1. Catapult of Riches: 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
Mokyr-fest, 22 June 2011
Agenda: Describe and count communications in the open/sharing period of user innovation ( ) before there was an industry of fixed-wing heavier-than-air aircraft.
Show there was some imitation based on free-revealing / open-source processes
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
But nothing here represents official findings or policy.
And I am not a specialist in industrial organization.

2. Trying to make a mechanical bird
Le Bris 1868 Albatross
Was pulled by a horse fast enough that it took off from the cart.
Mouillard 1881
Copyright Lawrence Hargrave Centre Inc. 2010
Ader’s images are from a patent filing
Hargrave 1891 model ornithopter
Ader’s 1890 Eole Full size; wings flap, powerful engine

3. Big powered craft Maxim, motorized aeroplane 1894 Santos-Dumont 1901
Langley 1901

4. Wrights’ wind tunnel & wing models, 1902-3
Fixed wing shapes
Cayley, 1799
Penaud, ~1872
Wrights’ wind tunnel & wing models,
Lilienthal 1870s-1880s 4

5. Stacked wings Stringfellow 1868 triplane model
(Short, forthcoming).
“[By writing lucid articles], personal correspondence, and visitation, he inspired and encouraged to the limits of his ability all who were devoted to the work.” Wilbur Wright, 1911
Chanute-Herring glider, 1896
Phillips multiplane, 1904 5 5

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
This is an important thing and was imitated.
Control was learned partly by experience in the air.
He did patent but didn’t keep secrets. People visited and he showed them his shop. He did inspirational public demonstrations. He flew almost 2000 times.
He also tried to sell hang gliders but could only sell as few, as far as we know.
He’s not mainly a thrill seeker. 6 6

7. Successful examples were copies
Key example:
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] ”
The Wrights use and upgrade that design for the next several years.
Became a journalist/author
TWO WAY communication.
PHOTOs to come
“[By writing lucid articles], personal correspondence, and visitation, he inspired and encouraged to the limits of his ability all who were devoted to the work.” Wilbur Wright, 1911
Wright brothers 1900 kite, glider
Chanute-Herring glider
Ferber, 1902 is already copying Wrights based on report from Chanute 7 7

