Where it all began!

[Insuber]

Originally Posted by White Owl

I wish I had a link to share right now, but I don't... Anyway, a few years back I did some research into exactly how the Flyer's engine was built. Amazing stuff. It was mostly iron, not steel. The only real metal working tool used was a drill press. They decided on a four cylinder engine because that would mean a flat crankshaft, so the crankshaft could be chain-drilled out a single sheet of iron.

I've seen an original engine of the Wright's brother, the no. 2 I believe, in the Italian museum of Vigna di Valle. An Italian customer bought in 1909 a Wright's plane built in France, the number 4. With it, Orville Wright did the first Italian flight close to Rome, in front of an enormous crowd who went crazy, and trained the first Italian pilot, Mario Calderara, who got the pilot's license no. 1.

http://www.aeronautica.difesa.it/mus...tN%c2%b04.aspx

Ins