Jess Hess Wings #2

1. Did flight have any influence outside of aviation? If so, how?

            Yes! Flight had numerous influences outside of aviation. When the first men design heavier-than-air flight, it was impossible for that concept not to leak into entertainment in our society. It started with the poets and artists of the decade, such as Pablo Picasso, Franz Kafka, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti even started a new movement known as Futurism, which was of course focused around the invention of the airplane. This knew artistic movement challenged artists to think ahead and imagine a world with advanced technology (pg. 122). Other literature, such as Bill Bruce aviation novels, was also influenced. And not unlike today where music is influenced by social media trends, music back then was heavily influenced by aviation. They had hits such as, “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine” and “My Little Loving Aero Man” (pg. 123). Aside from all of the aviation in the arts, there were several house hold items and toys based around airplanes that began immerging. Planes were stamped onto everything and “for a time it seemed that images of aviators and airplanes could be used to sell anything” (pg. 123). Nowadays, aviation does not seem to be a big selling tool. However, the early 1900’s was the age of aviation and companies used that to their advantage.

2. How did this new field of aviation affect science?

            Before the first plane, there was already a basic understanding of aerodynamics among the science world. Scientists, physicists, mathematicians we able to look at gliders and derive information from those aircrafts to lay a foundation for aerodynamics. John William Strutt was able to advance the knowledge during this time when he looked at a cylinder. When Strutt put the cylinder in a “fluid stream experience,” he was able to create a lift when the cylinder turned clockwise. Using this cylinder model and aviators gliding experiments, Whilhelm Kutta set the basis for how to calculate the life mathematically (pg. 125). That still begs the question how the lift was generated. Frederick Lanchester Ludwig Prandtl both contributed greatly to this study of aerodynamics during this time. Lanchester wrote Aerial Flight to communicate his ideas about flight, while Prandtl studied fluid dynamics. Prandtl revealed a concept known as the boundary layer. “This notion served as the cornerstone of a circulation theory of lift presented in elegant mathematical form” (pg. 125). Because of his theories, Prandtl became the world leader of aerodynamics and changed the ways of engineers from that moment on.

7. What was the cult of the heroic airman?

            World War I was the first air war, so there was something to be said for the men who would take these flying machines to the skies to fight for their country. Unlike the soldiers in the trenches, people saw these aviators as majestic beasts flying through the sky and taking the war by storm. Starting with the French, people were honoring these men and looked up to them as someone who would put forth their own skills to defend their land, no matter what the cost. Stories were exaggerated and even fibbed about, but it did not matter because these men deserved to be honored (pg. 156). People compared the men who fought in the trenches to the men who fought in the air and tended to look at the aviators as the heroes of the two. That is not to say that they did not honor the men who fought in the trenches, but when you think about aviators dying in the war, it seems more catastrophic. Not only are you losing an aviator, but you are losing a flying machine as well. Aviators put their lives onto the wings of these airplanes and must rely on their skills and the plane’s design to survive and defend. When you think of it in those terms, it makes sense that people would think of aviators as the heroes.