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Publications and patents of aeronautical innovators up to
1909by Peter B. Meyer, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics(Findings and views are those of the author, not the BLS)
OUI conference, BrightonJuly 2013
.
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A pre-history of the airplane1860s Clubs and journals incorporate fixed-wing designs
It’s a niche activity – maybe hopeless, useless, dangerous
1890s Glider flights, survey books
1903-6 Powered glider flights (esp. Wrights)
1908-10 Big exhibitions; new industry Publications and patents of aeronautical innovators up to 1909 The first airplanes were designed along the lines of kites, gliders, and experiments before then. The key
experimenters and theorists studying “aerial navigation” then communicated largely in writing. Data on over 2000 patents and 13,000 aeronautics-related publications up to 1909 tells us about the period of innovation leading to the first airplanes. I find that this literature grew over decades at a similar pace across France, Germany, Britain, and U.S. Publications and patents boom at the end of the period as the industry starts. I struggle with the question of whether this interchange makes up an information “commons” along the lines of the literature associated with Elinor Ostrom and find mostly yes, but without the sharp definitions and rules associated with “commons”. There was free revealing and ideas moved fluidly though much was missed or forgotten.
Experimenters had “open practices”/ open source innovation Networking Shared findings, designs – public goods
Intellectual property principle unimportant
These practices led to technological success & new industryI gather/count publications, clubs, patents, firms, letters, individuals, citations
Exploring “aerial navigation”
Flapping wings
Fixed wingsSoaring birdsKites & gliders
Hargrave 1891 Frost 1902
Cayley 1799-1801 Le Bris 1868
Mouillard 1881
Maxim’s motorized aeroplane 1894
Exploring aerial navigation (2)
Tail
Stacked wings
Penaud 1872
Stringfellow 1868 Hargrave 1893
Phillips 1904Langley 1901
Cayley 1799-1801
Exploring aerial navigation (3) pix removed temp
Curved (“cambered”)wings
Balloonsand dirigibles
. . . And more technologies:
engines, parachutes, propellers, . . .
Diverse creative exploratory “production” took effort
Lilienthal, 1889
Phillips 1884, 1891
Santos-Dumont, 1901
Wind tunnels
Wright wing models, 1902
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Getting in the air: Otto Lilienthal pic removed
temp• Lilienthal experimented on wing shapes and lift• Published book: Birdflight as the basis for aviation• 1890s: Flew inspirational hang gliders in public – tried to control in air • Crashed in 1896; disciple Percy Pilcher crashed in 1899
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Octave ChanuteRetiring engineer focuses on “aerial navigation” issue.
His 1894 book Progress in Flying Machines surveyed experiments, devices, theories
Communicated and visited many experimenters
Encouraged openness, e.g.:“I propose to let you avail of whatever novelty and value there may be in my own
models or ideas. I should expect in return a like frank access to your results”(Chanute to Langley, 1895, quoted by Short, p208)
1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910
Wrights to Chanute 7 28 29 22 24 24 33 16 7 3 4
Chanute to Wrights 5 30 34 25 29 37 37 19 9 4 2
Letters and telegrams between Octave Chanute and the Wright brothers
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Motivations of early experimenters
Would like to fly Curiosity, interest in the problem (an “intrinsic” motive) Prestige, recognition Hope to make better world/country (altruistic)
They didn’t refer to manufacturing or expected profits.
Ballooning is central – aeronautics joins that infrastructure
From 1860s, societies in Paris, London, Berlin include “aerial navigation”
Exhibitions & conferences: 1868, 1885, 1893, 1904, many after 1907• 78 exhibitors in 1868 Crystal Palace, organized by Aero Society of GB
Relevant clubs and societies
Aeronautics-related clubs and societies
Data on publications 1910 Bibliography by
Brockett of Smithsonian Institution Much cleanup necessary 13,000 entries Data on
Title, author, year, language, journal
Many refer to Ballooning Navigation Scientific measurement Clubs, societies, events Kites, gliders, motors
Aeronautical periodicals before 1909Journal when where
entries in Brockett (1910)
L'Aérophile 1893- Paris 1383
Zeitschrift für Luftschiffahrt 1882- Berlin; Vienna 1101
Illustrierte Aëronautische Mitteilungen 1897-1931 Strasbourg; Berlin 1053
L'Aéronaute 1868-1914 Paris 822
Wiener Luftschiffer Zeitung 1902-1914 Vienna 604
Bollettino della Societa Aeronautica Italiana 1904- Rome 534
Aeronautics 1907-1921 London 425
Aëronautical Journal 1897- London 415
Scientific American 1871- New York 371
La Conquête de l'Air 1904- Brussels 343
Aeronautical World 1902-1903 Ohio 315
Compte Rendus de l’Académie Sciences 1836- Paris 191
Bulletin of the Aerial Experiment Association 1908- Nova Scotia 157
La Revue de l’Aviation 1906- Paris 147
American Magazine of Aeronautics 1907- New York 102
L'Aeronauta 1896-1900 Milan 95
Revue de l’Aeronautique 1888-96; 1900-1 Paris 87
Flight (Aero Club of UK) 1909- London 81
American Aeronaut 1907-1909 St. Louis; NYC 81
Aeronautical Annual 1895-1897 Boston 68
Ballooning and Aeronautics 1907- London 64
Source: Brockett bibliography (1910)
Dip at end is because only first half of 1909 is included; another volume goes further
from Mouillard’s L’empire de l’air, 1881 The next five from L’Aerophile, 1893-1905
Wilbur Wright’s first letter to Chanute in 1900 says “the apparatus I intend to employ . . . is very similar to [your] "double-deck" machine [of] 1896-7 . . .”
