Wright Brothers Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom

This is Absolute Genius.

Dive into a world of action, adventure and explosions.

Each show will introduce you to a different genius.

An amazing person who had a genius idea which shaped the world.

And they will inspire us to come up with our own

genius idea at the end of each show.

-But will it be any good?

-Will it be any good?! It'll be absolute genius!

On today's show, the two men behind flight...

Which means double the trouble...

Let's have it.

Double the action...

And double the danger...

As one of us gets the flight of our lives....

Since the dawn of time, man has dreamt of inventing

a flying machine.

Many have tried, but many have also failed...

But these two actually cracked it, when, in 1903,

they achieved the first powered flight in an aeroplane.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you...

-Mind your head.

-..the Wright Brothers!

Where have you landed us?

I don't know, bro!

Inspired by their genius idea,

we'll be coming up with our genius idea later in the show.

When one of us takes the most extreme flight of our lives.

But first, let's find out how the Wright Brothers

managed to get their idea off the ground.

Right, lads, chocks away. On you go.

Today, we take flying for granted.

Right now, there's around half a million people up in the air,

travelling around the world.

All this because of two brothers from Ohio, USA -

Wilbur and Orville Wright.

In their day, things were very different...

This simple toy is about as close as you could get to powered flight

when the Wright Brothers were children in the late 1800s.

They had one just like this, and they played with it until it broke.

Orville and Wilbur were bitten by the flying bug,

and it was never going to leave them.

Their fascination with flight was going to take them

and the human race up into the sky.

-Right, you ready?

-Ready?

After three. One, two, three... Fly!

People had dreamed of flying for thousands of years.

A few had managed to get a plane up into the air, but the problem

was actually controlling it and keeping it up there.

The brothers originally built bikes for a living,

but when new, lightweight engines were developed,

they turned their hand to building an aircraft.

The world was never the same again.

The Wright Brothers' genius idea was to pull off the first ever

powered and controlled flight.

In 1903, in North Carolina, they finally cracked the key to

controlling a plane whilst up in the sky

and kept it up there for a record 12 seconds.

Genius!

That went surprisingly well!

So, how did the Wright brothers finally crack flying?

The answer was in what they called the three axis control system.

Early planes all borrowed from their original design,

like this one - the Bristol Boxkite at the Shuttleworth Collection,

the closest thing you'll find to a Wright Brothers plane in the UK,

designed just seven years after their first ever flight.

There aren't many people alive now who can control this beautiful

and dangerous-looking machine.

But genius pilot Dodge Bailey can!

-All right, Dodge?

-Hi there.

-Hiya, Dodge.

The plane we're stood in front of right now isn't

exactly like the Wright Brothers' design, is it?

-But what are the similarities?

-It's a big biplane, as you can see.

The engine is behind and pushes the plane with

a propeller from the back, and it has a tail on both ends.

The Wright Brothers plane only had a tail on the front.

It all looks quite flimsy.

It's made out of wood. There's these flimsy wires all over the place,

and these wings are so thin.

The material is like a drum.

In order to make an aeroplane fly, it has to be light,

but it has to be strong, as well.

What the Wright Brothers brought was their knowledge of making

strong structures light from their design of bicycles.

-It's the same kind of principal.

-Oh, OK.

Now, we need to learn more about three axis control.

Is there any way you can kind of simplify this for us?

Indeed. The best way of doing that is to put you in the cockpit.

-Can we have a ladder?

-A step?

-You want to swing the steps towards you now.

-Splinter!

-Swing the steps.

Foot on here?

You need to get behind those wires.

Dodge, what are the three axes that we need to think about

when we're controlling this.

-OK, well, that stick, if you move it forward, watch what happens.

-Ah!

The front flap goes up and down. OK.

So that'll make the plane either go up or down?

-That makes it pitch.

-So pitch basically means going up and down.

Yeah. The roll axis is to roll the aeroplane, rock it side to side.

This is controlled by the stick, in that sense.

So that means doing this?

Yes, it does. You need a third axis, which is the yaw axis down here.

We call these the rudder pedals, and they are moving a vertical surface

at the back of the aeroplane, which will make the aeroplane yaw,

-in this sense.

-And that's just a bit like a handlebar on a bike, really?

-Indeed, yeah.

-So, just those three controls gets you anywhere in

-the sky you want to go.

-Indeed.

MIMICS FAILING ENGINE

Oh, we've crashed.

