Slashdot Mirror
Kiwi Flight Before the Wright Brothers?
houseofmore writes "The Toronto Star is is reporting that New Zealander Richard Pearse may have very well made several flights beginning almost nine months before the Wright Brothers ever got off the ground. It also notes that "Mad Pearse's" machine was in some ways more advanced than the first Wright Flyer."
first landing!!! after their 12 second flight?
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
From the article: ... funny country>
:)
"New Zealand is still a young country and it's a
Good stuff. Makes me want to go visit.
Sig.i>
This is news.
Everywhere else, it's history.
(This
With a handle like that, one would imagine he may have been famous for something else...
I will never forgive you for such a horrible display of attempted first post. You are truly a loser and always will be.
YOU FAIL IT
This has been repeated time and time again for years, it's just that most Americans are simply in the dark of the fact. Those historians that do realise it don't really mention it much.
Patriotism simply gets in the way of the truth sometimes. It's an unfortunate side-effect of human nature.
Well considering the news happened over 100 years ago, slashdot is offering timely news as usual.
Richard Pearse: FIRST FLYER
Famous New Zealanders - Richard Pearse
And a sidenote from an article in Time magazine:
Big deal if he might or might not have flown first. When the brothers Wright, they gained the publicity needed to spur greater innovation in avionics. So it doesn't matter that he did it first, as he didn't didn't influence anyone important enough (like the Wright brothers did with the military). Interestigly enough, the article talks about how Pearse's aircraft was more 'modern', as it had ailerons for steering as opposed to the wing warping of the Wrights' craft. But isn't the aerospace industry trying to use wing warping technology in the next generation of aircraft? Kudos to the man if he actually did make a flying machine, that's no small task, but there's no real point to revise history for someone with so little impact.
"Mad Pearse," also known as "Bamboo Dick" for his building material of choice...
The first thing I thought of was OUCH!!!
man
No manual entry for
Are you suggesting that New Zealand is in Africa, you really should look at an atlas one of these days. Oh and by the way "call me a racist, but I swear I'm not" is a sure sign that you are going to be both racist and ignorant.
It's just too bad you didn't read the article. Of course it's powered flight.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
A quote from the article, "Dr. Peter Jakab, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground. "But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."
Newspapers need to have stories like this occassionally. Therefore, Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare, and this guy flew first.
If he actually did, well, tough. Inventions and discoveries often happen contemporaneously. One of them gets the credit, and the others peddle paranoid theories.
I see what you're saying!
IF we start to believe that the Wright Brothers weren't the first to conduct a powered, controlled flight then the terrorists have already won. Won't somebody PLEASE think of the childeren!
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
From the article:
The engine in Pearse's plane was considerably lighter than the Wrights' engine.
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
In Soviet Russia, everyone gets first post!!!
"The engine in Pearse's plane was considerably lighter than the Wrights' engine."
ummm.....
I don't know what your definition of powered is
that New Zealand can make Slashdot news two days in a row.. with LOTR-TTT and this. But really, this is older than the hills of Hobbiton. Down these parts, its well accepted that Pearce took the first flight. But no-one in the 'outside' world new about it.. until well after the Wright's made the irectractable headlines. No big deal tho huh ?
this is not a flawless plan.. this is inspiration
it was a kiwi whom flew first, just as it were a kiwi whom made the first pavolva :p
How about:
I'm not a racist but I play one on TV.
Is that a sure sign of being racist?
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
sigh... this is common knowledge here in NZ, and has been for many many years.
<flamebait>but we're used to the americans taking the credit for everything </flamebait>
Imagine... building such a machine from scratch, with hardly any prior experience to build upon. According to the article he had to figure out and build everything himself up to the engine and the prop. Then... climbing into that thing and actually flying it. Remember, this guy didn't attend flight school first.
Anyway, here's a picture of the replica and a lot more info.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
From the article:
Dr. Peter Jakab, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground. "But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."
I'll make myself more clear next time, I guess.
Sig.i>
...but that doesn't make him Wright.
I, D+iz+a+n+k+Meister, would like to congratulate james3v on a 4:20 post. Good work. /. is now a better place. I would now like to swear my allegiance to the 4:20 post and abandon the IN SOVIET RUSSIA post. In closing, I would like to end with my original .sig:
"God put this here for you and me. Take advantage man. Take advantage."--Smokey
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
As another post already mentioned, this story has been around a long while. It is even incorporated into Peter Jackson's fake documentary, "Forgotten Silver". Made for NZ television, it's about a mythical filmmaker named Colin McKenzie who supposedly pioneered all sorts of things like color film, etc. Along the way, he happened to film Pearse's flight. The movie shows the recently 'dicovered' footage, and does such a good job of it that a large number of viewers took it as real, and then got very mad at Mr Jackson when he pointed out it was false. Happily, New Zealanders now seem to be quite keen on him again, what with the success of that Lords and Rings movie. "Forgotten Silver" is on DVD, and you should check it out.
And in a few months, I get to travel to NZ again...hooray!
Cheers, Mike V.
The first human piloted powered flight was made by the frenchman clement ADER in august 1890.
Stop believing the USA propaganda.
The wright brother haver made the first flight yeah, the first flight in the USA...
NINJA
Wow.... funny thing is your actually WRONG WRONG WRONG! Check out this link, you ignorant ass.
Too late. The history is already written.
What I am trying to say that the Wrights have made too much of an impact for people to change their knowledge, even if this turns out to be correct.
An American inventor named Gustave Whitehead allegedly flew in Aug 1901. Here's a site that explains more of his story. BTW, my ex-girlfriend's parents own the land where the Wright Brothers had their shop (now a hotel), so I'm practically an expert on the matter.
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~stwright/WrBr/inventors/Li lienthal.html
For that matter the Wrights themselves flew long before they 'flew.' In gliders rather than powered planes.
Pearse's plane seems to have been something more than a mere glider, but less than a true airplane, which the article in question seems to say Pearse himself fully realized.
What perhaps Pearse didn't realize is that the Wrights were no more 'schooled' then he was, one of the facts that led many to deny the Wrights had actually flown. I mean really, just who were these upstart bicycle mechanics from *Ohio* who claimed to have accomplished that which those who the world acknowledged as having the best engineering minds had failed at, time and again?
Unlike Pearse though, the Wrights were highly scientifc and methodical in their approach. Taking every step slowly. Testing, testing, and then testing some more. Working up the final product in careful measured steps.
The true legacy of the Wrights wasn't the first flight. Just as Tesla left little for anyone else to do other than refinement in the world of electricity, the Wrights left little for others to do in the theoretical field of subsonic aeronautics. Some of their theoretical principles were so advanced that they weren't commonly accepted as true until after WWII.
It doesn't really matter who 'flew' first. The Wrights gave us the *field* of flight.
All that having been said Pearse certainly sounds like the sort of 'loon' I could spend a happy lifetime hanging out with.
KFG
Other people had glided before, but no one had powered themselves off of the ground.
Erm, yes they had.
Do a google on
"John Stringfellow"
"Clément Ader"
"Gustav Albin Weißkopf"
All of whom flew before both Richard Pearse and the Wright brothers.
The history of why the Wright Brothers are considered to be the first is almost as interesting as the history of aviation. For instance, this sounds plausible:
Dr. Peter Jakab, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground. "But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."
But as the Smithsonian can keep hold of the Wright Flyer only as long as the Smithsonian never claim that somebody else got there first, one has to say Dr. Jakab isn't exactly impartial.
If you ask me who was first is irrelivant. It was an idea whose time had come.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
The Wrights were not stupid. They realized the importance of what they were doing and made sure that their efforts would be documented. As the above quote demonstrates, this documentation is what led them to fame and fortune.
In today's competitive marketplace, it is not enough to be a "geek" with a dream. Different people have different kinds of expertise, and one asset any inventor or entrepeneur needs is a good marketing department, one that will see that the right information gets out to the right market segments, ensuring success for all.
Microsoft, RSA, eBay, the tech world is full of companies whose founders had the foresight to recruit and work closely with top talent from the management, financial, and marketing communitites.
So remember the lesson of "Bamboo Dick" Pearse the next time you want to curse out some "marketroid" who doesn't have the same comfort levels around technology as you. His department might be the only thing that keeps your company from joining the long, long list of good business ideas that didn't quite work out.
Heres some more stuff:
Richard Pearse - Features some really cool pics of his aeroplane
Richard Pearse, Aviator - Features a cool VRML 3d model of his flying machine. Remember VRML? Also has some dimensioned drafts.
Richard Pearse - New Zealand Pioneer Aviator - IT's got soem schematics and descriptions of the engine he used.
Lots more cool stuff available out there if you feel like looking.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
This guy was not the only one. Take Clément Ader, for instance. He managed a flight of 50 meters in 1890 in a steam-powered bat-like aeroplane, but with the wrong technology, one that forbade improvements, when the Wrights gave the right direction (and came at the right time, too).
Behold, the Russian flying machine, circa 1904.
The credit (or lack thereof) given to the inventor or discoverer throughout history has always been to the one that speaks loudest to the commons. We all know the debate that Columbus did not "discover" America, as there were plenty of people there first.
A lesser known example but just as true is was the fight between Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray over who invented the telephone (Google other resources). In that battle, Bell filed a patent and Gray filed his caveat (intent to file a patent) the same day.
Sadly, we all too commonly think that a "single" person or firm must have invented something, while others often have inventions that predate them. It's no wonder the patent office is getting confused (although they really should try cutting down on the duplicates).
Yet again another claim to prior art in a world stuck on 'One-up-manship'.
This is obviously related to NASA's celebration (along with the rest of us Americans) of the centennial of flight, as measured in years from the first Wright Brothers flight. Reminds me of the other stories of the italian fellow who did radio first and the british fellow who did a version of television first.
Here in America we also celebrate Independence Day on the 4rth of July (unlike many other countries), we consider Ford's Model T to be the first car (we all know it wasn't), we take credit for baseball (a derivative of cricket and many other earlier games)and claim a lot of other national achievements which are just that, American 'achievements'.
What we don't do is tell the rest of the world to celebrate these individuals or events along with us in the same way that we, as a nation, don't celebrate French holidays or Chinese new year, unless it's out of personal regard.
You can argue that we attempt to force our events and holidays down the world's throat via media, etc. but that is all subjective. An example is MY birthday. It's important to me and my friends and family but you probably don't care too much. Now if I was a celebrity you might pay attention for entertainment's sake but that's your choice.
None of these people, Wright Brothers, this Australian fellow or any of the people I mention or who were involved in the events mentioned asked for your attention. They did what they did because they wanted to achieve their goals. Who's on First? Who cares! If you think the person is interesting and should be celebrated for their achievement then do so.
It's all subjective in the end so do what you think is best, give credit based on your own views and let others do the same.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I live a few tens of kilometres from the site of the flight -- Pearse is something of a local celebrity/historical figure, some (funny) pictures including an impression of the original plane.
:).
A replica of his plane is on display in our local museum, sadly it's not online but it's mentioned at the bottom of this article, with the original at the Museum of Transport in Auckland (NZ's largest city, at the top of the North Island, we're in the middle of the South Island's east coast).
As the article states it's hard to verify his accomplishments, and for that reason I believe that the Wright brothers will hold their record for a while unless any stunning new evidence arises. Still, good on Pearse, one of aviation's original hackers
I thought that this guy, Gustave Whitehead, made a test run 2 years before the Wright Brothers, in Bridgeport, Connecticut (where I was born)...
I recall that when a similar topic came up in regards to a Weisskopf who supposedly made flights before the Wright brothers that the Smithsonian who now owns the Wright plane signed a contract that they would never aknowledge any other person having made a flight prior to the Wright bothers, whatever evidence might turn up at some point.
