Rieveschl - Flyboys
Pat & Dennis Bender Early Dementia Diagnosis & Prognosis Fund
J. Dennis Bender
Office, Home & Cell Phone: 859-391-5226
5726 La Jolla Blvd. – Suite 311
La Jolla, CA 92037-7345
&
Office - 100 Riverside Pl. - Suite 303
Covington, KY 41011-5711
We support the development of improved diagnostic methods for the early detection and diagnosis of MCI, Alzheimer’s, vascular and other dementias, their likely prognosis, and best treatment options. We focus on the development of Bayesian-based medical-decision-support systems, comparative-effectiveness research, and the better utilization of these for the above. (After incorporating in KY as a 501(c)(3) in 2002, we dissolved that entity for a simplified form of two entirely self-financed, private philanthropies utilizing a Vanguard Charitable Trust for making $100K annual-research-grants for early-dementia-detection and its correct differential-diagnosis and likely-prognosis. They will continue on, after I am long gone, either mentally or physically. Prof. Randall Bateman is the first of our fund’s research advisors, KMK Law is our legal advisor and David J. Bender is my Estate Rep. (See: https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/research_progress/earlier-diagnosis)
www.JDBender.com – EMS/eVTOL & Educational Experimental Aviation Fund (Vanguard Charitable Trust)
www.JDBender.org – Dementia Diagnosis Fund (Vanguard Charitable Trust)
November 18, 2023
917 Plum Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
(513) 721-3707
On January 5, 2004, I took my old friend and condo neighbor George Rieveschl over for his regular Literary Club meeting in Cincinnati, as I did monthly following dinner with him and his wife at the Cincinnati Club. They would not permit Ellen into that men’s club, it being then one of the few remaining men-only clubs in the U.S. to do so, so I would take him over there monthly from our condo here in Covington, KY. (Yes, back then there were still such things as men-only clubs!)
George gave the following talk at the Literary Club, after which he gave me his original manuscript that I’m now donating to the Lloyd Library to add to his huge book and document collection currently housed there.
As we all remember, on Dec. 17, 1903, the Wright brothers made history with their Kitty Hawk Flyer and the first powered flight in history. Wilbur and Orville had just become the first true airplane pilots. The first of 4 flights that day lasted just 12-seconds and traveled only 18-feet, but it proved that human-flight was indeed possible. (I returned there for the 100th anniversary celebration and helped with work on preparing the replica Wright Flyer that we flew at that rainy reenactment event.)
Today, I’m an ultralight electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (eVTOL) enthusiast replicating a similar feat today. I recently donated an experimental-eVTOL to the San Diego Air & Space Museum to encourage youth to become involved with aviation and perhaps eventually even pursue considering an aviation-related career. I provided them with a nearly completed ultralight-eVTOL project for them to work on to further develop and then actually fly in themselves. It is currently flying and hovers by remote-control, but still needs further control-system-calibration work, so I am hoping that it will make a great student project, similar to an earlier such project in San Francisco discussed on my website. (See: “SF Electric Ultralight Student Project” at www.JDBender.com.)
I’m about to purchase another ultralight-eVTOL from one of the 6 companies that I’ve been visiting and who are, hopefully, finally about to start selling them to the public; such as the nearby RYSE-Recon folks up in Mason, OH. I have been visiting all of them regularly to track their progress toward delivering their first actual production-units. Once this group of 6 actually starts delivery to customers, now long delayed from their initial delivery-date estimates, I’ll select one of them for a donation to the EAA Museum in Oshkosh, to an EAA local chapter, such as the one here in Cincinnati or San Diego, to the San Diego Air & Space Museum, or perhaps to Wright-Patterson Aviation Museum or similar experimental-aviation-related organization, as discussed in my ‘Plan B’ document. (See: www.JDBender.com “Ultralight Donation – Plan B” and https://ryseaerotech.com/ for details.)
Just as George described in his talk to the Cincinnati Literary Club that night, I too fuel my aviation-pioneering-spirit by helping to support the current fledgling ultralight-eVTOL efforts with grants to help them move forward with its development. Attached is the talk that my dear old friend and Covington condo neighbor George Rieveschl presented, after which he gave me the original text for his talk as a memento of that evening that we spent together and that I’m now donating to the Lloyd Library.
“I have endeavored to emphasize in this paper a number of happenings experienced by the Wright family which have not been featured by the press and TV in recent weeks.”
