Ugly Duckling

of Curiosities. As the old saying goes, history is written by the winners, and the history of aviation was predominantly written by Orville and Wilbur Wright, who changed the world on December seventeenth, nineteen o three with their first successful powered flight at Kittie Hawk, and not just powered, but power controlled. Following the record setting event, the Right brothers got to work building an entire industry around the concept of putting man in the sky, and one way they

did that was through the use of patents. For example, the Rights were issued a patent in nineteen o six for their unique method of steering and aircraft called lateral control. Lateral control was a way of maneuvering an airplane by tipping one wing down and raising the opposite wing to turn the aircraft in a different direction. The Rights achieved this by using something called wing warping. By twisting the wing a little, they could get the plane to bank

while also countering opposing wind gusts. Hearing it described in words makes it sound like a technological marvel that nobody had ever thought of before. But there really was no other way to get an aircraft to turn back. Then, to those in the industry who understood the mechanics of it all, it was a fairly obvious feature. At least

that's what Glenn Curtis thought. Curtis had made his name in bicycles and motorcycles, racing them, building them, and setting world records with them, and he pivoted to the aviation industry one year after the Wright Brothers made their historic event. His prowess with engine architecture made him quite popular with other aviators entering the business. Even Alexander Graham Bell asked him for help with his own flight experiments later on.

But Curtis had a problem with the Wright Brothers lateral control patent, namely that it required anyone building an aircraft to pay a royalty for its use. Since there was no way to build a plane without the lateral control system outlined in the patent, the rights essentially had a monopoly on the entire airplane manufacturing industry, so Curtis found a different way to turn his aircraft. He used ailerons.

Ailerons were hinged flaps on the edges of the wings that could tilt up or down to change the plane's direction during flight. Almost all planes, from small fighter jets to massive seven forty seven's used them today. Unfortunately, despite his ingenuity, the Rights still sued him for infringement, kicking off a year's long patent war between the two parties. To fight the siblings, Curtis had to find another way to prove that dateral control predated the Rights patent, thus

rendering its invalid. To do that, he went back in time, well, not literally silly, He simply did his research and discovered an aircraft by a French designer named Alexandra Goupil, who used lateral control before the Rights were even eighteen. Goupil had made significant strides and aircraft designs in the late eighteen hundreds, having developed a unique monoplane that looked like a cross between a da Vinci or an athopter and

a bird, hence its name, the Duck. It was meant to have been powered by Goupil's equally impressive steam engine, but the engine weighed a thousand pounds and was obviously too heavy to install. He did build an unpowered version that flew a few times and even managed to lift two pilots along with it. What set the duck apart from other aircraft was its bird like design, with a single wing boat upward on each side as though being pushed from underneath. Its tail was oriented horizontally, and the

bulbous fuselage rested on skids as well as wheels. It flew with the help of a single tractor propeller. Not only had Curtis realized Goupil's original dream, he'd also called it an airplane, one of the first official uses of the term to describe such a vehicle. The Curtis Goupil Duck had its maiden flight on January nineteenth of nineteen seventeen,

just over thirty years after Goupil's original glider. Curtis flew it in a straight line before completing a circle with it, demonstrating the lateral control concept that should have never been patented in the first place. Sadly, though it wasn't enough, Curtis didn't win the case although he didn't lose it either. As it turned out, airplanes were becoming increasingly necessary during World War One, and those pesky patents were making production

prohibitively pricey. To combat corporate greed, the United States government created a patent pool and required all aeronautic companies to participate. The patents were lumped together under one program, and everyone was charged a nominal fee to use them. Eventually, the war ended, or should I say wars, because after the close of World War One, the aviation patent war also fizzled out. The Right Brothers wound up releasing the lateral

control patent anyway, making Curtis's duck plane pointless. But Glenn Curtis was right about one thing. The Right Brothers were greedy. Their lawsuits in the face of impending war earned them some bad press for a while. Curtis had seen them for who they really were from the very beginning. After all, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, well, at the very least, it's something curious. It can be a blessing or a curse to be defined by one thing. Actors can get pigeon holed into

certain types of roles for their entire careers. Average people can suddenly find themselves the subject of viral videos that will haunt them forever, and on a smaller scale, the gadget whiz in the family will forever be everyone's tech support for as long as they live, but at least they won't be Stein used to be, who these days, is remembered for one unfortunate incident. He used to be

had endured a terrible upbringing. You see, his father had been abusive and had been arrested numerous times over the years. He'd even gone to prison for a variety of violent crimes, including one occurrence where he'd held a taxi driver at gunpoint. As a result of that rough childhood, Stein had developed a dependency on alcohol and underwent to stay in an institution. He was eventually released and allowed to attend high school

to obtain his degree. Sadly, despite staying clean for two years, Stein found his way back to the bottle, which took him down a darker path than even he had probably expected. On June twenty i Ve, the day after his graduation, Stein put on a nice suit and a pair of sunglasses and boarded flight one thirty nine from Tronheim, Norway, to the capital city of Oslo. It was supposed to be a short trip. He sat toward the back of the plane and waited for the other one fifteen passengers

to buckle in. Little did they know that they were about to go for a bumpy ride. Once the plane was airborne, Stein reached into his luggage and pulled out a small pistol, which he pointed at a flight attendant and instructed her to inform the pilot that he was taking over the plane. They were to land as scheduled, at which point he would give the authorities his demands. Flight one thirty nine landed fifteen minutes passed its original e t A, but by the time it touchdown police

had already arrived on the scene. They surrounded the plane and had all other flights en route directed to another nearby airports. No other passengers knew what was going on until after they had landed. Stein had apparently been quiet and calm the entire time. Now that the police were just outside, though the time for decorum had come to an end, he announced that there were explosives in the bathrooms. To keep everyone in their seats and assured them that no one was going to get hurt as long as

they all stayed put. Then as for his demands, well, apparently Stein had a bone to pick with the Norwegian authorities. He claimed that he had been mistreated after being released from prison, and he wanted to speak to the Prime Minister and Justice Minister about his financial security now that he was out. Neither party, however, agreed to talk to him. After a few hours of discussions, he released the one fifteen other passengers, but the pilot and crew were forced

to stay behind. Stein perched himself in one of the bathrooms and kept an eye on the flight crew as he made a more reasonable request bring me beer. Despite most likely being inebriated when he first boarded, he wanted to keep things going and drained the flight of its entire stock of liquid gold. When that ran out, the police brought in more, and Stein kept on drinking. So it was about an hour later when one of the

officers decided to try his luck. The hijacker had run out of beer again and had demanded a refill, so the officer refused to comply until Stein handed over his gun, which he did. He thought he was making a trade when in reality, he had just given over his only bargaining chip, and it hadn't even been a real gun at all. It was just an air pistol, a toy that he had purchased while in Trondheim. It's a funny story on the surface, a hijacker who gave up his

only weapon for some beer. But look deeper and there's a real tragedy there. He needed help, and he thought the only way that he could get it was by commandeering a plane and speaking to the leader of his country. Perhaps the real crime was in how the system had failed him. Well, that's and hijacking, obviously. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the

show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah h