1. location of the 1903 Flyer center of gravity to be 30% chord aft of the leading edge of the lower wing and 30% of chord above the lower wing. Based on estimates by Professor Fred Hooven of Dartmouth College (Emeritus, now deceased) and by Mr. Charles McPhail of the AIAA Wright Flyer Project. The bottom of the skid rail is the horizontal reference.
2. The strongly unstable pitching characteristic of the 1903 Flyer is arguably its worst feature, although as we shall see, the lateral characteristics are also poor. The large negative static margin (-20%) and limited control trim range meant that the airplane was barely controllable. Three factors made the first flights possible: the low speed, high damping of the pitching motions, and, most importantly, the Wrights' flying skills obtained during dozens of earlier glider flights in. 1901 and 1902. During their development work leading to the 1905 airplane, the first practical airplane, the Brothers made two important changes: they increased the area of the canard, and they added weight, as much as 70 pounds or more to the forward canard post, in the form of iron bars attached to the canard support posts, to bring the center of gravity forward, 11
3. deflection pulley and the leading spar and trailing edges to produce a variable camber elevator, Because the variable camber was mostly ahead of the elevator sernichord, it had little effect on the canard's lift-slope due to deflection, but affected primarily the c':'ard's maximum Hit-coefficient, as intended, Consequently the r1g1d-model canard effectiveness is representative of the '03 Flyer, although the canard-stall effect may occur at lower canard angles of attack. having less camber are superior for full scale aircraft. However, it was the canard configuration combined with large negative pitching moment of the Wrights' airfoil that was their main problem; the small canard simply could not carry the needed trim loads at stable C.G. locations, Simply by reducing the aft camber (or in fact keeping their late - 1901 de-cambered airfoil) they could have achieved enormous improvement in the longitudinal flying characteristics of their 1903 aircraft. In their later aircraft they apparently reduced the camber, but not as much as they should have for good flying qualities.