Clearly we're not ready to be let loose in the sky just yet.

But Dodge is made of sterner stuff.

The wind and the drizzle are against him, so can he get this

fragile contraption up into the air?

Right, it's getting into position now.

It'll be really interesting to find out whether Dodge can match

the first ever flight, which was 37 metres along in just 12 seconds.

His team have left. They're running away.

They want nothing to do with him anymore.

Here we go.

Here we go! Go on!

It just doesn't look like it's supposed to fly.

-Here we go!

-We have lift off!

Can you imagine what it was like when the Wright Brothers did it

for the first ever time?

When something like that actually took off from the ground?

Oh, it's coming down.

Touchdown!

It might look like just a short hop, but, at 24 seconds, it's double

the duration of the Wright Brothers' very first flight.

Amazing flying skills from Dodge,

using pitch to control his height,

combined with yaw to turn left and right,

with roll from side to side.

Those three controls can take you anywhere in the air, as we'll

be finding out later in our most extreme genius idea so far!

So the Wright Brothers had figured out a way of controlling

a plane once up in the air, but where did

they go to get inspiration for their ground-breaking design?

They went... Birdwatching?!

Ooh, I like birds. I wonder if we'll see a blue tit.

You might well see a blue tit.

That is NOT a blue tit!

Orville and Wilbur spent hours watching the turkey vultures

flying near their home.

Wilbur noticed that the vultures were flexing and changing

the shape of their wings when they wanted to change direction.

The key to control in the air.

This is bird of prey genius Kyle Hudson.

A man who knows all about the birds that helped change history.

Meet Bernard and Matthew,

two vultures that don't do

-exactly what they're told.

-Remind you of anyone?

-Oh, I don't know about these guys.

-They look a bit lively, eh?

They're having a fight.

How did these birds inspire the Wright Brothers?

I mean, look at the state of them.

You have to remember where they were watching these.

They would have been over some mountains or a big gorge,

so, effectively, they would have had a lot of lift

and thermals to help them out.

-Come on, that's it.

-Yes! Come and say hello to your Uncle Dom.

Argh!

Smacked me in the face!

If these vultures do know the secret of wing control,

they're not telling.

-Don't panic!

-I'll get it.

They may be little, but you can definitely see the way

they're using their wings.

They're kind of pulling them in and out and changing the direction

and shape - the long distance, short distance.

-No!

-No flight there.

You're meant to be showing all the viewers

how you inspired the aeroplane!

It wasn't all the flapping around that inspired

the Wright Brothers, it was the vultures'

amazing flexible wings that - even when gliding - make tiny

adjustments to their shape to change their direction in the air.

Heck, Wilbur, that's genius!

Watching these birds gave them the idea to build

planes with adjustable wings, which allowed them

to stay fully in control. They called it wing warping.

Modern day planes do something similar using flaps on their wings.

But some flight pioneers were not so clever.

It's the Not So Genius Idea!

In the race for powered flight, others had been copying birds

with slightly less successful results.

Ornithopters used the flapping motion of bird wings

to take to the skies.

Except they never really did manage to take to the skies

and often flapped themselves to bits instead.

'So we've discovered

'how the Wright Brothers were influenced by a couple of turkeys.'

Come and say hello to your Uncle Dom.

Agh! Smacked me in the face!

'And learned how they managed to control a plane while up in the air.'

Wow!

'Later on in the show, we'll be taking to the skies

'for our most extreme genius idea so far.'

I'm upside down!

'But how do you get a plane up there in the first place?'

'Testing their new designs in the sky was risky business,

so the Wright Brothers found a way to test stuff out

whilst on the ground - in a home-made wind tunnel.

Now, we haven't got time to build our own so we've come to Nuneaton,

home of the biggest, baddest, windiest tunnel in the UK today.

Giant fans suck air through the tunnel,

generating wind speeds of up to 85mph.

If you want to understand how a plane gets up in the air,

-this is the place to do it.

-And the person to do it is Fran.

This is Fran. She just loves experimenting...

..to help explain the ideas of our geniuses.

And she's sure to pop up just when you really need her.

-In you go!

-Wow!

-I'm going in.

-Wow!

-Whoa!

-That's amazing! Incredible. Look at those fans!

So, air has push, and it's that push that lifts planes into the sky.

So, basically, it's all about how air flows around an object

-and I've got something that makes the invisible visible.