8. Brockett, 1910 Smithsonian Institution Bibliography of Aeronautics has 13,800 entries  micro data

9. Publications, exhibitions ref’d in Brockett (1910)
Terms and concepts in publication titles
L'Aérophile (Paris, 1893-) 1393
Zeitschrift für Luftschiffahrt
(Berlin , Vienna 1900-) 1101
Illustrierte Aëronautische Mitteilungen (Strasbourg) 1065
L'Aéronaute 830
Wiener Luftschiffer Zeitung (Vienna) 623
Bollettino della Societa Aeronautica Italiana 535
Aeronautics (London, 1907-) 441
Aëronautical Journal, (London) 416
Scientific American, (New York) 383
La Conquête de l'Air (Brussels) 351
Balloon, aerostat 2403; Dirigible, Zeppelin 628
Voyage 213, Ascension 388
Scientific 612, Research 218, Theory 129, Measurement 97, Duration 21, Altitude 33
Meteorology or weather 338, Temperature 43
Experiment 419
Motor, engine, propulsion 449,
Propellers 98
Machine 670
Bird, animal, fish, insect 282
Navigation, control, steerable 489
Wings 327
Kite Glider, gliding, soaring 120
Trend info not yet available
Many of the old articles are online and available or can be found in archives
Key early clubs/societies in Paris (1864,1872), London (1866), Berlin (1881)
it is possible to list these institutions by some measure of importance to this activity
And then think out what supports these institutions
All numbers are preliminary – data needs work, and
Many articles were duplicated across publications, and
Some entries aren’t actually unique publications but glossary entries or entries describing an organization or journal overall
Having said that there are 13,882 entries by current count.
617 entries refer to clubs: societe, society, Verein, societa
466 refer to kites (kite, cerfs-volant, Drachen)
plus 40 more to gliders (planeur, Gleiter) or soaring: 486
2109 refs to balloons (ballon, aerostat, dirigeable)
475 refer to meteorology or winds (meteor*, meteo, Wind, vents)
274 refer to birds (oiseau, Vogel)
357 ref to military or warfare
Key people or institutions are authors or subjects: Wright 223, Lilienthal 94, Chanute 69, Hargrave 42, Penaud 16, Nadar 18, Phillips 15, "company" 30
Frequently cited journals include L'Aerophile (1397), L'Aeronaute 834, Aeronautical Journal 415, La Conquete d’Air 359, L'Aeronauta 99
Dingl. Polyt. Journ
Monthly Weather Review (Dept. of Agriculture, Washington DC) 37
Mechanic’s Magazine and J. of Engineering (London, ) 34
Autom. Journ
Vozdukhoplavatel (St Petersbourg) 24
Philos. Trans. Royal Society 19
Eng. Mech. World Sci. 16
Zeitschr. Ver. Deutsch Ing. 14
La Rev. Techn
Aeronautical World (Ohio) 315
Compte Rendus de l’Académie Sciences 190
Bulletin of the Aerial Experiment Association (Nova Scotia)157
La Revue de l’Aviation, Paris 147
Flight, (Aero Club of UK, London) 130
American Magazine of Aeronautics (1907-) 102
L'Aeronauta 95
Revue de l’Aeronautique (Paris) 87
American Aeronaut 81
Aeronautical Annual 68
Balloning and Aeronautics 63
Prometheus 56
Report Board Smithsonian Inst 53
Nature 50
Aeronautical Society’s exhibition, 1868
World’s Fair, International Meteorological Congress 1893
Congress of the Atmosphere, 1894, 1895
International Aeronautical Commission, Strassburg 1898
International Congress of Meteorology, Paris 1900
International Commission on Airships, 1902,1903
4th Congress for Scientific Aerostation, St Petersbourg 1904
World’s Fair 1904
5th Congress for Scientific Aerostation, Milan 1906
Key Exhibitions and Conferences: 1868, 1893, 1904, others

10. Micro modeling issue
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 also models of self-motivated non-profit “tinkerers” (scientists?) who sometimes generate these behaviors:
Giving information away
Sometimes avoiding intellectual property institutions
Standardizing technology, modularizing, specializing
Evangelizing
Evidence will help us get there
Gibbs-Smith, p.61)

11. Startup industry In 1907-1909 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
Patents sources: Simine Short and Gary Bradshaw (for US);
Bernd Lukasch and Otto-Lilienthal Museum (for Germany)
Notably in Reims, France, Aug $40,000 in prizes offered
Tens of thousands saw a demonstration
Notes: Most make airplanes; some make engines, propellers, other parts, gliders, or models; some are schools for pilots; some give exhibitions. Some failed quickly. Counts do not include nonprofit, government, military, nor hobbyists.

12. Where this research is going: quantifying innovation
Can collect several metrics of the contribution & behavior of individuals and institution
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 make inferences about what institutions help
Gibbs-Smith, p.61)

13. Conclusions so far Overhang of technological uncertainty is extreme
No firms do this “research” (hopeless, useless, dangerous)
Tinkerers link up  faster 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 1910 didn’t become industrialists ten years later
* : wrights quote about 50 years ; kelvin quote? ; death of lilienthal ; intuitive vs counter-intuitive
* smart people naturally think: somebody else will have to figure this out.