The Flyboys
By George Rieveschl
January 5, 2004 – Literary Club, Cincinnati, OH
On that 100th anniversary of their first flight, George commented as follows:
“A young lady named Mary M. Parker saw an airplane fly overhead for the first time in her life. The year was 1910, the place was Chicago, and on recovering from her shock, she wrote these words:
‘We bowed our heads before the mystery of it and then lifted our eyes with a new feeling in our souls that seemed to link us all and hope sprang eternal for the great new future of the world.’”
For some time, I have secretly wished that this paper might have been scheduled for a date close to December 17th. Thus, I would have had the pleasure of paying homage to the Wright brothers on the 100th anniversary of their pioneering flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Some years following that historic event, Orville wrote:
“This was a flight very modest compared with that of birds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight. It had sailed forward without reduction in speed and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started.”
Today is January 5, 2004 and all of us have survived the veritable deluge of Wright publicity and stories. I realize that my audience tonight has been overexposed to the Wright saga this past month. Thus, I have endeavored to emphasize in this paper a number of happenings experienced by the Wright family which have not been featured by the press and TV in recent weeks. . .
(His intriguing 24-page talk is attached.)
Here are some of my notes.
He describes the details of their very difficult family life, not often discussed.
I remembered visiting their 1890’s bicycle shop and later print shop in Dayton, which he mentions, and visiting their flying field and later the home that is now a museum.
Discussion of 1899 early aviation and their famous letter to Richard Rathburn at the Smithsonian.
Sister Katie’s very important role is discussed and not often mentioned in the many histories of their work that I have read.
In 1894 the brothers read in the family copy of McClure magazine a long article about Otto Lilienthal , the German "Flying Man.” Reminds me of the early days of ultralights in the 1970s and their development over the following decades at my annual week spent in Oshkosh, WI at the EAA convention. I attended it 48 times before currently switching to the eVTOL group that meets the weekend before EAA in Oshkosh.
There is a lot of parallel with the ultralight movement that I’ve followed closely over those many years since my first annual trip to Oshkosh and meeting with the folks who started the ultralight movement. The EAA later created their Red Barn facility, finally giving formal recognition to our ultralight efforts at the EAA. (Today at age-81, they are the only thing I can still fly up at the Ultralight Airfield at Camarillo Airport in CA [ https://www.vcuas.org/ ] .)
“The 1901 glider was twice the size of the 1900 model. The wings had a 22-foot spread, and Wilbur had increased the curvature. This time they faced a new obstacle: the higher dunes presented a punishing ‘toting’ problem. The first six launching attempts were failures, but Wilbur corrected the problem by moving backward in the operating cradle. [Just like weight-shift is used today in ultralights.] On the ninth try Wilbur came very close to a stall that might have duplicated Lilienthal’s fatal crash. There were many more instances of erratic behavior in the air."
This is exactly the same point we are at today with the project I just donated to the San Diego Air & Space Museum. Its flight-control system has to be carefully calibrated to stabilize that ultralight in erratic wind conditions. Doing that requires setting over 2,500+ parameters in the flight-control system, a very-long, drawn-out, tedious process.
The earlier project that I had been involved with here at Lunken Field was stuck at this same point for years, and I later had to give up on them. (See my related note: Advanced Air Mobility in Ohio at https://jdbender.com/research-articles/339-Advanced-Air-Mobility-in-Ohio.html.)
Ohio is the only state with a statewide strategy for AAM flights and integration within urban centers and rural communities. Ohio has established a corridor for autonomous flight testing and planning with the goal of connecting Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and beyond. Hoping again to lead in this new era of eVTOL flight. My note on the status of AAM in Ohio describes a parallel situation today with respect to the difficult development of eVTOL aviation again going on here in Ohio, and nearby the Wrights’ own Dayton location.)
“Wilbur, in particular, was disconsolate and spoke of abandoning their struggle to achieve their goal . He even remarked to Orville that someday people would fly, but the two of them would not live to see it. . . The most important issue was control.” Reminds me of all the trials-and-tribulations of those 6 firms that I’ve been closely following trying to get their respective ultralight-eVTOL prototypes finalized and finally into production over the past 5+ years.
“Wilbur prepared a large number of wing shapes, and in four weeks they had all been studied in the wind tunnel . Then came more studies of the 48 surfaces that were the most promising. It took just four weeks to study the behavior of these surfaces. Wilbur was pleased and considered these results as the equivalent of two summers at Kitty Hawk. Out of the 48 surfaces there was one, identified as #12, which proved to possess the highest dynamic efficiency.”