-What is it?

-It's this! My smoke wand. Isn't it beautiful?

-Magic!

So my smoke wand allows you to see how the air flows around the object.

This is a cross-section of a wing, so if we look at the smoke

-when it's going over the top...

-Yeah.

-..can you see that it's quite spread out?

-Yeah, yeah, loads of it.

That means the air's spread out. But if I put it underneath...

you see, it's less spread out.

Oh, yeah, it's really hugging the bottom of it.

It totally is, and that means that there's more push.

-So that's what actually lifts the wing up into the air.

-Got it.

So, a fast-moving plane uses the push of air

hitting the underside of its wing to lift off the ground.

Genius!

'But did the Wright Brothers ever test the push of air on themselves?

'The 85mph winds this tunnel can generate

'are classed as hurricane force.

'I want to experience for myself the push of air that is

'the secret of flight.

'That's right!'

Let's have it!

'I'm taking this tunnel to the max.

'We start him off with a gentle breeze.'

This is a bit like the breeze you'd get if you went outside on a ship.

-You can already feel the push on your arms, just a little bit.

-30mph.

He's starting to lean into it now.

I'm having to control how I stand now.

The aim is to get him flying backwards.

DICK CHUCKLES

-I feel like a plane!

-He's trying to fly!

-Look at him!

-Whoa-ho-ho!

-58mph.

He's still talking. That means it's not high enough.

He said, "Higher." He wants to go higher.

Crank it up! "More," he's saying!

Actually, you know, he might be saying, "Stop."

I think he's saying, "More."

He's having the best time!

I know it looks like he's in pain. He's having a lovely time.

HE YELLS

Let's go and see him.

-How was that?

-That was incredible.

You literally went flying right over your own head!

'So we've established that some objects have lift...

'and some don't.

'Thankfully, the Wright Brothers didn't waste time messing around

'in their wind tunnel, and took the human race up into the sky.

'But even they could never have imagined

'the incredible planes that would follow.'

It's the genius top five, kicking off with the world's biggest plane -

the Antonov 225, with an 88-metre wingspan.

That's 55 times bigger than...

Four - the world's smallest plane, the Bumble Bee,

buzzing in with a pipsqueak 1.6-metre wing span. Aww!

Three is the fastest plane ever,

the SR-71 Blackbird,

that flew well over twice the speed of sound.

Two is supersonic, as well.

Concorde, the fastest and, many would say, most beautiful

passenger jet ever, unlike...

The Super Guppy, contender for

the world's ugliest plane.

Hey! Looks aren't everything, you know!

Sorry, Super Guppy.

'So, we've got ourselves into a flap,

'finding out all about the Wright Brothers.'

Ow! Stop nipping my arm!

'We've been blown away

'discovering how they got a plane off the ground in the first place.'

Woo-hoo!

'And we've learned that it was the Wright Brothers who worked out

'a way to control a plane whilst up in the air,

'using pitch to go up and down,

'yaw to turn left and right

'and roll to tilt from side to side.

'Now, over 100 years later, modern aeroplanes are still using

'the same basic principles, as we're going to find out

'in the cockpit of this 737, where everything is state of the art.

'Apart from the pilots!'

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Captain Dick speaking.

Welcome to this DND Airways flight to Amsterdam.

We'll be flying at a cruising altitude of 5 metres.

'This flight simulator is used to train professional pilots,

'so it has to look and move exactly like the real thing.

'It's also worth £10 million,

'so they're not going to let us loose in it without some expert help.

'So, meet Unash Daswani, a genius pilot

'who is going to teach us to fly.

'Or at least not to crash!'

-UNASH:

-Full power, full power.

-Whoa!

-Oh, my life!

'We're trying out the controls by flying from virtual Gatwick

'to Virtual Amsterdam - but it's so lifelike that the fear is real!'

-There we go. First off is to pull the landing gear up.

-Landing gear!

Nice and gently. There we go.

Pitch forward. You're getting a bit too steep.

Little bit more, little bit more.

There we go. Just hold it level. Just hold it level there.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is your first officer, Dominic Wood.

-Hope you're having a... A lovely flight.

-Stop it!

Why, why are we...?!

Don't start screaming whilst I'm talking to the passengers!

Let me get it straight!

If you're on a flight and you hear, "What are you doing?!"

Let me get it straight!

I'm sorry if you're feeling a bit of turbulence.