14. Communication institutions referred to in histories
These rough counts come from 12 combined historical book indexes about the invention of the airplane, and exclude references to events after 1909.
These institutions serve technical communication. There was much free revealing of tech.
page
references
distinct
instances
Clubs, society, or association
219 37
Journals, periodicals, newspapers, or magazines,
131 39
Company 75 35
Exhibition, prize, trophy, award, contest, medal, or meet 67 18
book (fact or fiction) 47 21
university or school 46 19
lab, museum, institute, observatory, zoo, or fund 16
military institution 45 7
conference 14 2

15. Development of the airplane (heavier than air, with fixed wings)
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
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.”
Wright brothers’ key powered-glider flight, 1906 patent
Public demonstrations of modern airplanes; an industry arises
Unlike software:
design can’t be replicated easily
designs and experiments develop slowly
Common knowledge by 1909 – flight works, and there are mil contracts, performances, many makers 15 15

16. Chanute’s 1894 overview Progress in Flying Machines refers to or quotes more than 190 persons
Experimenter
location (background)
Pages referring to, Chanute (1894)
Publications listed, Brockett (1910)
Maxim
Britain (US) 33
25+
Lilienthal
Germany 31
50+
Pénaud
France 22 12
Mouillard
Algeria, Egypt (Fr) 21 6
Hargrave
Australia (Br) 19
Moy
Britain 10
Le Bris 17
Langley US 16
40+
Wenham 15
10+
Phillips 14 3
Chanute
US (France) *
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.
A hero named Octave Chanute really studied the problem of motorized winged flying machines in He traveled and read a lot and summarized what he saw as the state of the art. Here is the list of the experimenters he cites or quotes and on how many pages. It’s a metric of their “contribution” somehow.
And this was long before he’d heard of the Wright brothers, so we get an ex ante version of the state of the art, not the point of view of someone who knows that the airplane is a great thing and traces where it came from. That’s interesting too, but the question of interest here is to understand the behavior of a experimenter who DOESN’T get to know that the result is going to be a success. That’s the population of people who CREATES success. So here we have a cross section snapshot.
Notice that it’s a global search. It’s not a cult of people who are following a leader. It’s people of free will, very far apart, who are drawn to the same absorbing problem. And we have a lot of documentation on them and to the extent I can squeeze it in today you’ll hear that they sometimes sound like open source programmers.
I am endeavoring to include analogous tables from aero history.

17. Alphonse Pénaud Lawrence Hargrave
Engineer in France, 1870s-1881
Showed importance of a tail on aircraft that generates lift 17
Lawrence Hargrave

18. Lawrence Hargrave Retired young just south of Sydney
Designed aircraft and engines
Box kite findings c. 1894
Worked alone
Needed machining specialists
Presented papers in Australia
25+ publications in bibliography
Did not patent
Corresponded extensively
Took a long visit to Britain 18

19. Samuel Langley
Professor, then Director of Smithsonian Institution in DC
Tested lift and drag of planes on “whirling table” with 30-foot arm
1891: Published Experiments in Aerodynamics
Wrote to and visited other experimenters
Helps make aviation study legitimate
1896: Small powered gliders flew half a mile.
Was an academic

20. Otto Lilienthal 1860s-80s studied bird wings and experiments
1889: published Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation
1891-6: Flew inspirational hang gliders
Why? “. . . to soar upward and to glide, free as the bird” -- Otto Lilienthal, 1889
He did patent but didn’t keep secrets. People visited and he showed them his shop. He did inspirational public demonstrations. He flew almost 2000 times.
He also tried to sell hang gliders but could only sell as few, as far as we know.
He’s not mainly a thrill seeker.

21. Chanute-Herring glider - 1896
Octave Chanute
His 1894 book Progress in Flying Machines,
surveyed experiments, devices, theories
Communicated with experimenters and made gliders
Became a journalist/author
TWO WAY communication.
PHOTOs to come
“[By writing lucid articles], personal correspondence, and visitation, he inspired and encouraged to the limits of his ability all who were devoted to the work.” Wilbur Wright, 1911
Among ingenious fancies of the Chinese is their bird kite, fig. 71, the frame of which made elastic. The thin paper attached to the wings moves under the action of the wind and simulates the flapping of the wings. This kite is sometimes 3 ft. in length.
Chanute-Herring glider 21 21

22. Motivations of experimenters
Knowing now the most important ones, why do they do it?
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