-t
Hehe, as a Kiwi who got to visit the Air and Space Museum a couple of months ago, it was interesting to see what coverage Pearse got. I think in the whole exhibition he got one sentence, something along the lines of 'developed and patented some "novel" techniques'. Americans really don't know how to give anyone credit who isn't an American.
I can assure you it was not the New Zealander nor the silly Americans. It is well known that man was able to fly thousands of years ago.
Don't forget Otto Lilienthal, who is considered the father of gliding. He did lots of experiments with a sort of hangglider in Germany, some 10 years before the Wright Bro's.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Here!
Does this mean the Wright brothers' patent may have been invalid? Their aggressive efforts to enforce their patent is said to have seriously delayed development of aviation by others up to WWI. As I understand it the government had to step in to force them to license the patent at reasonable royalties in WWI, and this marked the true beginning of modern aviation.
One Bamboo Dick to rule them all!!
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
...but I don't let childish nationalistic, patriotic gibberish blind me: Richard Pearce did not achieve powered flight before the Wright brothers. As many others have pointed out, he flew a glider into a ravine, and not even very well -- he crashed.
BTW, my ex-girlfriend's parents own the land where the Wright Brothers had their shop (now a hotel), so I'm practically an expert on the matter.
My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend knows this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass-out at 31 Flavors last night and who's parent's own the patent office that Einstein worked at, so if you have any questions about the theory of relativity I'm practically an expert on the matter.
Alberto Santos Dumont was born July 20, 1873, in the village of Cabangu, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. At the age of 18, Santos Dumont was sent by his father to Paris where he devoted his time to the study of chemistry, physics, astronomy and mechanics. His first spherical balloon, "Brasil," ordered from Maison LaChambre, with the capacity of 113 cubic meters, capable of lifting a ballast of 114.4 lbs, and having in its lower part a wicker basket, made its first ascension in Paris on July 4th, 1898. His second balloon, "America," had 500 cubic meters of capacity and gave Santos Dumont the Aero Club of Paris' award to study the atmospheric currents. Twelve balloons had participated in this competition but "America" reached a greater altitude and remained in the air for 22 hours.
Putting aside the aerostation, he began to devote himself towards solving the problem of steering the balloons. His first steered balloon, "Santos Dumont no. 1," ascended on September 18th 1898. Balloons "Santos Dumont no. 2," which wasn't successful, and "Santos Dumont no. 3," built at the Vaugurand workshop, followed. "Santos Dumont no. 3" ascended on November 13th, 1890. It circled a few times the Eiffel Tower, headed to the Park and from there finally headed towards the Bagatelle field where it landed flawlessly.
In view of the success of no. 3 balloon, the Aero Club of France was founded and Mr. Deutsch de La Meurt instituted the "Deutsch Prize" to be awarded to the balloonist who, taking off from Saint-Cloud, circumnavigated the Eiffel Tower and returned to the starting point in less than thirty minutes. This prize was conquered by Santos Dumont on October 19th, 1901, with dirigible no. 6. Besides this prize, Santos Dumont received the sum of 100,000 francs which he distributed in equal parts to his workers and the beggars of Paris.
Dirigibles nos. 7, 8, and 9 followed. With the latter, on July 4th, 1903, Santos Dumont maneuvered over Longchamps, where a military parade was being held in commemoration of Bastille capture.
Once he solved the problem of steering the lighter-than-air vehicle, Santos Dumont devoted himself to the heavier-than-air problem. Aboard the 14-BIS he made his first unsuccessfull attempt in July, 1906. On September 7th, the 14-BIS wheels left the ground for a moment; on the 13th it could reach the height of one meter; on October 23rd, the airplane flew 50 meters. It was on November 12th, 1906 that Santos Dumont's airplane, the 14-BIS, flew a distance of 220 meters at the height of 6 meters and at the speed of 37,358 km/h. Thanks to this flight the "Archdecon Prize" was awarded to Santos Dumont, who had thus, solved the problem of making a heavier-than-air machine take off by its own means.
Santos Dumont died on July 23rd, 1932, in Brazil. According to the law no. 165 of December 5th, 1947, enacted by the National Congress of Brazil and sanctioned by His Excellency President Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Alberto Santos Dumont was permanently listed in the Brazilian Air Ministry Almanac with the rank of Lieutenant Brigadier. He was promoted to the Honorary rank of Air Marshall on September 22, 1955, according to the law no. 3636, and is permanently listed in the Brazilian Air Ministry Almanac.
i think that USA is the only country whose textbooks still report (erroneously) that Wright Bros. were the first to achieve heavier-than-air manned flight. In Brazil, the truth has been known since the event itself. I think USA is ignorant about many things.
"BTW, my ex-girlfriend's parents own the land where the Wright Brothers had their shop (now a hotel), so I'm practically an expert on the matter."
Yep, that makes sense alright.
That was classic intercourse!
Urmm... maybe it's just me, but there is a big difference between Americans celebrating French holidays and spoofing facts in your children's history books.
And if you don't think you celebrate the Chinese new year, you've obviously not spent any time in San Fransisco or Manhattan... for a start.
The first manned flight was performed by George Cayley in 1799, nearly a hundred years before the Wright Brothers where even born.
Cayley are also discovered the theory of flight
Maybe someone "flew" before the Wright Brothers, but they never recorded their results, much less reproduced them.
Not only did the Wright's reproduce their results, they modeled their experiments in wind tunnels and engineered their aircraft. Thus, they had data about the lift, weight and propulsion they planned to test.
With that data and their experiments, they improved upon their results. In the process, they formed a company that had a viable -- if ultimately unsucessful -- business model. Their business failure was only an inability to adapt to businesses that were more adept at improving upon their proven technology. These businesses were global in aspect; Curtis, Bleriot's monoplane Fokker, etc.
