Building Blocks

The metaphor of flight has already been stretched to the breaking point, but we tug at it again to help answer a difficult question: What is the starting point of rational GA design? It is tempting to answer that the moment one has conceived of automata containing chromosomes, genes, and associated hardware together with genetic and selective processing that one is in business, but returning to the example of the Wright brothers and other would-be aviators of the 19th century, the mere conception of powered flight was not enough. Humankind has almost certainly always dreamed of flight and probably has had some notion of the importance of wings to that effort. Thousands of years of recorded history passed without success in flight. No, rational design efforts began when the principles of flight were developed, when the Magnus effect—the ability of circulation around an airfoil to create lift—was understood, and when these principles were associated with airfoils, angle of attack, and the other necessities of flight. Then and only then was a deliberate effort to create powered flight successful.