The huge importance of their development of an enlarged 16”-sq. x 6’ wind-tunnel and their development of sophisticated measurements for finding the highest dynamic efficiency is discussed, another detail often overlooked in histories of their work.
Today we have nearby GE’s sophisticated Evendale wind-tunnels, that I’ve personally visited a couple of times. Today we could have done those 48 design studies using readily available software packages for doing optimized aeronautic design studies, a much better world today! We could also have done those 48-design-optimization studies, that took Wilbur 4-weeks, in 4-minutes! That design work also led to the vertical-tail that was added in 1902. All those newly redesigned parts were built in Dayton and shipped to Kitty Hawk for a hundred flight tests in up to 30MPH winds.
“It was a very brilliant strategy on the part of the Wrights to spend all their efforts in producing a plane that could be controlled before they even began to worry about motive power. Of what value would a perfect engine be in an imperfect plane. This was the reason that the famous ‘aerodrome’ of Samuel Langley’s ended in disaster."
They tried to buy an available engine but could not find one weighing less than 200 pounds and producing at least 8HP. Compare that with today’s readily available electric-motor options on our ultralight-eVTOLs! Their bicycle shop manager, Charles Taylor, came to their rescue constructing a 180#, 4-cylinder, 12HP engine, just like the replica seen above in my photo taken in the basement shop at the S.D. Air & Space Museum. (See www.JDBender.com “Ultralight Donation – Plan B”)
Propeller design came next for the now 700# aircraft with a pilot.
“The next unknown area of need was the design of a propeller. The brothers soon learned that no one knew how propellers worked and there was no theory of propeller design. . . No one before had ever built a propeller remotely similar to theirs.”
“They were greeted by gale-like winds blowing as much as 40-75 miles per hour. . . A letter arrived with the note that the Langley ‘aerodrome’ was at the bottom of the Potomac River only a few feet from the launching boat. . . [Langley then tried again.] As the plane leaped forward, the tail began to disintegrate. Manly felt a big vibration. The wings were falling apart while the entire
plane shot upward. As it fell from the track, the engine was still running, and the tangled mass fell into the Potomac.”
So much for Langley’s ideas being claimed superior to theirs and getting all of the U.S. government’s $70,000 funding for this project, while the Wright brothers got nothing! Once again today 6 ultralight-eVTOL entrepreneurs are all self-funded while government funds go mostly to university-based projects, as back then. Entrepreneurs versus the large-institutions.
On December 17th with winds at 25MPH they finally flew 852’ in a one-minute flight! (That went better than at the reenactment event that I attended on the 100th anniversary at that very same location!)
“Thus, there came about the realization of a dream that the Wrights had pursued intelligently and methodically for four very busy years. They estimated that they had spent about a $1,000 for the entire project' What a bargain!” [This sort of project seems to take about 5 years to get off the ground.]
Similar to recent governmental expenditure of millions on NASA’s X-57 Maxwell, whose development I followed closely annually at EAA Oshkosh, the Aussies did something similar for much less and are now commercializing their project, another parallel to the Wright brothers experience of entrepreneurial versus governmental-sponsored developmental projects.
“Even the Smithsonian Institute apologized to Orville Wright in 1942, [my birth year,] admitting that he and his brother Wilbur were the first to pilot a powered airplane. Until then the Langley 'aerodrome' had been housed in the Smithsonian bearing the label ‘First Machine Capable of Flight Carrying a Man.’ It was this charade that had motivated the Wrights to send the resurrected 1903 Flyer to the Science Museum in London for display.
In view of the apology, Orville brought the Flyer back to the Smithsonian in 1948. Today the plane can be seen at eyelevel in the new National Air and Space Museum, where it occupies a
place of honor on the Mall." Plus, many replicas, such as the one at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh.
“By 1909 the Wright Flyer had been superseded. For example, Bleriot's plane that flew from France to England in 1909 had the engine and propeller at the front; it was a ‘puller’ and not a ‘pusher.’"
Just as with SpaceX’s Starship blowing-up again today demonstrates, all new technologies take some time to shake-out-the-bugs. Hopefully, today’s protype ultralight-eVTOLs are now past that stage and finally about to become a commercial reality after their 5+years of development that I’ve been closely following and helping to fund. As soon as they begin delivery and we have some actual consumer firsthand experience with them, I’ll purchase another one for another donation.
“May I suggest that when next we gather, we should have a toast to the two modest and brilliant inventors from Dayton, Ohio, to whom we are indebted as the liberators of the earthbound."
I’d second that!
J. Dennis Bender
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