This debate has been covered for many years; by the standard of controlled, reproducable results, the Wrights were the first. We went through much of the same debate during the 75th anniversary, but those who forget history are condemned to relive it.
[http://educate.si.edu/scitech/impacto/Text2/aviat ion/alberto.html]
Highlights in Aviation:
Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazil
Alberto Santos Dumont was born July 20, 1873, in the village of Cabangu, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. At the age of 18, Santos Dumont was sent by his father to Paris where he devoted his time to the study of chemistry, physics, astronomy and mechanics. His first spherical balloon, "Brasil," ordered from Maison LaChambre, with the capacity of 113 cubic meters, capable of lifting a ballast of 114.4 lbs, and having in its lower part a wicker basket, made its first ascension in Paris on July 4th, 1898. His second balloon, "America," had 500 cubic meters of capacity and gave Santos Dumont the Aero Club of Paris' award to study the atmospheric currents. Twelve balloons had participated in this competition but "America" reached a greater altitude and remained in the air for 22 hours.
Putting aside the aerostation, he began to devote himself towards solving the problem of steering the balloons. His first steered balloon, "Santos Dumont no. 1," ascended on September 18th 1898. Balloons "Santos Dumont no. 2," which wasn't successful, and "Santos Dumont no. 3," built at the Vaugurand workshop, followed. "Santos Dumont no. 3" ascended on November 13th, 1890. It circled a few times the Eiffel Tower, headed to the Park and from there finally headed towards the Bagatelle field where it landed flawlessly.
In view of the success of no. 3 balloon, the Aero Club of France was founded and Mr. Deutsch de La Meurt instituted the "Deutsch Prize" to be awarded to the balloonist who, taking off from Saint-Cloud, circumnavigated the Eiffel Tower and returned to the starting point in less than thirty minutes. This prize was conquered by Santos Dumont on October 19th, 1901, with dirigible no. 6. Besides this prize, Santos Dumont received the sum of 100,000 francs which he distributed in equal parts to his workers and the beggars of Paris.
Dirigibles nos. 7, 8, and 9 followed. With the latter, on July 4th, 1903, Santos Dumont maneuvered over Longchamps, where a military parade was being held in commemoration of Bastille capture.
Once he solved the problem of steering the lighter-than-air vehicle, Santos Dumont devoted himself to the heavier-than-air problem. Aboard the 14-BIS he made his first unsuccessfull attempt in July, 1906. On September 7th, the 14-BIS wheels left the ground for a moment; on the 13th it could reach the height of one meter; on October 23rd, the airplane flew 50 meters. It was on November 12th, 1906 that Santos Dumont's airplane, the 14-BIS, flew a distance of 220 meters at the height of 6 meters and at the speed of 37,358 km/h. Thanks to this flight the "Archdecon Prize" was awarded to Santos Dumont, who had thus, solved the problem of making a heavier-than-air machine take off by its own means.
Santos Dumont died on July 23rd, 1932, in Brazil. According to the law no. 165 of December 5th, 1947, enacted by the National Congress of Brazil and sanctioned by His Excellency President Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Alberto Santos Dumont was permanently listed in the Brazilian Air Ministry Almanac with the rank of Lieutenant Brigadier. He was promoted to the Honorary rank of Air Marshall on September 22, 1955, according to the law no. 3636, and is permanently listed in the Brazilian Air Ministry Almanac.
"There's nothing but a handful of informally collected eyewitness accounts to confirm Pearse's first flight"
"And I swear officer, I saw a dozen lights flying through the sky and one landed near me! This little grey man with huge eyes stepped out...."
Too bad every last one of the records of this alien abd-- er, historic flight were lost or destroyed.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I agree with you that inventions often are made by different people at about the same time. As another poster said, the idea was out, time was ready for flight. I also agree with you that the one who loses the fight for recognition often comes off as a paranoid loon.
But there is an important aspect of international politics here too. Being able to claim that your nation is the 'inventor' of aviation is a powerful tool of propaganda. Maybe not alone, but along with several other claims of invention, you would make your nation look intellectually superior to others. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and would probably give the inhabitants in that country greater confidence in themselves and their abilties or opportunities as inventors, thus spurring new inventions.
I perfectly understand why one would resort to this type of propaganda, but it is nevertheless still propaganda. Even if you or I don't care much what country really 'invented' aviation, somebody appearantly care enough to, if not falsify, then certainly to bend history to fit their means.
Even if in this particular case, the Wright brothers turn out to be the real 'inventors', there are plenty of other interesting examples out there (like Edison vs. Swan).
Patriotism is no excuse for ignorance
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
but the terrorists HAVE already won
you ARE terrified
That was classic intercourse!
Well, it's a thing called national pride, you know.
Stick photos and real hard evidence into this guys face. Show him that a replica of the actual craft really does work. He will still deny the Wrights weren't the first ones.
Not saying that Wrights weren't the first. Who knows? Really, who cares? Two to three guys claiming they were first in a span of about five years only shows that technology had evlolved far enough for self propelled aircrafts to become a reality.
They were bound to be invented, just a matter of time. If the brothers hadn't been there someone else would have done it in a couple of months.
---
The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
are flightless, any fool knows that!
What do you mean RTFA?
That was classic intercourse!
The Wrights developed the very first theory of propellors, and theirs was 70% efficient. Quite remarkable. The Wrights built their own engine from scratch, did not employ skilled engineers for their first airplane, and devised the first wind tunnel to test airfoil sections. The Wrights did make a survey of all available information on building airplanes, and found what little existed to be totally wrong (such as Lilienthal's data). They did what was likely the first modern R&D program (building successive prototypes, each building on the results from the previous, all targetted at powered flight). The Wrights did it all from scratch.
Waikato University's media school has some good resources regarding the Forgotten Silver documentary.
