5. OCTAVE CHANUTE; “THERE’S NOTHING NEW IN BLUES’
Octave Chanute’s biplane glider design inspired the Wrights. — Public Domain
“There’s NOTHING new in Blues. You think you’ve come up with a brand-new melody – then you hear it on a record!” – Blues Keyboardist Jim Morgan
In art, as well as science, invention does not exist in a vacuum. This is true of the development of the airplane. Leonardo’s early drawings, the work of Otto Lilienthal, and countless others contributed to the inspiration necessary to develop the machine. Here we must pause to remember Octave Chanute, for he was an engineer and aviation pioneer who directly gave inspiration and encouragement to Wilbur and Orville Wright in the creation of their flying machine.
Octave Chanute was born in 1832 and came to the United States as a young boy. In 1848 he began his studies to become a civil engineer. William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow were building their steam powered prototype aeroplane at the time – but bridges where what was needed to tie the young American frontier together. Chanute designed and built the great Hannibal Bridge across the Missouri River at Kansas City along with Joseph Tomlinson and George S. Morrison.
He designed the great stockyards of Chicago and Kansas City as well as numerous bridges. He developed a way to pressure treat railroad ties to extend their life. He had a long and successful career as a railroad designer – and then he retired. In 1883 he stopped working full-time. He still took consulting jobs for railroad projects, but he now found time to pursue his true passion – the science of heavier than air flight!
Chanute collected information on research being done around the world and collected it, first in a series of articles in The Railroad and Engineering Journal that were published in his book Progress in Flying Machines in 1894. He organized an International Conference on Aerial Navigation at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Teaming with other inventors, he built on the work of Otto Lilienthal, adding design techniques learned in building bridges.
In fact, Chanute maintained correspondence with many aviation pioneers, including Lilienthal, Blériot, and many others. In 1900 the Wright Brothers read Progress in Flying Machines. Chanute became an advisor to the Wrights in their work. Chanute and the Wrights wrote hundreds of letters and Chanute publicized and encouraged the two bicycle mechanics as they developed their flying machine.
When they sought to protect their claim to the exclusive use of wing-warping to control an airplane through lawsuits, Chanute challenged them in this, saying; “I admire the Wrights. I feel friendly toward them for the marvels they have achieved, but you can easily gauge how I feel concerning their attitude at present by the remark I made to Wilbur Wright recently. I told him I was sorry to see they were suing other experimenters and abstaining from entering the contests and competitions in which other men are brilliantly winning laurels. I told him that in my opinion they are wasting valuable time over lawsuits which they ought to concentrate in their work. Personally, I do not think that the courts will hold that the principle underlying the warping tips can be patented.”
