5005 Yeah, the horizontal component is the induced drag. All wings produce this horizontal component, some are worse than others. The greater the angle of attack, the greater the lift, but also the greater the horizontal component of the lift.

[@maxstoner5527]

I can’t believe how quick we went from the first flight to Gen 4 jet fighters 🤯

[@EdNashsMilitaryMatters]

Some of those designers, they start building with fabric biplanes, end of their careers they're building mach 2 jets!

[@jaws666]

​​@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters have done a video on Douglas "wrong way" Corrigan?...think it would make a great video for those who havent heard of him

[@user-oo8xp2rf1k]

​@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters That would make an interesting video (hint hint!)🤠

[@bigblue6917]

I once met someone who was born before Karl Benz built his first car and lived long enough, she was 100 at the time, to see the first man on the Moon. So in her lifetime we went from the horse and cart to Saturn V.

[@FriedAudio]

@@bigblue6917 My mother's parents were the same way. They had courted in horse & buggy but lived to see man set his foot on the moon. Pretty amazing times...

[@tim31415]

It appears his experiments with kites led him astray regarding the nature of lift. An aircraft wing uses a combination of stagnation pressure and the Bernoulli effect. Kites generally rely on stagnation pressure, which would produce too much drag for an airplane wing. This is particularly interesting given his work with hydrofoils.

[@1967250s]

My thought exactly. All that drag from all of the structure would be very hard to overcome, especially with the low power engines of the time. The kites are neat though!

[@MrPPCLI]

The "Silver Dart," which you pictured in the video, was the first powered aircraft to fly in Canada and the Commonwealth...

[@slotcarpalace]

Superb as usual. The AEA also invented the aileron which Bell donated to the world to promote flight research. The Wrights tried to patent the aileron and set off a series of long court battles. Whereas the AEA tried to advance aeronautics, the wrights definitely held things back.

[@derrickstorm6976]

How cool is that, I remember seeing pictures of these designs when I was in elementary school but back then I didn't know what the English books were saying. Thanks Ed!

[@juliane__]

Really interesting why he chose tetrahedral wing designs. Seems more of a personal expression than a physics based decision.

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

Yes. Didn't understand all the drag of all those components, didn't even understand that an angled wing is generating sideways lift which just gets thrown away.

[@rconger24]

​@@grizwoldphantasia5005quite!

[@chrisdrake447]

Fascinating stuff, Ed. First I’ve heard of these designs. Sadly nowadays days, you can never find a genuine gentleman polymath when you need one ...

[@johnladuke6475]

It was easier for such people to exist when there was less for them to know in order to master a field. Da Vinci advanced art, physics, engineering and anatomy by leaps and bounds in his time, but everything he ever learned about those fields is considered basic high school curriculum today.

[@alexhayden2303]

Are you sure? There are hundreds of them arriving at Dover every day!

[@StevenHoman-t4f]

Ed, opto-acoustic transmissions? You have positively outdone your self, on that alone. I enter willingly, expecting to be given great aircraft wisdom, yet almost invariably I get so much more. A common refrain from your supplicants, I am sure.

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

When i saw the name Bell i assumed it was going to be about some early form of radar, then i looked at the thumbnail and though yep, thats an advanced looking radar transmitter - looking forward to this video on radar! Imagine my shock to see it was an actually an aeroplane. Ed you never fail to surprise us with amazing forgotten technology.

[@DiegoPatriciodelHoyo]

Thanks again Ed, never heard of these 2 air-craft.

[@rconger24]

Bells and his invention of The Telephone made him one of my childhood heros. 1:38 - 2: 00 But for hus goal to invent a wing that was more effecient and that would require less horsepower, Mr Bell sure missed the mark. The massive surface area he had in his "wings" also created huge amounts of drag. We see at one point he was using an engine with 70 horsepower when Wright's first airplane succeeded with only 11 horsepower. Alas, we *_can_* thank Mr Bell for his invention of The Telephone.

[@outlet6989]

4:56. It Looks like the engine mount was made of wood. He also experimented with air-to-ground communications. The aircraft-mounted telephone worked, but the weight of the phone's wire spool and the limited length of the wire made it impractical. His inspiration for this was his experiments with kites.

[@maxo.9928]

Fantastic video! I never knew Bell had any relationship to aviation beforehand, his biographies tend to focus on the telephone. Thanks a bunch Ed!

[@johndavey72]

Thank Ed. A man of genius but also humble enough to know you cannot be a master of all .

[@artcamp7]

I love these early inventors like Bell and Edison. Like Tesla said of Edison "His process was almost entirely empirical.". He simply tried every variation of a design until something worked. Like Tesla said "A little theory would have taken him much farther"

[@stevetournay6103]

Heh. Why figure it out when you can simply purloin it!

[@yago3]

How about doing a piece on Alberto Santos Dumont’s 14 Bis?

[@SkywalkerWroc]

Tetrahedral wing is basically a... somewhat-controllable drag. It wouldn't go anywhere, no matter the amount of computer modelling.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

If so, why do _Tetrahedron Kites_ fly?