DICK GIGGLES

If you could just get into your brace positions...

Oh, we're back. We're all right.

'Safely up in the air, it's time to try out the Wright Brothers'

'three-axis control for ourselves.'

-So go to the left?

-Yeah, you can see we're slowly turning to the left.

-And you can see the secondary effect of yaw is roll.

-Yeah, right.

Because the right-hand wing is now travelling faster than the left,

it's generating more lift, which is now rolling the aircraft.

-Whoa! What's going on?

-Gently, gently, gently, gently.

A little bit right. Turn right. Level the wings.

So yaw to the right.

So this is turning the rudder on the tail of the aircraft.

You're rolling in the aircraft at the same time.

It's using all the same principles we saw Dodge using in the box cart.

The pitch, the roll, the yaw.

It's just, nowadays, there's a few more buttons!

'Even in a simulator, what goes up must come down.'

-Cabin crew ready for landing, cabin crew ready for landing.

-Excellent.

Thank you. Now, if we crash this, are we going to feel it?

Er, yeah, you will, so you don't want to crash it.

-We'll actually get a full simulation?

-Yeah, that's it.

-Don't crash!

-I'll try not to!

-Pitch forward, turn right.

It's unbelievable how sensitive this is.

You just touch it slightly and the whole plane just...

-Don't worry about talking!

-All right!

-The runway's over there.

-I can see it.

Then why are you nowhere near it?

-A little bit right.

-DICK AND DOM YELL

-Pull up!

-I am pulling up.

-Left, left, left, left!

-Close the power. Press that button and...

-What are you doing?!

-I'm trying to get it straight!

-A little bit left.

-No!

-Reverse on. Reverse on.

This one there. Now try it again.

Push forward, push forward.

-Push forward?

-Now try it again.

Use the rudders to get back on the line. There we go.

Gently, gently.

DICK YELLS AND GIGGLES

I don't think these two have the WRIGHT stuff.

I see what you did there, Wilbur.

You didn't crash. You survived that. Reverse off.

-I'm sweating buckets!

-Reverse off. Put the brake on, turn the power off.

We have felt the pitch, the roll and the yaw

in the most realistic place we could ever be.

-Yeah.

-Thank you very much.

-Not a problem.

-Right, where's the ejector seat?

-Excellent landing.

So we know how the Wright Brothers

got their first aeroplane into the sky.

And how they controlled it when they were up there.

How do we combine all of this

to make a fitting tribute for the Wright Brothers?

-Right!

-Write?

-Write the Wright Brothers' name in the sky -

-skywriting!

-Right. Brilliant! OK, Genius.

But whereabouts are we going to do this?

-Are we going to fly through the Grand Canyon?

-No.

-No?

-Are we going to fly into New York, where Concorde used to arrive?

-No.

We're going to Goodwood in Sussex, just outside Chichester.

I love Goodwood,

in Sussex,

just outside Chichester.

Here's the plan.

Our genius idea - to take to the skies

in a super-manoeuvrable stunt plane.

Our challenged - to push its controls to the limits

and flight W for Wilbur and then O for Orville.

Our problem - it's going to be absolutely terrifying!

Ah! It's absolutely terrifying!

So where is our skywriting expert?

-He said he'd meet us here.

-Haven't got a clue.

-No.

We've been waiting ages.

-Late.

-Look at the time!

THEY YELL

I didn't think a plane could do that!

-Look, look, look!

-Oh!

I mean, one thing that's good out of watching this

is that at least we know he is in full control of his plane.

-It doesn't look like it, though, does it?

-No, it doesn't.

'Yes, one of us really will be getting in that plane...

'with this man, genius aerobatics pilot Mark Greenfield.

'Better known to his fellow bonkers stunt pilots as Greeners.'

-You must be Greeners.

-Hello.

-Hi, I'm Rich.

-Nice to see you, Rich.

-How you doing, Greeners?

-Hello, Dom.

A plane isn't supposed to do those kind of things, really, is it?

Well, this is a very extreme, cutting-edge aeroplane that,

as well as using all the conventional flying forces,

uses a few others, as well. So it's a very capable piece of kit.

We've been learning about the pitch, the roll and the yaw.

You must have been using those three over and over.

When we fly aerobatics, you're right - we use all of those.

So, what do we do first? What's the first step?

The first thing to do is get in the classroom,

-chat about how it works in principle.

