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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