23. Aeronautic clubs and societies
First German one seems to be in 1881 in Berlin
1852 Societe Aerostatique de france
1864 Societe d'encouragement
1866 Aeronautical Society of Great Britain
1868 Exhibition where Stringfellow showed double decker
1872 Societe francaise de navigation aerienne
Note explosion *before* public success of the airplane
First German one seems to be in 1881 in Berlin
1852 Societe Aerostatique de france
1864 Societe d'encouragement
1866 Aeronautical Society of Great Britain
1868 Exhibition where Stringfellow showed double decker
1872 Societe francaise de navigation aerienne
Note explosion *before* public success of the airplane
Organizations often centered on ballooning and included anything aeronautical
Several published regular journals. First German one 1881. 23 23

24. Communication by letters and visits between experimenters
Chanute visited with Mouillard, Langley, Santos-Dumont, Ferber, Huffaker, Herring, Maxim
He hosted an international conference on “aerial navigation” in 1893.
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.
Became a journalist/author
TWO WAY communication.
PHOTOs to come
“[By writing lucid articles], personal correspondence, and visitation, he inspired and encouraged to the limits of his ability all who were devoted to the work.” Wilbur Wright, 1911
Much more is in archives
They did mention inefficiencies in communication – missing letters, delays, overlaps in the mail
Letters and telegrams between Octave Chanute and the Wright brothers
Source: McFarland (1953)
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
Wrights to Chanute 7 28 29 22 24 33 16 3 4
Chanute to Wrights 5 30 34 25 37 19 9 2 24 24

25. Wright brothers as open-sourcers 1900-1902
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.”
nobody else has experience
Analogously
Jobs and Wozniak start Apple, hire from club
Red Hat becomes a company
An insight makes this happen.
Wrights’ 1900 glider

26. 1910 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.
Offer existence proof of this incredible unlikely document. Hand it out! 26 26

27. 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.
Penaud model, circa 1872
Cayley, 1799 – got much right
but not wing shape
(Short, forthcoming).
“[By writing lucid articles], personal correspondence, and visitation, he inspired and encouraged to the limits of his ability all who were devoted to the work.” Wilbur Wright, 1911
Hargrave box kite, 1890s 27 27

28. Imitation of earlier designs
1900: Wilbur Wright’s first letter to Octave Chanute says
“the apparatus I intend to employ is very similar to [your] "double-deck" machine [of] ”
Wright brothers kite, 1900, and glider
Chanute-Herring glider, 1896
Became a journalist/author
TWO WAY communication.
PHOTOs to come
“[By writing lucid articles], personal correspondence, and visitation, he inspired and encouraged to the limits of his ability all who were devoted to the work.” Wilbur Wright, 1911
1902: Ferber copies the Wrights’ design based on info from Chanute
Practically 28 28

29. Parallels to open source software and open-, user- or distributed- innovation
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
Chanute says this in his book intro, and in open-source software we see the same motivations
If their goal is to change the world, or to fly, open-source behavior is rational (Meyer 2007)
They vary in visions of what they are trying to make.
They form networks and share information
They write and publish
They specialize, technologically and/or in evangelism
Alternative models: Race to be first (space race; genome project); collective invention (Allen, 1983, firms not paying costs to experiment); signal to employers, license invention, or start company (Lerner and Tirole, 2002)
Network of tinkerers” model applies -- non-competitive search for “progress”
Alternative models: R&D for profit, race to be first (space race); know-how trading, collective invention, user innovation; to signal to employers; to license an invention; to start a product line

30. Alternative models of invention
(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 interest in a problem (a0), 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.

31. “Beetle” and “Crow” models, c.1893?
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
Various locations
Early ones powered by rubber band
My knowledge is not great ; there is a book on him in Japanese; I don’t know the sources
“Chuhachi Ninomiya began experimenting with kites in the 1870's on his home island of Shikoku, Japan. He became well-known for his kites, some of which incorporated mechanical devices, and he sold many of them. In the spring of 1891 Ninomiya built and flew a very-well designed rubber band powered model monoplane. By 1893 he had reportedly settled on a design for a powered aeroplane, the "Tamamushi" ("Jewel Beetle"), capable of carrying an operator. The "Tamamushi" was to have a pusher propeller, externally braced gull-type wings and smaller half-wings below the central structure, probably intended as control devices. This was a well-conceived design for the time, and marks Ninomiya as a very talented aeronautical designer. ”
“Beetle” and “Crow” models, c.1893?