[@henrikgiese6316]

@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman Hardly an expert, but I suspect power-to-weight ratio. Specifically, you have a heavy person on the ground that keeps the kite from moving away. Which in turn allows all the wind to provide lifting power. So, essentially, extremely low stall speed but ridiculous drag.

[@SkywalkerWroc]

@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman Why parachutes can lift a person from the ground after the landing? Same reason. Doesn't make a parachute-winged airplane a viable option.

[@joselitostotomas8114]

@@SkywalkerWroc That depends on the application. Powered parachutes are available. It's used for law enforcement, scouting and recreation. Low and slow, but not something you can use as a fighter.

[@HALLish-jl5mo]

​@@SkywalkerWroc Parachute winged aircraft, like a paramotor? A powered paraglider trike is a parachute winged aircraft in every sense.

[@sealove79able]

A great fantastic interesting video and an aircraft I have never heard of till now.Have a good one Mr.Ed.

[@mahbriggs]

Looking at his wing designs I can't believe just how much drag they would produce! Although Bell was a genius, he didn't understand aerodynamics! Kite design is a dead-end as far as powered flight is concerned! Brute force might get something in the air, briefly, but keeping it there and controlling it? The Wright's studies of how birds flew and controlled themselves along with unstanding how wings generate lift seem to have been beyond the other aviation pioneers of the day!

[@demiRaziel]

Maaan now i want to read up on any modern papers that did a a full aerodynamic investigation of these wing types. The CFD simulations would be fun to look at.

[@SkyWriter25]

I would imagine that the drag on that tetrahedron wing would be horrendous. 🤔

[@GaryJohnWalker1]

So when's the video of the AEA story due? I'm aware of many of those contributors but hadn't known about the AEA itself. Seems important in giving a structure for many and improved on the notion of random geniuses almost in their own bubble.

[@robbabcock_]

Wonderful stuff, truly fascinating! I had no idea that Bell was so involved in early aviation.

[@russkinter3000]

This video is terrific!

[@williambird9256]

Ed, nice tribute for Mr. Bell.

[@tgmccoy1556]

One other thing he did was the Bell method for deaf people and communication. My maternal Grandmother used it.

[@jwrappuhn71]

Excellent.

[@gbickell]

Fascinating and very informative. Thank you.

[@majorbloodnok6659]

Fascinating, thank you

[@FAMUCHOLLY]

I never knew this about Bell. Thanks Ed!

[@jonathanklein383]

The thing that seems obvious to me is that bell didn't understand that a kite needs drag to catch the wind but a plane needs as little drag as possible. I am sure his design generated lift but it couldn't overcome the drag of said design with a little 60 hp engine.

[@mearalain3006]

Exciting

[@johnstirling6597]

I wonder if Bell had any inspiration from Lawrence Hargrave and his kites.............. perhaps communicated via "light phone"😊

[@rockymac3565]

Yes. Bell cites Hargrave in an article he wrote for National Geographic magazine in 1903. He concludes 'Anything relating to aerial locomotion has an interest to very many minds, and scientific kite-flying has everywhere been stimulated by Hargrave's experiments.'

[@johnstirling6597]

@@rockymac3565 👍👍

[@johnstirling6597]

@@rockymac3565 Hargrave almost forgotten these days, more the pity.

[@jdaviqwerty]

Consider the Convair F2Y Sea Dart I remember one by the Warminster Air Guard

[@jamesengland7461]

You don't need computer modeling to see that Bell's "wing " was an utter disaster of extreme complication, turbulence at every joint, and extreme aero drag. It was more parachute than wing. It has way too much surface area, especially in all those useless diagonal components, and did it even have airfoil shapes? Looks like getting to fly the Eiffel Tower.

[@jehoiakimelidoronila5450]

I really hope somebody will remake bell's design with computers & 3d rendering (with ai assist), *&* modern materials And also, I think we owe a lot of things we use for granted to Mr Bell, among other figures

[@jadegecko]

I dunno. WWI planes had some really awful drag. I cannot imagine how bad the drag would be on this thing

[@ajshell2]

This is a bit silly, but I'm a bit proud of myself for predicting the last name of the guy at 6:16. I was thinking "Oh, Curtiss-Wright was a company for a while. I bet this was Curtiss!", and I was right! Or perhaps, Wright LOL.

[@strayling1]

The wings Bell was experimenting with look like Sierpinski triangles. Did he leave anything to explain his thinking for those designs? They're obviously no good as wings, but as kites they look pretty good.

[@CAP198462]

I recognised that too. Sierpiński triangles.

[@paweldun]

photophone? i need to investigate about that . amazing

[@lancerevell5979]

Mr. Bell didn't seem to understand the concept of drag.

[@SuperDiablo101]

Fascinating that bell had a interest in early aviation and its worth me mentioning that the man Nikola tesla himself was supposedly present at one of the Wright brother's earlier flight attempts when they had an issue tesla noted in his journal which clukd have been fixed single handed but choose not too intervene...imagine the "what ifs in history" if this happened

[@Pendra37]

Hm, I have a strange feeling this video went online one week early.

