I agree that the wing-warping idea was more sympathetic to the
"sketch" than movable control surfaces would have been; and that in
that light the show was respectful of the original design.
And I wouldn't hold anyone to a "fly it and die" approach.
But to me, the interesting thing about the exercise was that the old
sketch could be built into a flyable thing. To make it into a really
good (or even reasonably safe) flying machine would take some
changes; but those changes and the resulting glider were less
interesting to me than was the initial construction and flight of
Leonardo's design.
That, in itself, was pretty amazing. The proof of concept was more
interesting than the modern problem-solving/development of the design.
The catapult rope was a different kind of problem, and unequivocally
a screwup -- as opposed to perhaps overenthusiasm at the prospect at
making Leonardo's design actually *work*.
Matt
On Jan 26, 2006, at 2:29 PM, Max Heim wrote:
> I saw that episode. I actually thought that crew was pretty fair and
> respectful of Leonardo's concept. Remember, with Leonardo you
> aren't usually
> getting a written description, and certainly not a blueprint -- just a
> glorified cocktail napkin sketch. There is a lot of interpretation
> involved
> in just getting to a buildable plan. If they had added "spoilers"
> like the
> aviation guy's first suggestion, that would have been bogus, but I
> agreed
> with them that Leonardo was thinking of wing-warping all along.
> Moreover, if
> Leonardo had ever got off his duff and actually tried to build this
> thing,
> he would have had to make some intelligent changes, too -- you
> can't hold
> him to his initial draft and say "fly it and die". That's not how
> invention
> works, now or then.
>
> For the catapult, they had a Roman architect's written description,
> as well
> as visual depictions in sculpture and paintings. My complaint was
> that they
> deliberately skimped on a well-known, basic feature of the Roman
> design, not
> that they made running changes in the interests of safety or control
> (actually, they did that, too, by adding extra bracing, which
> turned out to
> interfere with the sling travel and with the trigger mechanism; but
> this
> just demonstrated the problem with hasty decision-making in the
> face of time
> pressure).
>
> Max Heim
> '66 MGB GHN3L76149
> If you're near Mountain View, CA,
> it's the primer red one with chrome wires
>
> on 1/26/06 10:21 AM, Matt Trebelhorn at matt.lists@trebelhorn.com
> wrote:
>> Interesting example. I remember seeing a show on which they built
>> what was supposed to be Leonardo da Vinci's glider.
>>
>> They built it, and had a test flight -- they got lift, but no
>> control. So they went back to the workshop, and started talking
>> about how they might improve the design for the next flight.
>>
>> What would that prove? That we know more about planes than daVinci
>> did? Not much of a revelation -- and not nearly as interesting as
>> daVinci's design.
>>
>> Matt
>>
>> On Jan 24, 2006, at 2:31 PM, Max Heim wrote:
>>> ... Otherwise, what was the point of the entire exercise?
>>> It was like reconstructing the Wright Flyer, then deciding they
>>> didn't have
>>> enough time to fabricate a replica Wright engine, and substituting
>>> a modern light plane engine instead... or a rubber band.
|