-Yeah.

-Then we need to figure out who's coming flying with me.

-BOTH:

-He is.

'Not only is this a genius idea - it's a terrifying idea,

'more extreme than anything we've tried before.

'And there's only one spare seat on the stunt plane.'

-So we're going to dive down like this...

-'Basic training...

'Greeners is looking for the air cadet that shows most promise.

'Or least fear.'

So, diving down, 250mph, smoke on, 3G pull, smoke off,

gentle roll onto our back and, as we join at the beginning of the loop,

we turn the smoke off just there.

'Basic training complete,

'it's time for one of us to take on the ultimate challenge.

'It's time for a hero.'

Ah! I've been looking for you.

Parachute. Shades. Good luck.

So, to operate the aeroplane, in our three axes,

this is the primary control, the control column or the stick.

If you put the stick all the way over to your knee, before it

gets to your knee, the airplane will have completely rolled around.

-Wow!

-Be very gentle. And that's the rudder pedal.

-Are they working now, Rich? Can you see them?

-Oh, yeah!

-Are you ready for this?

-I certainly am.

-I'm actually tingling a bit with excitement.

-Good. Who can blame you?

-Let's do it.

-Shades.

-All right, then.

You need to be able to see the fear clearly here.

-You might be able to smell the fear, as well.

-Enjoy!

There's this self-preservation thing goes on in your head,

which says, "Don't do it."

This is not a natural thing for a human.

We have got wings. We shouldn't be up there.

'There's no turning back now.'

ENGINE STARTS

Adios!

Oh, he was smiling.

Right, let's put the pitch, yaw and roll to the test

in this ultimate flight. Come on, Dom! Yeah!

Up, up and away!

Wow!

Right, just put your hand on the stick and follow me through.

'We warm up with a cheeky little roll.'

OK, so we're going to use the stick to roll the airplane.

Aargh! We're upside down.

'Well, the controls work!

'Looks like we've reached the moment of truth.

'I channel the genius of the Wright Brothers.

'I channel the daring of Dodge.

'I channel Bernard and Matthew.'

Here we go! Smoke's on!

-Aargh!

-Look at that!

-Aargh! I'm upside down!

-Can't watch.

-Aargh!

-It's making ME feel sick.

I really don't want to crash!

Oh, my goodness!

There's the W!

'Well, sort of.'

-Now for the, er, tricky bit. The O.

-I feel totally weightless.

-Here it is.

-Here we go!

HE GRUNTS

-All the way round. All the way back to the top.

-Aargh!

Oh, it's great!

This doesn't look right, does it?

But there was the O. He's done it!

-That was nuts.

-Go on, Dom!

'We pushed the controls to the limit,

'flying in the shape of a W for Wilbur and an O for Orville...

I'm upside down!

'..the two brothers who changed the world. Genius!'

-And that's it.

-That's it! I need to come down now.

And there it is! A safe landing.

Yes! I bet he's glad to be down.

I've got to say, I'm very proud of him.

All right? What was it like?

I don't know what it looked like for you guys on the ground,

-but up there...

-It looked wrong!

I've never... My mind has never experienced anything

-quite like that in my life.

-It was hard to watch.

It's incredible what a difference the pitch, yaw, roll -

just a small movement - made to not only the aeroplane

but to my brain, as well.

One thing I could say is that you've got to work on your handwriting.

-Oh, no! Really?

-You've got a wonky W.

So, when we found out we were doing a show about flight,

we really weren't prepared for the journey that we've just been on.

We now know about the three axes - pitch, roll and yaw -

and pretty much how a plane flies.

'We've seen how the Wrights

'influenced everything from the earliest planes to high-tech jets.

'And found out how air moving around a wing is the secret to lift.

'We've met even the birds that inspired their designs.

'I hoped they liked our big smoky W and O,

'even if they were a bit hard to read.'

Wilbur, Orville, the Wright Brothers, you are absolute geniuses!

Oh, no, it's those two idiots! Pitch up, Wilbur. Pitch up.

-Yes, siree, Orville.

-Next stop, North Carolina.

Woo-hoo! Look at us flying in a picture frame! Yee-ha!

Agh! Smacked me in the face!

-Dom's!

-Oh, no!

THEY GIGGLE

-What are you doing?!

-Let me get it straight!

-Oh!

-But what's all that? What's all the black stuff?

Hey-hey!

THEY CHUCKLE