“. . . I make no secret of my plans . . . . 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.”
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Open technology practice: imitation
Chanute-Herring glider, 1896
Wright brothers 1900 kite, 1901-2 glider
Pratt truss
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Imitation (2)
Voisin-Farman winning prize, 1908
Farman, 1909-10
Ferber, 1902, copies Wright design based on report from Chanute
Santos-Dumont 1906, 1st airplane flight in Europe
Gibbs-Smith’s Rebirth of European Aviation ; a globalization story
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Parallels to grass-roots open source projects
(open technology practices)Innovators are autonomous (not hierarchy, not cult) Choosing what to make, starting small, with various goals Learning from hands-on experience; empirical (no curriculum) Sharing info across distances, pooling knowledge
Role for authors, evangelists, organizers Create / manage communities Support specialization and standards Encourage “public goods”
Emergent progress, as opportunities permit Products evolve iteratively (not by plan) and variants appear
New phase: Transition to industry
Wilbur and Orville Wright made bicycles They were “open” in aviation field 1900-1902
Visitors, publications, speeches, imitation They have technological successes in (1) control
system for gliders, (2) wing and propeller design 1902-3 They pull back from “open” involvement
File for patent, granted 1906 They plan to enforce their patent and manufacture airplanes
Transition and paradigm shift
Octave Chanute:
Preferred open technology
Wright brothers:
It’s an industry now
• Wrights enforce their 1906 patent in U.S.
• In Europe, patent is interpreted more narrowly; they license more
I am modeling this (unavoidable?) conflict
Pix of these gents temporarily removed so I can squeeze down the file for transfter through wiki
Startup industry and patents
In 1907-1909 Publications & patents increase
Big public exhibitions 100,000s people see Profitable exhibitions Huge prizes “Legitimate” to start firm
(Hannan, Carroll et al 1995)
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Startup industry1908: Flow of new firms startsSample of early investors, founders, and designers suggest less
than 20% overlap with earlier experimenters
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Annual US patents grow by avg of 4.7% per year, 1855-1916 in TN dataAnnual US aero patents grow by avg of 6.3% per year, 1855-1916 in TN data
Growth rates in annual aero patents in my eclectic data, 1855-1905: France 4.2%, Britain 2.9%, Germany 4.9%, US 4.7%
. count if year>=1855 & year<1906 1736
. count if year>=1905 & year<=1909 1613
Future: “career” information
Early experimenter
location (origin)
Pages referring to,
Chanute (1894)
Publications listed in Brockett
(1910)
Maxim Britain (US) 33 25+
Lilienthal Germany 31 50+
Pénaud France 22 12
MouillardAlgeria, Egypt
(Fr)21 6
Hargrave Australia (Br) 19 25+
Moy Britain 19 10
Le Bris France 17 0
Langley US 16 40+
Wenham Britain 15 10+
Phillips Britain 14 3
Chanute US (France) * 50+
Experimenters were diverse and international
Can compare “contributions” by publications, patents, citations (e.g. by Chanute 1894) and by frequency of references in historical books
Can identify influential contributors in early period statistically
Conclusions
Leading experimenters followed open source practices They publish, and moderate/edit publications share information ; meet ; write letters and copy technology No firms do this “research” (technological uncertainty)
motivation mostly intrinsic or altruistic (to fly! change world! Attempt challenge)
Communication imitation, progress 1890s standard glider
The new industry starts from this information Entrepreneurial people and era was very different
Experts of 1899 did not become industrialists ten years later Info on individuals will give stats on that
End of presentation
How can we make use of this story?
(1) Watch new fields, knowing what "prehistories of invention" look like
• In the air: quadrocopters, personal flight
• biotech, nanotech• hacker spaces, maker faires
• are open source behaviors visible? suggests opportunity for improvement
• can identify innovative persons?