32. 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

33. Jump in publications in early industry period
Location of publisher
# publications
Paris
4303
Berlin
1718
London
1342
New York
1154
Wien
866
Strasbourg
859
Roma
573
Bruxelles
391
Glenville, Ohio
295
Washington DC
228
Nova Scotia
248
St Louis
160
Milano
156
Philadelphia
117
St Petersbourg
101
Boston
100
Stuttgart 49
Hamburg 21
Perhaps are in French
in English
2500+ in German
Many refer to balloons, dirigeables, etc
Can categorize by topic/title in future 33 33

34. 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

35. Analogues: numbers of auto companies (Hannan et al 1995)
Numbers of synthetic dye companies and entry/exit (Murmann 2003)

36. 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
Formal assumptions are in bullets; conclusions are arrowed.
Assume these individuals (“tinkerers”) are special:
Then invest their own time and effort, which is costly, for future utility
Progress is defined by themselves, not an objectively measured thing and it may include constructive failure.
Some people think it won’t work, and the ones who do think it will work can’t say how.
so some progress by other tinkerers will snap right in
AS IN SOFTWARE, EXACTLY.
The supporters and publishers need not be tinkerers, if they are farsighted and would like to fly in an airplane.
Tinkering and moderating may seem productive, after the fact, if a useful technological paradigm is established.
Then a competitive industry could start.
(1) Network of tinkerers: a population of agents with interest in a problem (a0), worthwhile opportunities (p), information flows between them (f)
experimentation and socially constructed “progress”
No pool of information, nor incentives, nor technical measure of improvement.
(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)

37. 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
 authors/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
2. 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.
Also felsenstein, and stallman, and torvalds, and others
 Moderator/evangelist role arises naturally
Here we need an expanded sense of the stream of opportunities available to a tinkerer, but we don’t need a new utility function.

38. Wright methods and inventions
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
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.

39. 1903-6 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 1906.
Then they started companies.
Their secrecy and tight hold on patent rights lead to permanent conflicts with Chanute, Curtiss, and others.
Analogously, Apple founders left Homebrew Club; Red Hat is now a company
They weren’t the first to exit the open source network
Conflicts with chante
Patent fights
Wrights’ first powered, controlled fixed-wing flight
Dec, 1903

40. References in histories books
Last name
First name
Page references
Wright
Wilbur and Orville *
Chanute
Octave
215
Lilienthal
Otto
167
Blériot
Louis
144
Langley
Samuel
135
Curtiss
Glenn
131
Stringfellow
John
117
Cayley
George
100
Voisin
Gabriel 80
Smithsonian Institution
Herring
Augustus 76
Patents 65
Manly
Charles 62
Bell
Alexander Graham 61
Zahm
Albert 60
Penaud
Alphonse 53
Ader
Clément 50
Maxim
Hiram 49
Means
James 44
Brearey
Frederick W.
Wenham
Francis Herbert 41
Hargrave
Lawrence 39
Mouillard 36
References in histories books
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 1909.
Have not counted “brothers” well.

41. Chinese and Malay kites
In Brockett bibliography, 6 titles refer to Chinese or Malay kites
In Chanute (1894) we see a number of references:

42. 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

43. 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)
nobody else has experience
Analogously
Jobs and Wozniak start Apple, hire from club
Red Hat becomes a company
An insight makes this happen.

44. Imitation: More cases
1896: Pilcher couldn’t decide whether to make Lilienthal or Hargrave type biplane (Jarrett p 43)
1902: Ferber abandons his Lilienthal-type glider and makes a Wright-type one. (based on new information from Chanute).
Ferber added an engine, before Wrights did!
Gibbs-Smith, p.61)