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Sunday, November 9, 2003
Homing in on tech park
News-Journal EDITORIALMore than 100 years ago, Orville and Wilbur Wright began their mission to experiment with flight by exploring air dynamics with kites near their home in Dayton, Ohio. On Dec. 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, N.C., Orville and Wilbur took first-ever flights in a powered and controlled heavier-than-air craft.
The four flights on that day - ranging from 12 seconds to 59 seconds - changed the world.
Today in a nearly bare hangar at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, an enthusiastic crew of professors and students is experimenting with a kite that could change the aeronautical industry for the next 100 years.
As part of operation Eagle Works, an engineering team led by Associate Professor Peter Pierpont has devised a kite-like wing attached to the top of a Cessna 337 that will enable the single-engine aircraft to take off and land in a short distance - between 100 feet and 150 feet, compared to the 1,000 feet now needed for landing that plane. The kite, which will soon be tested, folds up into a pod when not in use.
That experiment and at least a half-dozen other space-age ventures going on at the university could make airplanes as easy to use as automobiles - and as commonly used in some still-distant time.
These experiments also have the potential to dramatically change Daytona Beach and Volusia County within a decade - provided the university gets the support it needs.
For nearly two years, ERAU leaders have been building support for an aeronautical technical park that could make the region near Clyde Morris and Beville Road an international center for air sciences. Ground-breaking could be as few as two or three years away, predicts Dr. Irwin Price, chancellor of ERAU´s Daytona Beach campus, who proposed the idea and has been nurturing it. More conservative estimates put start-up at six or seven years from now.
But those who have worked with ERAU recognize an incredible range of possibilities: The university gains prestige, attracting scientists who can trade ideas within a university umbrella. The experimentation attracts industries with high-paying jobs and spins off new businesses. The operation then attracts more airlines to base operations at the airport. The community is rewarded with a stronger and stabler economic base that complements tourism.
All agree the park is in the embryonic stage. The university is seeking use of about 140 acres and in negotiations with four government entities - Volusia County (and the county-owned Daytona Beach International airport), Daytona Beach, Volusia County School District and the Florida Department of Transportation. ERAU has hired an experienced technology park director, John Metzner, who is also collaborating with other universities and colleges as well as the Daytona Beach/Halifax Area Chamber of Commerce.
Dreams come and go daily in economic development. What makes this proposal unusual is that the university is taking the lead with a contagious enthusiasm. ERAU is at the point that they are attracting interest from industry leaders and entrepreneurs. It is renewing interest from scholars and students because of this and other initiatives. (One is ERAU´s recent agreement with Daytona Beach International Airport to create a “teaching airport” program, where students can learn firsthand about management, air-traffic control, engineering, etc.)
And the university is seeking cooperation with government entities in ways that are relatively easy to achieve - land swaps, for example, or grant-application processes.
The operative words for what made the Wright brothers successful are perseverance, curiosity and enthusiasm. They saw everything as a learning experience and were as excited by failure as they were by success.
Perseverance, curiosity and enthusiasm are observable attributes of the teams working toward this university-led aeronautical park. It is not an impossible dream.
From Kite to Flight
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a number of inventors stepped up experiments toward building a flying machine. Among them were Germany´s Lilienthal brothers, Otto and Gustav, whose pioneering work with gliders proved that unpowered human flight was possible. Octave Chanute, a French-born American, was working with teams in the Indiana Dunes near Chicago to search for ways to control these gliders.On May 30, 1899, Wilbur and Orville Wright entered the competition for controlled flight when Wilbur wrote to the Smithsonian Institution requesting any materials on “mechanical and human flight.” The proprietors of a Dayton bicycle shop and a printing company began experiments first with kites. In July, 1899, the self-trained Wright brothers used a glider-shaped kite to test their revolutionary invention, which became known as “wing warping.” By using strings, Wilbur twisted the kite´s wings to control its movement.
By the fall of 1899, the Wright brothers had improved their invention and were seeking a site with suitable air conditions to test a full-sized glider. The U.S. Weather Bureau guided them to Kitty Hawk, N.C. For the next three years, they conducted experiments in Dayton and at their Kitty Hawk camp site. By 1902, they had added a rudder and were piloting gliders.
In 1903, the Wright brothers built and added an engine. On Dec. 17 of that year, after a number of successes and failures, they were ready to test their invention. That day at Kitty Hawk, Orville piloted the aircraft first, flying 12 seconds over 120 feet. Wilbur then took a turn, then Orville flew again. Wilbur took the fourth and longest flight - 59 seconds over 852 feet. Those short elevations led to greater experiments that dramatically changed the world.
SOURCES: National Parks Service, Smithsonian Institution, “Miracle at Kitty Hawk” by Fred C. Kelly, “Kill Devil Hill” by Harry Combs.
Serial Story: UP IN THE AIR -- The 18-part serial story ran in the Daytona Beach News-Journal each Monday from January 13 through May 19 (except for April 14). Text and illustrations for the serial copyright © 2003 by Brian Floca. Sponsored in part by Inventing Flight, Dayton, Ohio. Reprinted by permission of Breakfast Serials, Inc. www.breakfastserials.com.
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