• ask experimenters what constrains them from progress
• help with open-source copying of institutions, legal documents, taxes, informational infrastructure
(2) Apply open-source practices in government
What would help us innovate in governance?
• wikis to read, share & copy efficiently in govt (Intellipedia, Diplopedia, Statipedia, Eurostat's, OECD, Canada's, Britain's)
• search engines for our own pooled content
• source code control systems to share & co-develop tools in public/nonprofit sector
• try those that we might recommend ; empower our staff with permission to use outside platforms
• open data (for use in government)• link to WikiData?• share source code examples across
government
• model good practices enable copying of them
• thus create new Chanutes (and Einsteins!)
Modeling open source innovation (2)
Model of “tinkerer” agent: interested in a particular project Has worthwhile experimental opportunities (cost 1, utility payoff p
each period) Psychic or socially constructed “progress” tinkerer produces
artifacts information flows between them (fraction f of own progress)
Payoff to doing project + receiving
Payoff to specializing, standardizing, modularizing
Relatedly, payoff to creating a common platform / kit Models inventors, nonprofit actors, fanatics, researchers
Subjects of those articles
Term in English Entries(of 13600)
Balloon (aerostat, dirigible, Zeppelin, voyage, ascent) 2100
Navigation (control, steerable) 623
Kites, gliders (gliding, soaring) 550
Wing 180
Bird (animal, fish, insect) 270
Scientific/measurement (research, theory, meteorology, atmosphere, experiment, duration, altitude, temperature, weight)
475
Military/warfare (army) 400
Motor (engine, propulsion, propellers) 380
Clubs/societies 600
Early experimenters rarely entered industry
In preliminary samples, only:• 4% of company people had early patents• 12% had aero publications before 1910• 12% were referred to in publication titles before 1910
In future: can compare Entrepreneurs, designers, and investors of early industry
1907-1916
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Wright brothers as open-sourcers 1900-1902First 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 1896-7.”
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
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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
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1903-6 Wrights exit open-source “network”
1899-1902: 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.
Wrights’ first powered, controlled fixed-wing flight
Dec, 1903
Conclusions so far
Overhang of technological uncertainty is extreme No firms do this “research” (hopeless, useless, dangerous)
Independent tinkerers share information Networking & writing imitation & progress Clubs, publications, visits, letters Lead to standard information 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
This big “case” (airplane as invention and new industry) relates to what innovation is (open source innovation vs others) measurement of innovation stories of startup industry where new inventions and industries come from (personal computer industry;
open source software industry; biotech; light bulb; photography; steam engines, atom bomb)
It is useful to organize and classify data about this case scientifically (apart from my telling stories about it)
data=publications, patents, letters, clubs, club members, companies, company founders, . . . . lists and counts of things
Plan: keep naïve, keep it interesting and keep counting
Some themes of this work
Economics has useful micro models of agents: Investors, employees, firms, R&D, households, consumers, governments,
bureaucrats, principal-agent relationships, managers, employees, families, etc.
But these characters didn’t bring us the airplane.
We could use a model of self-motivated non-profit “tinkerers” (scientists) who:• Offer information to public
• Sometimes avoid intellectual property institutions (patents, copyrights, …)• Standardize technology, modularize, specialize• Evangelize the field and technology• Did bring us the airplane and thus an industry
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/opportunity
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
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Communication institutions referred to in histories
pagereferences
distinctinstances
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 46 16
military institution 45 7
conference 14 2
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.
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1910 Bibliography of Aeronautics Brockett/Smithsonian
InstitutionSmithsonian 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.
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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
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(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.
Alternative models of invention
New firms: preliminary findings
Few of the founders, investors, designers in the 1908-1916 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
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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.
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
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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)
Modeling open source innovation
Like user innovation (von Hippel) & collective invention (R Allen) But no central organization; few rules Copying actual designs
Not like R&D; nor “race” to the finish; nor mainly signaling to employers
Can be modeled micro-economically: Suppose tinkerers are
Instrinsically or altruistically self-motivated Trying to make “progress” on a technical project Not competing with others too much
benefits exceeds costs to experiment, share, specialize, standardize, modularity, platforms (micro model Meyer 2007 “Network of tinkerers”)
Gathering global data to 1910
Publications – 13,600 from Brockett’s 1910 Bibliography of Aeronautics
Citations by Chanute’s 1894 Progress in Flying Machines (190)
and by Historical accounts (indexes of books)
Clubs and societies to 1910 (hundreds)
Patents (>2000) Firms (>600 up to 1916)
Letters between experimenters (>400)
Individuals – from the above, thousands
Much was written because progress was slow and dispersed