We all know the Vikings discovered New Zealand hundreds of years before these so called 'New Zealanders'
God what a relief, almost every time there is some claim about someone inventing something or other first, light bulb, public key cryptography, whatever.. we get claims that a Brit invented it first. As a Brit I find this intensely irritating. Who gives a flying fuck ? We all know America is Number 1 when it comes to self promoting propoganda. This is far more useful in the long run than inventing miscellaneous bits of modern technology. The British used to be pretty good at this too, but we lost it. When people [especially ourselves] stopped believing our propoganda, the empire evaporated immediately. Please stop rubbing our noses in it with these "XXX really invented by YYYY" stories. This time it's a New Zealander... phew [although I'm sure there was some Argentinian who flew before Wright brothers mentioned a few years back].
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Could this be North Carolina's next license plate slogan?
Then he'd be known as an Australian.
Anything good to come out of NZ is claimed as Aussie.
In regards to history, still relative. History has never been based on so called facts. I'm the first to agree that the drivel we pass off as American history is given to our children as 'fact'.
In regards to Chinese new year, well I did say it is a matter of personal regard. Yes America is multi-cultural but as a nation we do not celebrate other nation's holidays (grain of salt).
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Apparently the boyfriend of the fitness instructor of the wife of the Prime Minister of the UK is a bit dodgy.
Never mind that twenty suitcase nukes have been confirmed missing from soviet times, north korea has been selling missiles to yemen, the EU has decided to admit ten new countries. The big news is that some Australian con-man is good at negotiating real-estate deals... Sheesh!
beowulf of these!
but wait..
isn't that called flight squadron.. rats
BTW, my ex-girlfriend's parents own the land where the Wright Brothers had their shop (now a hotel), so I'm practically an expert on the matter.
Damn, no moderation points left. Otherwise I'd give you an +1 informative, +1 insightful and +1 interesting.
Clement Ader made a short flight in november 1890 :
http://www.flyingmachines.org/ader.html
I not saying that they'd shade the truth, but they definitely have an agenda in this matter.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
They have photos of the flight:
of the plane:
and of the man itself:
yes, he also is santa claus.
(there even is groundshaking video footage of this historical event)
Well when I was at university, a girl staying in my hostel said she had her great-aunts diary in which she talks about witnessing one of Pearse's flights. Perhaps that might be useful.
was the first to fly..ok.. BUT, we all forget Leonardo Da Vinci and his flying machine.
We should rephrase and specify that the kiwi/wright brothers are the first documented modern flight personalities. Old epics such as the Mahabharatha and Ramayana (which countries like India,Sri Lanka and Indonesia believe in) have records of flying vehicles.
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
Dr. Peter Jakab, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground. "But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."
:
t m
This looks like revisionist History to me and searching around uncovered this
"Neither the Smithsonian Institution or its successors, nor any museum or other agency, bureau or facilities administered for the United States of America by the Smithsonian Institution or its successors shall publish or permit to be displayed a statement or label in connection with or in respect of any aircraft model or design of earlier date than the Wright Aeroplane of 1903, claiming in effect that such aircraft was capable of carrying a man under its own power in controlled flight."
http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/pearse/smithsonian.h
Add the fact George Carley's first flight predated the Wright Brothers by a hundred years.
To be fair, the Wrights didn't build the engine.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
...it won't change history. After all, it's pretty damn historically obvious that Columbus was NOT the one to "discover" America first, yet you americans insist on promoting and celebrating this myth every single year.
When it comes down to history versus dogma, dogma wins every time.
I hate conspiracy theorists that can't think straight.
First of all, if anyone had flown, they would have gotten widespread attention, as the Wright brothers did. A dozen people saying they witnessed the first flight, but not saying anything for years, just makes no sense at all. That would be like someone having made the trans-atlantic flight before Lindberg, but not telling anybody about it... It's a ridiculous assertion.
But more to the point, let's say someone flew before the Wright brothers... Let's go to extremes an say the Mayans had the technology to build jumbo jets. What does that mean? NOTHING. The Wright brothers' flight wasn't just an interesting outting... it was the spark the led to our modern world of aviation. None of the previous tales of flights led to anything but a handful of books and videos to make some money off the gullible.
If you had even the slightest bit of proof that you'd flown before them, you wouldn't be sitting in a bar, telling your story to uninterested passers-by... You'd have gone to court right away, looking to get some of the money from the brothers' patents. But back then, decades hadn't passed, so there would still be evidence that could be investigated. Convenient that all theses incredible stories aren't brought to light until after there is no evidence left to investigate...
As for witnesses... give me a few days and I'll have hundreds of people swearing that they watched me levitate, and fly around hundreds of feet off the ground.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
There are lots of aircraft pioneers forgoten. Have you guys ever heard about Traian Vuia or Henri Coanda? If not: http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/coanda.htm http://www.cpcug.org/user/stefan/vuia.html
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
yeah, eat a dick you fat wanker! oink oink! stupid americans.
Are you really? Or did someone else beat you to it? ;-)
Money for nothing, pix for free
John Stringfellow flew a powered craft inside a warehouse in Chard, Somerset, decades before the Wright brothers thought about flying. Unlike the Wright brothers he had no PR and wasn't resident in an insular country, prone to false hyperbole.
I think "accuracy" might be a good reason to change it. WTF are you thinking?? We should all 'educate' our future generations with inaccurate BS? Come on man. That's a very American thing to suggest. No offense if you're not actually one of them.
That's Bamboo Dick, dumbass.
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
That down in that part of the world, the Bendex Gyrocopter was the first flying machine!
New Zealand is in Africa? Darn! No wonder I failed my Geography exam!
"But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."
Let me see , powered, glider and flying. This seems to fit the definition of a plane to me...is this joker at the Smithsonian a complete ass or what? Apparently there is some false "national" pride working here. Not science.
Every invention seems to be "discovered" by many unrelated people at same time. Here in Brazil and France we recognize as the airplane inventor Alberto Santos Dumont. He flew a machine named 14-Bis at Paris on the 23rd/oct/1906 in front of the public (AFAIK the Wright brothers flew in front a selected audience, not a public demonstration).
o s/1906/WR9G1.htm
A 14-bis picture can be seen here http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Br
it looks today as it was made "backwards" as the sustentation wings are in back part of the plane.
