Posts by: Will Livingston

The Wright Flyer’s warping wings

It is well known that the first powered and piloted flight of an aircraft was performed by two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright. These two brothers designed a glider-based aircraft that was powered by a 4-stroke engine. The design also had a 32-foot wingspan and weighed about 700 pounds. This aircraft came to be known […]

The Unmanned Ornithopter

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first people to truely dive into the depths of trying to create and design the ornithopter, a machine shaped like an aircraft that is held aloft and propelled by wing movements. He focused much of time and effort trying to sketch a design where the aircraft would be […]

Early Flapping Flight Designs

It seems like since the beginning of time, man has always been intrigued by the idea of flight, more specifically, the idea of flapping flight seen in birds. Birds seem to fly with little to no effort so it is not surprising that the earliest designs in flight would emulate birds. The first writings on […]