1 An inventive commons: the invention of the airplane and its industry by Peter B. Meyer, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Findings and views are those of the author, not the BLS Convening Cultural Commons conference Sept 23, 2011 

Fixed wing shapes Wrights’ wind tunnel & wing models, Penaud, ~1872 Lilienthal 1870s-1880s Cayley, 1799

Trying to make a mechanical bird Mouillard 1881 Hargrave 1891 model ornithopter Ader’s 1890 Eole Full size; wings flap, powerful engine Le Bris 1868 Albatross Was pulled by a horse; took off from the cart.

4 Stacked wings Chanute-Herring glider, 1896 Stringfellow 1868 triplane model Phillips multiplane, 1904 Hargrave box kites 1893

Maxim’s motorized aeroplane 1894 Big powered craft Santos-Dumont 1901 Langley 1901

6 Getting in the air: Otto Lilienthal 1890s: Flew inspirational hang gliders – tried to control in air “... to soar upward and to glide, free as the bird” -- Otto Lilienthal, 1889

7 Parallels to open source software Autonomous innovators (not hierarchy, not cult)  with various goals: Want to fly! ; Hope for recognition; Curious, interested in the problem ; Bring peace / make nation safe  who share technical info with public Authors, evangelists, organizers have valuable role  To welcome future tinkerers who could generate progress  To avoid duplicate efforts, thru standards and specialization

Relevant clubs and societies – new data coming Key early societies in Paris (1864,1872), London (1866), Berlin (1881) then smaller/local Key Exhibitions and Conferences: 1868, 1893, 1904, others Focused on ballooning – “aerial navigation” builds on that infrastructure Aeronautics-related clubs and societies

Brockett / Smithsonian Institution (1910) is a Bibliography of Aeronautics 13,800 bibliography entries large sample of data Publications

Balloon, aerostat, dirigible, Zeppelin Voyage (ascent) Bird (animal, fish, insect) Scientific (research, theory, meteorology, upper atmosphere) Experiment Measurement (duration, altitude, temperature, weight) Motor (engine, propulsion) Propellers Machine Navigation (control, steerable) Wings Kite/glider (gliding, soaring) Periodicals listed in Brockett (1910) L'Aérophile, Paris, Zeitschrift für Luftschiffahrt, Berlin/Vienna Illustrierte Aëronautische Mitteilungen, Strasbourg 1065 L'Aéronaute (Paris) 822 Wiener Luftschiffer Zeitung (Vienna) 623 Bollettino della Societa Aeronautica Italiana (Rome) 535 Aeronautics (London, 1907-) 441 Aëronautical Journal, (London, 1897-) 415 Scientific American, (New York) 383 La Conquête de l'Air (Brussels) 351 What did they talk about? There are many duplicates and reprints in the data; haven’t standardized this. Many of these articles are online

Wilbur Wright’s very first letter to Chanute in 1900 says “the apparatus I intend to employ... is very similar to [your] "double-deck" machine [of] ” (... with these changes) Chanute’s replies: “I believe like yourself that no financial profit is to be expected from such investigations for a long while to come.” 11 Successful examples were copies Chanute-Herring glider Wright brothers 1900 kite, glider Ferber, 1902, copies Wrights based on report from Chanute  Pratt truss     

Was it an information commons? Yes Designs were copied Publications copied Tinkerers in contact  Standards did arise  Rivalry was secondary No No sharp boundary ( of common resource) Usual commons issues are minor congestion, free riding, conflict, overuse, pollution (Hess and Ostrom intro, 2006) No global formal rules Many clubs or journals had rules No strong collective action; little governance, sanctions, monitoring. “Soft law” / context Note relevance of: uncertainty; opportunism; support

Wrights to Chanute Chanute to Wrights Transition conflict, and paradigm shift Octave Chanute: A commons person Wright brothers It’s industry time Letters and telegrams between Octave Chanute and the Wright brothers

Startup industry In Publications skyrocket Patent counts probably do too, 1907 Big public demonstrations, Even bigger prizes than before, tens of thousands of viewers Legitimate to start firm (Hannan, Carroll et al 1995) Flow of new firms appears: 1908