The 14-bis also is recognized as the first motorized airplane, it used a 50hp motor to fly, the flying machine from the Wright brothers was more like a glider.
Okay, this has been puzzling me for a long time. Seems like a great place to settle it.
Is the term "Kiwi" an endearment or a perjorative? If I'm sitting in a bar with a New Zealander and call him a "Kiwi" -- am I gonna get a barley shampoo? Is it a term they use to refer to themselves? Or, is it more of an Aussie thing?
thanks! bleh... I've been bested at my own game....
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
BTW, my ex-girlfriend's parents own the land where the Wright Brothers had their shop (now a hotel), so I'm practically an expert on the matter.
Shit , another appeal to authority logic fallicy! Where is Copi when we need him? My ex-girlfriends parents? Is that not exactly like a friend of a friend of a friend who heard a rumor about.....total strangers. Was she really tight, or merely a platonic girlfriend?
Dr. Peter Jakab, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground. "But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."
What exactly does this guy consider powered flight.
According to the article, this guy flew 140 meters (as opposed to the Wright brothers 36.6 meters). He also had elements that would not appear in US aircraft for another 20 years (such as the 3-wheeled landing gear).
And I don't know about others, but I would still consider a glider an aircraft. Especially if its a prop driven craft, with single wing, decent landing gear (even if it did not get used often), and aileron steering.
I get the feeling that there has to be an american flag on the side, or at least an american pilot before it can be considered 'Powered Flight' by the Smithsonian. Yet another uncredited first buried because it was not an american that did it.
And before you call me an 'anti-american foreigner', I'm an American too, but I believe the truth is more important than patriotism. Even if its not what you want to hear.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/12/15/bismarc k.sinking/index.html
The brits have always claimed to of sunk the bismark, but now historians are saying it sank by sabotage from within. "Oh jolly golly we bloody well did sink the bismark you know and I dare you to consider otherwise".
Are historians now just trying to generate revenue by bringing to light chapters in history and creating a controversy?
Clement Ader made a flight before for the French military in 1897. Ader made a public flight in 1890.
Lot's of men flew lots of vehicles before the wright brothers. None of this is a surprise. What they achieved was a new thrust-to-weight ratio with their new engine - making their aircraft much more practical.
Heck, the head of the Smithsonian at the time (Langley) demo'd flying machines - but they used steam engines, IIRC.
Clear, Dark Skies
We are always first.
Anyone who beat us is not important.
As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the Wright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure out how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on Wilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual organs!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result, birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost never see an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up and stand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversations with their feet. When they find a conversation in which people are talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are both highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant.
-- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know"
1 - NZ isn't in Africa. It's on Oceania, near Australia.
2 - Alberto Santos Dummont was the first man to really fly, in Paris. Before a heavy crowed park, winning an international prize for his feat. Also, his is the first DOCUMENTED flight, and his creations ( like flaps, for instance ) are the only ones used today in the modern aircraft industry.
Only the US credit the Wright Brothers for the invention of aircrafts, as the rest of the world credits Santos Dummont, who also invented the wrist watch ( which was first produced by Cartier and known as the Santos Dummont wrist watch ) and the shower:) All proofs of Dummonts work are now held in Paris ( Aerospace Museum I think ), and it was the first successfull documented airplane flight experiement, and the only one people base modern flight techniques on. Dummont went back to Brazil after the start of WWI, and when informed his creation was being used in the war, tried to commit suicide in the ship. After arriving, he led a reclusive live in Petropolis, Brazil, shattered by the idea of creating a weapon of great destruction. Thank God he didn't live to see a plane dropping the first nuclear bomb.
Sources? Take Scientific American for example, but it's something any kid in any country outside north america knows. Ask any Brazilian, french or ittalian kid for example. But if you still want to believe every important invention in the world was of american origin, just go ahead. It's almost Xmas anyway and you also probrably believe Santa will climb your roof and leave you a sock full of gifts:)
PS: This is not a direct answer to Anonymous Coward, but let's just drop the subject. A Brazilian priest is known of doing Radio experiments before Marconi, but he didn't invent it. Why? No documentations of the procedures, techniques and of the fact itself.
Before going off on some ill-conceived rant about the evils of stolen credit, bear that simple concept in mind. Thousands of people could have flown before the Wright Bros., but if their having done so leads us to where we are today, then they become more important to history, the others become curious footnotes. It happens all the time. You don't have to read much to run across other instances of this. Don't get too bothered by it. There isn't some evil conspiracy at work.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Since all involved, and their companies, are long gone I don't see what difference it would make.
Just as with radio, it doesn't matter now who made it first. The determination came late enough that it never made any financial difference to Tesla or his estate and never changed anything in the history books. The same would be true of powered flight.
It might make a difference in national pride. But I don't think it would decrease the Americans pride much. And, from the sounds of the article, I'm not sure the kiwi's would buy into the whole thing anyway. Even with proof.
Kiwi's, god love 'em, are like that.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
It lies in this technicality. They were the first to take off under their own power from an altitude equal or less than the spot that they landed from.
Pearce's flights are described as being made from a hill, landing in a spot near a creek at a lower elevation.
People had been gliding for years before the Wright's. People built much better gliders then the Wright Flyer. Glenn Curtis built a great plane very shortly after the Wrights. While the Wrights stored their plane for 4 years after the 17th Dec 1903... Trying to lock down patents on it. The fact however remains that by the majority of serious aeronautical engineers they are the birth of the age of powered flight.
Patriotism... maybe a little... but spliting hairs is much more of an apt description... I for one think that it's a valid distinction.
But unlike all the other claimants, the Wright Brothers did a lot of serious scientific research into flight before they finally got it to work on 17 December 1903.
