This is Avion III on display in Paris in 1908 & 2016.

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MrTeamKill@reddit

Now I wonder, is that why Airplane in Spanish is "Avión"?

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Yes. The inventor of this aircraft, Clément Ader, was an early French pioneer of powered flight. He coined the term “avion” and used it for his vehicles, which is what brought it into use in French as the word for airplane. Other languages then borrowed the term from French.

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Ceskaz@reddit

Since spanish is a romance language, like french, they may have some similarity.

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AnHonestQuestions@reddit

Avis is Latin for bird.

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CrouchingToaster@reddit

I know it's looking back with hindsight but is there a reason why a lot of flying contraptions before the wright brothers went with more of a stretched fabric akin to a bat over a wing? Easier to assemble maybe?

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SEA_griffondeur@reddit

canvas is a good material for planes when you don't have the metallurgical technologies

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Harpies_Bro@reddit

I mean, even after the Wrights, planes were fabric up through WWII. The Royal Navy’s Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers were built with fabric stretched over metal, likewise with the RAF’s de Havilland Mosquitoes but with wood structure.

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ConceptOfHappiness@reddit

A small correction, the Mossie's wings didn't use canvas, they were built of plywood shaped over spruce.

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DaveB44@reddit

I don't know about the wings, but the fuselage had a doped fabric covering over the ply-balsa-ply skin.

The fabric used in aircraft construction is not canvas, it's lighter materials, typically linen.

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g3nerallycurious@reddit

Absolutely nuts that a famed, beloved, extremely capable and fearsome WWII fighter was made similarly to an acoustic guitar.

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T-homas-paine@reddit

Not even, guitars are hardwood

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Cetun@reddit

The Hurricane also used fabric though not on all of its surfaces.

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Plump_Apparatus@reddit

even after the Wrights, planes were fabric up through WWII

Doped fabric wings and control surfaces were used well past WW2.

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One-Internal4240@reddit

Wind tunnels weren't the be all end all tool of designers back in the day, so they fell back on what worked in biomechanics. Wright Brothers flipped the table on that, and used their wind tunnel to test everything. They also focused on controls, correctly identifying 3 axis control in a gas medium as the primary problem, once they had a reasonably decent engine.

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Poilaunez@reddit

It was the time where flying machines where based on the observation of nature. Some went as far as trying to make ornithopters (with flapping wings).

Here, for example, the propeller is based on the shape of bird feathers as rotating wings (around 1890).

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FZ_Milkshake@reddit

Even the Wrights still had a fairly thin wing with a concave underside (although less aggressive than especially the French of the time and slightly after). AFAIK the now more common thicker airfoils developed mid-late WW1.

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Rjj1111@reddit

Likely because what they were going off of for how wings should look was based on birds and bats

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Monk481@reddit

It's beautiful

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curious-chineur@reddit

Some will argue that it flew before the Wright brothers. Making the french the inventors of aviation. ( heavier than air of course . The lighter than air being clearly french, M. Montgolfier).

Let the down vote deluge begin....

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Jessie_C_2646@reddit

It clearly did fly, but I though that the Wright Brothers' achievement was 'sustained, controllable flight'.

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curious-chineur@reddit

On wiki it mentions a 50m uncontrolled powered flight yes. I am going to het a book upstairs on the pionners of flight and see if it is described.
It is a rare book, written by former officer of armed de l'air. Published on the account of the author. ( it has no ISBN number I think).
There is a very interesting chapter about the first recorded " circuit" or loop.

I'll be back and time to picture a few pages.

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waldo--pepper@reddit (OP)

it has no ISBN number

ISBN listed on this site if you ever wish to have it.

https://www.buchfreund.de/de/d/e/9782863480106/premiers-envols?bookId=112219771

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curious-chineur@reddit

You got me here. There are no making such as isbn number.
Here is all that is legal mentions: https://imgur.com/a/Hzoa39V

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curious-chineur@reddit

Some pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/wjYEeOh

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Jessie_C_2646@reddit

Straight out of Jules Verne! It worked, sort of, but wasn't a practical design.

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waldo--pepper@reddit (OP)

"Some say that he only knows two facts about ducks, and both of them are wrong"

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BisexualWeeb@reddit

Looks like a bat

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GrafZeppelin127@reddit

Biomimickry is not a bad concept to apply to early aviation, given the absolute dearth of aerodynamic knowledge at the time… for example, the lowest-drag shape for an airship is fusiform, an elongated teardrop shape like a tuna or porpoise, which are some of the fastest things in the sea. But early rigid airships often fell for the mistaken impression that a ship that was long and pointy like a pencil would produce the least drag, when in actuality it just robbed the ship of volume, lift, and bending resistance, while also making it slower.

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