[@cal-native]

Flying fractals!

[@friedtomatoes4946]

I think your biggest issue with those wings is scalability of production. I technically have the capacity to do the computational fluid dynamics for those but I'm not going to cuz that is weeks to months of effort to do right in 3D. But from my experience I would suggest that as you scale it up not only does it get harder to manufacture but the efficiency of the wing goes down simply because what is effectively square cubed law. Would be interesting to do but I just don't think it will ever become viable in anything other than imagination

[@SlideRulePirate]

Experimenting in maximising lift? Same with drag it would appear.

[@janwitts2688]

I remember a pyramid parachute like this it was very small

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

​@EdNashsMilitaryMatters >>> You _may_ have used this book as a reference for this video, but if not, see: *"GENIUS AT WORK / Images of Alexander Graham Bell",* by Dorothy Harley Eber, ©1982.

[@EdNashsMilitaryMatters]

I didnt, but shall give it a look!

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters >>> 👍👍

[@AAO342]

If it looks right , it flies right... ;-)

[@jamesengland7461]

That thing looks like a Walmart ceiling

[@FriedAudio]

I had no idea that Bell was the original ideal model for jolly 'ol St. Nicholas. 😏

[@SPak-rt2gb]

Just think if it worked, he would and called his company Bell Aircraft Corporation

[@TheArchemman]

Although his aircraft designs were a flop. His contributions definitely helped the aviation industry get off the ground...pun intended.

[@tomhalla426]

Bell’s wing designs look as draggy as hell.

[@cowboybob7093]

Again, so happy his name was not Alexander Graham Foghorn.

[@TheNewNumberTw0]

The Weenis 1

[@alexprost7505]

Я непонял, как эта фрактальная хрень работала? How its work?

[@zTheBigFishz]

Sierpiński triangle...a fractal.

[@brianedwards7142]

Infant aviation sounds like a Merry Melodies title.

[@douglasfur3808]

This is important history. Too often we laud the heroes who succeed but don't pay attention to the failures, their own and others. It's from this diversity of ideas that leads to success. This also is an example of the risk for designers of becoming infatuated with a form. Infatuation can sustain interest in a project past the point at which others would quit but once the useful data have been analyzed it makes it hard to quit that form.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

FWIW: *I* ❤️ *TETRAHEDRON KITES.* {Really.}

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

What a drag! -- Alexander Graham Bell, never

[@GlowHawk]

Clearly, he did not understand drag.

[@SatelliteYL]

Wow this is incredible! I work at an aviation history museum (albeit a quite flawed one) and I read or watch about aviation history all day and night and I’ve never heard of or seen a lick of this. Thanks for the upload

[@EdNashsMilitaryMatters]

;D

[@StevenHoman-t4f]

Aerodynamics/hydrodynamics, one and the same, after all. Only to part company at Newtonian fluids.

[@fijapopovic5335]

The picture of the tetrehedral kite really look like the triangle UFO (phoenix lights) that you can see sometimes in the news.

[@mosesracal6758]

Who knows, maybe a lightweight portable drone may see better performance with the Tetrahedral wing design. No need for catapults, only a clear patch of land.

[@bryanst.martin7134]

I can imagine a rotary tetrahedral wing system for drones. I wonder what the lift to drag ratio was?

[@salty4496]

:)

[@bigblue6917]

Poor Thomas Selfridge. I am sure when he became involved with aviation it was not to be the first person to die in an aviation accident. We sometimes forget how the Wright brothers tried to monopolise aviation which is at odds with the fact that even they had to admit they had relied on other peoples discoveries.

[@shawnmiller4781]

That’s why the weight flyer ended up in London until WWII

[@critterjon4061]

How are these kite pictures not SCPs

[@iberiksoderblom]

Talk about a persistence in trying to complicate wing-design... But the AEA was an intelligent approach, countering the "typical American" Wright brothers attempts to shut everybody else down. Reminds me about the PC and how lucky we are that IBM didn't understand what they had on their hands (I'm not saying IBM was like AEA!!!) and close it all down in patents, as was and is the norm, effectively killing innovation.

[@mpetersen6]

I'm sorry but I just see lots of drag.

[@benwilson6145]

First flight was Gustav Whitehead.

[@EdNashsMilitaryMatters]

Possibly, but it's never been proven.

[@rogerbotting3459]

It's pronounced Bra Door, silent s.

[@DeltaAssaultGaming]

Just stick to telephones, Alexander.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

They say that Ted Turner, the co-founder of CNN, tried to come up with 10 concepts per day. If so, on the day he co-created CNN he had 9 other concepts. Whatever happened to them? How many of them were rubbish? How many saw the light of day with someone else?

[@dufus7396]

Bell never really "invented " anything.

[@louisecairney5068]

God agb was bad at wings eh.

[@acomingextinction]

I swear, Alexander Graham Bell was a real-life Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In vision and leadership he was just completely out of his own time.

[@TheNewNumberTw0]

The Weenis 1

[@TheNewNumberTw0]

The Weenis 1