You are forgetting they used wind tunnels to test flight characteristics on scale models, something that I don't think anyone else had. It's an idea so scientifically sound that even today aerodynamicists use wind tunnels to test airplane shapes even with access to modern supercomputers that can study aerodynamic shapes with computational fluid dynamics.
The flight in 1903 was the first powered flight.
The achievement of the Wright's was that they took a scientific approach to the problem of flight (eg. they invented the wind tunnel in the process) and that they were the ones who actually figured out how to control an airplane in flight.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Funny you should mention the light bulb. Sir Hiram Maxim has a claim to not only having been the first to fly, but also patented a form of light-bulb in 1878! On July 31, 1894, Maxim's steam-powered aircraft flew around 200 feet.
Maxim was most famous for the Maxim machine gun. He also built a fairground ride known as "The Captive Flying Machine". One of these is still in use at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Lancashire, and will be celebrating its 100th birthday in 2004.
He was born in Sangersville, Maine in 1840, moving to London in the 1880s. He died in 1916.
You are forgetting they used wind tunnels to test flight characteristics Huh? When did I say that they didn't? I'm certainly not knocking the paintaking research that the Wright brothers did -- Quite the opposite. I was just trying to point out the absurdity of saying that pioneers had to do everything for themselves for the first time. Of course! That's why they're called pioneers.
The greatest achievement of the Wright brothers was not only that they made something that worked, but that they knew why it worked.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The truth was quite different. Various big-money groups like the Smithsonian and the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA), a group founded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1907, tried hard to screw the Wrights, shy and naive mid-western boys, out of all their accomplishments deserved. You can read about it here.
Actually, the Wright Brothers had to design their own engine, since none of the available ones in 1903 had an acceptable power-to-weight ratio.
I read the internet for the articles.
Here, for example, is a collection of essays on the Wright Brothers from the U.S. Centennial of Flights Commission.
Especially good is "Things Are Looking Up", which tells how Orville proved himself to the skeptical French, and
Glenn Curtiss and the Wright Patent Battles, which detail how the Smithsonian and the AEA, a group founded by Alexader Graham Bell, tried to take the fruits of the Wrights' genius.
Actually, there are plenty other sites out there, since the first century of powered flight is coming to a close. Read them all! But don't dis the Wright brothers. Their remarkable accomplishments were just as hard-won as anyone's.
well, afaik iirc idontknowforsure: wright bro's did a lot of pionereering work regarding the actual physics of the plane, and even pearce thought so.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Now what will North Carolinians put on their license plates?
God is real unless declared integer.
Also, everybody took the flags out of their car windows. Clearly this shows the terrorists have won.
Years ago my dad took me to see a replica of the Ezekiel machine, built by a Baptist minister loosely based on a passage in the Bible's book of Ezekiel. Nobody actually knows if the machine ever flew or not, but it's a neat piece of history.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
The french word for "airplane", Avion, was coined by Clément Ader in 1894. Many years before the Wright brothers would turn a propeller.
Honestly I see no purpose to posting this article in the first place. It only provides cause for people to bash each other's country over stupid, pointless things. Is it really that important that we go back almost a century into history to try and re-write it? Is it really neccessary to bash on someone's country just because they don't share your point of view? I'd suggest both sides keep your patriotism to yourselves. Arguing over who flew the first plane is like children arguing over toys. Grow up.
... when his baggage arrives.
Most historians credit the Wright brothers first machine with achieving the "first powered controlled flight from level ground that landed at the same or higher elevation", and thus say it was the first successful aircraft. However, I give greater credence to their later machine, which was the first to fly a circular route and land near the take-off point, and the first to fly a figure-eight course.
Flying a short straight course (as done by the Wright brothers first machine as well as by other claimants to "first flight") does not in my opinion demonstrate that the craft is either controllable or capable of sustained flight. Fying an circle or figure-eight does, and no one except the Wright brothers can claim to be the first achieve that.
I'm an American.
</disclaimer>
Watching all the dicussion's been funny. No one knows who did it first, but they all know the Americans are jingoists because we too claim to be first in flight
Italians claim they did it first.
The French claim they did it first.
Kiwis say "No we did it first!"
Now, Brazilians are piping up.
It seems to me that every country is definining the first successful flight based on whatever small step their pioneer took.
What you guys need to do is get together, come up with a firm list of requirements for what makes a flight The First Flight, figure out who did it, then talk Rupert Murdock into producing a special for his TV stations. This definitely sounds like something Fox Television would show.
Go to Brazil or France, and ask anyone who the first person in flight was and they won't say the Wright Bros. It seems every country has their own claim to fame for the first person in flight. Here in America, we learn that it was the Wright Bros.
It seems this subject is analagous to the same question "What language is the hardest to learn to speak." In America most people say English. In Brazil it's Portuguese.
Go figure...
...had been at Kitty Hawk in ... when was it, 1903? Would he have been in the Wright place at the wrong time?
(I wonder how many Karma points that's going to cost me?)
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Everyone seems to miss the point that his wing shape is not the 'proper' wing shape. Wrights got the wing right (similar to the wing shape of today's aircraft,... the wing that creates lift).
Not only did he fly several years before the Wright Brothers, he did so for a longer distance and with far more control. He made several flights that were not only witnessed by many people, but which were also written about and published in Scientific American in 1901. You can read that article and several others on this web page.
Gustave Whitehead was an engineer who built engines for a living. His engine design was far superior to the Wright Brother's. The Wright engine leaked badly, had poor power, and was extremely inefficient. Whitehead's engine was much lighter and built to stricter tolerances. It, and others designed like it, went on to be used by several other aircraft manufacturers.
While the Wright brothers received fame for their flights, mostly through good press and savvy public relations, Gustave Whitehead concentrated on his engine business. He was fairly successful with his business until a prototype helicopter which used several of his engines crashed. He was blamed for the failure and was sued. He lost most of his money and died penniless.
