Posted on Medium Ma28, 2025
Feedback welcome. seltzer@seltzerbooks.com
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“Did you read about the Wright Brothers? Don’t
you think we could do better than they did?”
“What?”
“Their design’s been published. We know what
they did and what they discarded. Based on their experience, using
the same materials and tools, shouldn’t we be able to do better?”
“What are you driving at?”
“There are many ways to get a flying machine
into the air. You could start it on an inclined ramp, heading into
a prevailing wind. You could set it on a frame and pull it with
horseless carriages, with the wings at the optimal angle for lift
and the ground motion generating wind. And then, when it starts to
lift, you could detach it from the frame and turn on the engine to
start the propeller. And you wouldn’t even need horseless
carriages. Keep it simple. Use horses to pull it until lift-off.
Or you could launch it with a catapult or a device like a cross
bow. If you get lift-off that way, you could use a smaller and
lighter engine that burns less fuel.”
“But wouldn’t it be cheating to use an external
source of energy to get it started?”
“This isn’t a game, a contest with rules and if
you break the rules, you won’t win the prize. Nonsense. The
objective is to build and launch a self-propelled flying machine.
Forget rules. Use your imagination. You could even use a hot-air
balloon to get it off the ground. Then turn on the engine and cut
it free.”
“But that’s like trying to reinvent the wheel.
We already have airplanes — huge and powerful ones.”
“Imagine what we might learn from trying, first
with the same constraints they had, and then without them. If we
weren’t limited to the tools and materials the Wright Brothers had
in 1903, what kinds of flying machine could we build? And isn’t it
about time we reinvented the wheel?”
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List of Richard’s jokes, stories, poems and essays at Medium
Richard's Trojan novel Let the Women Have Their Say is available at Amazon.
Richard
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