We have useful micro models of agents: Firms, investors, employees, R&D, households, consumers, governments, bureaucrats, principal-agent, managers, employees, families, etc. But these characters didn ’ t bring us the airplane. Need models of self-motivated non-profit “ tinkerers ” (scientists) who sometimes generate these behaviors: Offering information to commons Sometimes avoiding intellectual property institutions Standardizing technology, modularizing, specializing Evangelizing the field and technology Relevant models/phrasings: user innovation, distributed innovation, collective invention, peer production, open source innovation If goal is to change the world, open-source behavior can be “rational” (Meyer 2007) Microeconomics issue

Conclusions so far Overhang of technological uncertainty is extreme  No firms do this “research” (hopeless, useless, dangerous) Independent tinkerers link up  network/commons  progress  Clubs, publications, visits, letters  Lead to standard info/platform in mid 1890s  They copy previous work relevant to open source software and other cases  Their motivation is mostly intrinsic or altruistic To fly! To change the world so others can fly; or, the challenge Entrepreneurial people and era was very different  The experts of 1899 did not become industrialists ten years later

17 Motivations of experimenters Why do this? Would like to fly Curiosity, interest in the problem Prestige, recognition Belief in making world a better place Make one nation safer Nobody refers to expected profits “... A desire takes possession of man. He longs to soar upward and to glide, free as the bird...” -- Otto Lilienthal 1889 “The glory of a great discovery or an invention which is destined to benefit humanity [seemed] dazzling.... Enthusiasm seized [us] at an early age.” - Gustav Lilienthal

Can measure participation of people and institutions Publications in bibliography Patents References in combined index from historical books (ex post) References in Chanute ’ s book References in letters (Wrights and Chanute) Participation in startup firms  Can see what is happening in a commons  And infer what experiences, motivations, and institutions set up an airplane industry Future work: More evidence

19 Communication institutions referred to in histories page references distinct instances Clubs, society, or association21937 Journals, periodicals, newspapers, or magazines,13139 Company7535 Exhibition, prize, trophy, award, contest, medal, or meet6718 book (fact or fiction)4721 university or school4619 lab, museum, institute, observatory, zoo, or fund4616 military institution457 conference142 These rough counts come from 12 combined historical book indexes about the invention of the airplane, and exclude references to events after These institutions serve technical communication. There was much free revealing of tech.

20 Development of the airplane (heavier than air, with fixed wings) 1800 Fixed-wing airplane concept/designs of George Cayley 1860s and on French and British clubs and journals start up It’s a niche activity – maybe hopeless, useless, and/or dangerous Publications on this topic do not refer much to prior work 1890s Public glider flights of Otto Lilienthal 1894 Book by Octave Chanute surveys issues and experiments Publications then refer more often to prior work. Many designs were shared and copied. “open source innovation” Many “firsts.” 1903 Wright brothers’ key powered-glider flight, 1906 patent Public demonstrations of modern airplanes; an industry arises

21 Chanute’s 1894 overview Progress in Flying Machines refers to or quotes more than 190 persons These are counts of pages referring to the individual. The people are diverse and international. Later technological histories treat these people as central. Their findings were mostly public. Experimenter location (background) Pages referring to, Chanute (1894) Publications listed, Brockett (1910) MaximBritain (US)3325+ LilienthalGermany3150+ PénaudFrance2212 Mouillard Algeria, Egypt (Fr) 216 HargraveAustralia (Br)1925+ MoyBritain1910 Le BrisFrance170 LangleyUS1640+ WenhamBritain1510+ PhillipsBritain143 ChanuteUS (France)*50+

22 Communication by letters and visits between experimenters Source: McFarland (1953 ) Chanute visited with Mouillard, Langley, Santos-Dumont, Ferber, Huffaker, Herring, Maxim He hosted an international conference on “aerial navigation” in He corresponded with Hargrave, Mouillard, Montgomery, Cabot, Zahm, Kress, Wenham, Moy, Pilcher, Means, the Lilienthals, the Wrights, and others. Chanute exchanged at least 29 letters with Lawrence Hargrave and 26 with Francis Wenham. (Short, forthcoming) The Lilienthal brothers exchanged at least 12 letters with Chanute and dozens with other experimenters up to (Schwipps book) Had visits from many Wrights to Chanute Chanute to Wrights Letters and telegrams between Octave Chanute and the Wright brothers

