How did the US fall behind in airplane technology from 1909-1917?
score:22
tl;dr
US aircraft pioneers argued over the Wright brothers' patents while the rest of the world quietly ignored the patents and "borrowed" the idea - and went on to making planes. Remember that 110 years ago enforcing a foreign patent was not something a government would be willing to undertake.
Wrights
Wright Brothers' main achievement was controlled flight. They were not the first ones to fly, but they were the first not to fall out of the sky:
Their first U.S. patent, 821,393, did not claim invention of a flying machine, but rather, the invention of a system of aerodynamic control that manipulated a flying machine's surfaces.
All the other aviation pioneers were car mechanics. A car is controlled in only one direction (left/right). So they focused on making airplanes fly like cars drive - the holy grail was to make the airplane stay stable (not roll) and only control altitude (pitch) and direction (yaw).
Wright brothers owned a bike shop, so they were keenly aware of the need to control the bike in two directions (roll and yaw), and they controlled their flyer in all 3 directions.
Others
I would not say that
the US was the most advanced nation in the world when it came to man flight
An airplane requires a light but sturdy airframe, light but powerful engine, a wind tunnel to test its aerodynamics and all these were already in place. A lot of people all over the world contributed, and Wright brothers brought in the last critical part.
After them, the name of the game was how to improve the plane, not how to invent it, and all industrialized countries were on approximately the same level.
Upvote:-1
The United States wasn't "behind" Europe in flight in 1914, because its aircraft industry followed a different development path. The American preference was for better plane control and distance. In 1903, the Wright brothers flew a plane for a greater distance (260 meters) than a "pioneering" French plane did in 1906 (220 meters). The U.S. later developed superior passenger (consumer) planes, at least until the Concorde.
Where the Europeans took the lead was in what we now call fighter planes, then referred to as "scout" or "pursuit" planes. That's because European countries were more likely to go to war. The first military planes were used by the Italians in 1911, and Bulgaria in 1913, not exactly the most highly industrialized countries; just among the most belligerent. It's true that the Americans fell behind the Europeans in fighter planes, if for no other reason that it entered World War I almost three years behind others, and didn't produce good fighter models until 1919, needing to use allied planes as "stopgaps" until then.
Upvote:14
The main reason was that Wright brothers had patented key design features of the airplane (ailerons, flaps, wing warping, etc).
This same technology is used even today. It was like Bill Gates patenting all kinds of software. So, each and every person who made planes had to get it approved by the Wright brothers and pay a fee. The Wright brothers kept the other biggest Aviation innovators away from their airplanes and in the court house fighting patent infringements. Likewise that's where the Wright Brothers focused all their attention. For instannce Glenn Curtis spent years in court arguing with the Wrights over patent ussage. So the best American aviation innovators who once pioneered the technology including the Wrights spent a decade in court fighting each other. Contrasting that with the way those who followed the Wrights in Europe, worked together and shared innovations.
The resolution, after it became apparent how far behind the rest of the world the US had fallen after our entry into WWI; the federal government got involved.
The two major patent holders for the Airplane, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of new airplanes, which were desperately needed as the United States was entering World War I. The U.S. government, as a result of a recommendation of a committee formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organization (in other terms a Patent pool), the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association was born. Effectively freeing up the Wrights(control surfaces) and Curtis (engines designs) patents for wide use.
Source: Wikipedia The patent pool solution
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