![]() These design developments began to shape aircraft in a very specific way, one that would lead pilots and crews to see their aircraft as predatory birds or fish. In an attempt to emulate the successes of birds and fish within their realms, designers began to deliberately take design cues from these animals. Aircraft began to look less like Meccano constructions or scaffolding and more like birds or even fish-two animal forms that lived and moved within a fluid world. ![]() But this would very soon change.Īs time progressed and aircraft designs improved, their forms began to comply with aerodynamic laws as builders sought to compensate for the cumulative drag created by wires, braces, struts, flat radiators and exposed pilots. For streamlining purposes and the comfort of crews, accommodations for pilots and observers began to be somewhat enclosed, while the structural complexities of fuselages and empennages became covered with fabric to aid in the uninterrupted flow of air over structural and control components. Newspapers of the day called these first aviators “birdmen” and made natural and poetic connections to the flight of birds, but in truth, these flimsy craft were but lumbering, staggering jalopies, more turkey than turkey vulture. Blunt, exposed and draggy, they had none of the predatory visual attributes that would one day come to define military and even civilian aircraft. These contraptions of bamboo poles, corded lashings, canvas panels, taut wires, brass fittings, thrashing propellers and wooden frameworks were fragile, open structured things that nonetheless captured the imaginations of men and women around the globe. In the beginning-the very beginning-aircraft designed and built by early aviators like the Wrights, Curtiss or Blériot had more in common with dragonflies or even scaffolding than eagles or sharks.
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