23 Wright brothers as open-sourcers First letter to Chanute, May 13, 1900: “Assuming then that Lilienthal was correct...” [Wilbur explains what he will do differently.] “.... my object is to learn to what extent similar plans have been tested and found to be failures, and also to obtain such suggestions as your great knowledge and experience might enable you to give me. I make no secret of my plans for the reason that I believe no financial profit will accrue to the inventor of the first flying machine, and that only those who are willing to give as well as to receive suggestions can hope to link their names with the honor of its discovery. The problem is too great for one man alone and unaided to solve in secret.” “the apparatus I intend to employ... is very similar to the "double-deck" machine with which the experiments of yourself and Mr. Herring were conducted in ” Chanute’s reply May 17, 1900: “I believe like yourself that no financial profit is to be expected from such investigations for a long while to come.” Wrights’ 1900 glider

Bibliography of Aeronautics Brockett/Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian expanded director Langley’s collection Bibliography has over 13,400 items, listed on 940 pages. It was scanned, digitized and made public online Archive.org ; also credits to Cornell Univ library, U of Michigan library, and Carnegie-Mellon (posner.cmu.edu) with many scanning/OCR errors. I’m fixing those and making a database. For most publications we have authors, date, language of the title, location of publication. Work continues Chanute’s 1894 book and this 1910 book are my major sources here.

25 Did experimenters copy earlier designs? This is key to the “open source process” idea. Yes, they copied. A tail on an aircraft was sometimes called the “Penaud tail” for Alphonse Penaud’s models of the early 1870s. A tail can help with stability and control. Long thin fixed wings were found to give more lift than square or round wings. These are imitated, e.g. from Wenham’s 1871 wind tunnel experiments Stacked wings draw from particular designs: Wenham, 1866 ; Stringfellow, 1868 ; and box kite experiments of Hargrave, 1890s. That leads to the biplane structure. Hargrave box kite, 1890s Penaud model, circa 1872 Cayley, 1799 – got much right but not wing shape

26 (1) R&D: investments which expect financial payback on average (2) Race to be first (space race; genome project) (3) Collective invention (Allen, 1983)  but those are (a) firms, (b) not paying costs to experiment (4) To earn income or wealth indirectly  Start company, or license patented invention  signal to employers; get hired as engineer (Lerner and Tirole, 2002) These do not apply well to airplane invention  We need a model of “tinkerers” (5) Network: a population of agents with i nterest in a problem (a 0 ), worthwhile opportunities (p), information flows between them (f)  experimentation and socially constructed “progress” No pool of information, or incentive structure, or technical measure of improvement. Alternative models of invention

Chuhachi Ninomiya Loved kites ; studied birds and flying insects Made model glider in and in Japan Tried to fund the building of a larger craft Not clear to me what he knew of the Western literature / progress Not mentioned in my other sources “Beetle” and “Crow” models, c.1893?

Richard Pearse Farmer near Timaru, New Zealand Flew a powered glider in 1903  Bamboo structure; ailerons  Made internal combustion engines  Alone! He’d read some of the literature Is not mentioned in biblio

29 Jump in publications in early industry period Location of publisher# publications Paris4303 Berlin1718 London1342 New York1154 Wien866 Strasbourg859 Roma573 Bruxelles391 Glenville, Ohio295 Washington DC228 Nova Scotia248 St Louis160 Milano156 Philadelphia117 St Petersbourg101 Boston100 Stuttgart49 Hamburg21 Perhaps are in French in English in German Many refer to balloons, dirigeables, etc Can categorize by topic/title in future

New firms: preliminary findings Few of the founders, investors, designers in the firms were experts/experimenters of the 1890s.  Maybe this is how open-source technologies are usually commercialized – by a new or different group  Change from technological uncertainty to feasible/investable tech  Are the authors of technical works different? Don’t know yet. Many founders had experience in manufacturing  Unlike the Wrights New firms spin off rapidly from earliest firms  Klepper (2009): corporate-genealogies in Detroit and Silicon Valley show very high local rates of spinoff; that’s how these places became central to cars and semiconductors

