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Re-Building the Wright Flyer
Isaac-Lew writes: "Several teams are trying to build a working replica of the first Wright Brothers' airplane." As the article says, "The catch is: Each team wants its plane to fly more or less as the Wrights' did." The only problem with that is that as Orville Wright put it, their plane was "exceedingly erratic," so the recreators have made some slight concessions to safety.
You're comparing apples and oranges -- The Wright brothers made the first powered flight WITHOUT a "lighter-than-air" technology. Previously all succesful flights had been made using ballons, dirigibles, etc.
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At least what they said. No one have a single proff of it besides their word. I'm not saying they didn't it, but scientifically speaking, it was not audited and could not be reproductible so it's not science, it's speculation. Santos Dumont flight was seen by hundreds of people, have photographs, film and so on, was reproduced lots of times and was the real base for the comercial aviation as we all know. I agree that other technologies came first (balloons, dirigibles, etc), but Santos Dumont was the real thing to be consistently called a powered flying machine. But they all add their insights to the work of one man, Leonardo da Vinci, the real genius behind lots of our inventions: Parachute, Helicopter, Delta Wing, etc.
No, they werent.
Santos Dumont was the first to accomplish a full flight. It took off alone and it landed. The wrights only got some seconds in the air, and this because they were thrown with the help of a machine
You may check that with any history teacher.
But why some people (eg. the americans) dont give him the credits is a whole other story.