31 Microeconomic model (Meyer, 2007) Imagine self-motivated tinkerers making progress on some project They invest time, effort, money into experiments Let two tinkerers’ experiments add value to one another’s projects Say they are not in competition because they cannot foresee a marketable product for now high “technological uncertainty”)  They’d agree to share findings with one another  They’d specialize to avoid duplication  They’d standardize on modular designs and tools (Market processes are not necessary for these effects)  They don’t bother with intellectual property (there’s no gain)  There is a role for an author / organizer / evangelist to expand the network and reduce duplicative efforts.  A tinkerer might change if the technological uncertainty lifts

32 Role for author / moderator / evangelist Chanute corresponded with, visited, introduced experimenters, and published book In model: A tinkerer’s best opportunity for progress may be editing, writing, speeches, evangelism  a uthors/evangelists are another kind of specialist tinkerer Octave Chanute, 1894: “The writer’s object in preparing these articles was threefold: 1. To satisfy himself whether... men might reasonably hope eventually to fly To save... effort on the part of experimenters trying again devices which have already failed. 3. To... render it less chimerical... to experiment with a flying machine....” Analogously: Lilienthal’s public demonstrations; Felsenstein at Homebrew; open source programmers Stallman, Torvalds, etc.

33 Wright methods and inventions Wind tunnel with smooth air flow Tested many wings systematically Propeller invention: shaped like wings, with lift going forward This produces ~40% more pulling power. This design idea lasts to the present. They are skilled, precision-minded toolsmiths, in a workshop every day. They flew craft as kites and gliders both, many times No landing gear, no engine. Their piloting invention had to be learned, like on bicycle

Wrights exit open-source “network” : Wrights read everything they can, experiment with kites and gliders, visit, correspond, attend conferences, speak, publish. Late 1902: they become more secretive, apparently because of wing design success 1903: They filed for a patent on their control mechanism for the wings. Granted Then they started companies. Their secrecy and tight hold on patent rights lead to permanent conflicts with Chanute, Curtiss, and others. Wrights’ first powered, controlled fixed-wing flight Dec, 1903

References in histories books Last nameFirst namePage references WrightWilbur and Orville* ChanuteOctave215 LilienthalOtto167 Bl é riot Louis144 LangleySamuel135 CurtissGlenn131 StringfellowJohn117 CayleyGeorge100 VoisinGabriel80 Smithsonian Institution 80 HerringAugustus76 Patents 65 ManlyCharles62 BellAlexander Graham61 ZahmAlbert60 PenaudAlphonse53 Ader Cl é ment 50 MaximHiram49 MeansJames44 BreareyFrederick W.44 WenhamFrancis Herbert41 HargraveLawrence39 MouillardLouis36 These are coherent narratives with a variety of points of view. Sources: cross-national; in paper – 15 books so far. Not enough yet. Combining them all one should get a list of “ everyone ” who is important in this invention. Frequency of mention is a very rough measure of importance, ex post. Have not adjusted for nationality/language of author and publication. Have not excluded very well events after Have not counted “ brothers ” well.

Issues of interest What institutions support the activities that leads to the invention/industry? (taking its importance as known) Do the experimenters show “open source” behavior? What does the transition to industry look like? Methods question: How can we use a bibliography and historical narratives written after the fact to tell a unified quantitative story of innovation? I am developing databases of bibliographies of aeronautical publications and clubs patents from the 1860s to 1910 startup firms and their key people (founders, investors, designers) combined indexes from historical books about the airplane’s invention

37 Imitation: Wright brothers copy Chanute’s design, 1900 Wilbur and Orville Wright ran a bicycle shop. They read up on gliders and experiment with kites and gliders. Motivation:“I am an enthusiast... I wish to... help on the future worker who will attain final success." -- Wilbur Wright, 1899, in letter to Smithsonian Wilbur writes Chanute, 1900: “I make no secret of my plans [because] I believe no financial profit will accrue to the inventor of the first flying machine, and that only those who are willing to give as well as to receive suggestions can hope to link their names with the honor of its discovery. The problem is too great for one man alone and unaided to solve in secret... The apparatus I intend to employ... is very similar to [yours].” Chanute reports on Wrights’ design to others and it is copied in 1902 – before they are famous! (Details Gibbs-Smith 1966)