Sapere aude!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
The article is trying to imply ailerons are more advanced than wing warping? Obviously the author doesn't read slashdot. Air Force to Test Aeroelastic Wings
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
Yes and atributing creating the field of Physics to Newton is a bit overestimated. Every scientific discovery is built upon the knowledge of the day. Flight took off after the Wright brothers. That is not just a coincidence.
Q.
LoneStar> "And that makes us..."
Dark Helmet> "Absolutely nothing, which is what you are about to become."
I see "Bamboo Dick's" schwartz is as big as mine.
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
> Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground
The Smithsonian didn't recognise the primacy of the Wrights until 1942. In the meantime the 1903 Flyer had been sent to London's Science Museum by Orville as it would get more credit there. The Flyer was exchanged in 1948, being replaced by a replica in London.
It says so, right on their license plates!
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
and oh yeh, i'm not american, i'm finnish, and there's this finnish 'myth'(as you could say) going around how a finnish inventor invented the helicopter(well, only thing that it lacked few features of sikorskys(?), but so what, patrionatic journalism digs it up every few years..).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It's a wonder that the Wright Brothers were able to take off and not hit any other aircraft, seeing as how almost every other white male in Christendom was up in the air in his own invention before they left the sand.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Newton sent forged letters to the Royal Astronomical Society "proving" that he invented calculus before Liebnitz. Society seems to have forgiven him however.
The mankind originated in Africa. White, Black Grey, Red or Yelolow, we are all the offspring of the African primitive men!
By the way, I am a white person from the Czech Republic.
Cheers, Vlad
It's the same thing. Americans are brought up to be proud of their accomplishments, even if they didn't actually accomplish them. I've heard from many americans who've been taught in schools that the United States won the war of 1812. I've also heard 3 completely different stories about how they got Alaska (one is the American version, one is the Canadian version, and the other is the Soviet version). In Soviet Russia, stories are full of bullshit! Hell, even in Canada, we have the very same problem. The French still claim that the British didn't give them rich eligible women to marry, rather they gave them British whores that had been arrested and deported. Who is honestly surprised that the Americans still believe themselves to have made the first airplane???
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Is this just a question of semantics? Isn't an airplane just a glider with power? The article points out that the Wright plane had better controlled descents, so is the difference in the controllability?
For those who want to pass Pearse's flight off as simply a powered glide this has quite a bit of information including pictures of the area where its claimed Pearse flew. To have flown the distance involved would have taken more than a glide.
The first Wright flyer was assisted into the air by the winds at Kittyhawk. Later Wright Flyers were catapult launched. Even they needed assistance to get in the air...
RedFive jedi_knight111@hotmail.com
Control is essential, or we will have to give the credit to the Chinese for the rocket propelled chairs they tried to make. If control is included in the definition then you can really count out Pearse. If control is not included then give the credit to the Chinese.
Get a free ipod.
And frankly Otto is my personal 'hero' of early flight, not the Wrights.
But the person who noted Newton also has a point.
My personal hero of early physics is Galileo, not Newton. Were it not fot Galileo and Kepler there would have been no Newton, which Newton realized and acknowledged in his famous qoute. Newton is still the one who wrapped the package up and put the pretty little bow on it.
The Wrights too acknowledged the shoulder of the giant they stood upon.
KFG
BTW, I'm from Bridgeport, CT. Often on 95, my friends and I shout "GUSTAV!!" at North Carolinians driving dumb. This happens more than you might expect. We doubt they get it. :-)
9 805/FR 9805e.htm)
There are actually a few problems:
* There are no pictures of any of Whitehead's flying machines. This includes from the Bridgeport Post (now the Connecticut Post), which of all papers should have had one.
(http://www.flug-revue.rotor.com/FRHeft/FRH
** The witness's stories don't jive (time, date, location, etc), and they were only taken down in the 1930s, after Gustav was already dead.
*** My question: Igor Sikorsky was already building planes & helicopters in Stratford/Bridgeport around 1924. Gustav didn't die until 1927. How did these guys never talk to each other and the story get more press???
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Patriotism simply gets in the way of the truth sometimes.
Doesn't this cut equally against the New Zealanders? No one mentions that. The Kiwis are proud of their country, too.
I know the popular int'l image of Americans is jingoists blinded by misguided patriotism, but I would add that there are an awful lot of us very concerned with "getting it right." We've done some really good stuff and some really ungood stuff; let's get it all out on the table.
The frequent repetition of the Pearce story is of no weight; it means the proponents are persistent, not right. The lack of documentation is a big deal not because the event needed some gold seal of approval; rather, it is very unclear what happened -- even to the Pearce proponents.
I find compelling the lack of contemporary evidence, and Pearce's nonpursuit of the first flight crown; indeed IIRC he conceded it was not a controlled flight. The flight most often described ended in a crash after the pilot lost control in midflight, and as a flight instructor I can tell you that is not considered a successful flight. (Although there is a pilot joke that any landing you walk away from is a good landing.) Later flights have been described even less convincingly.
Reality check: Ultimately it does not matter a whit who is right. It's an error of patriotism to be overly proud of the achievements of long-dead people who happened to be of the same nationality. The NZ Pearce boosters share this flaw with the reflexive U.S. Wright defenders. Personally I don't care if it was us or the Kiwis or the Martians. Far more interesting is the contributions made by various individuals to the progress of flight, such as aerodynamic models, ailerons, propellor design, etc. -- not stunts. What is the legacy of Pearce, and of the Wrights (who worked hard to promote aviation; a older guy at my field had his first license signed by a Wright brother). The Americans actually fell behind the Europeans on aircraft development after Kitty Hawk (think Red Baron), a development many times as important to history as the romance of first flight.
(An odd blast from the past is renewed interest in Wright-style wing-warping as method to control fighter aircraft.)
http://www.flyingmachines.org/
The understanding of "first flight" was defined as a heavier-than-air craft, carrying a person, able to take off under its own power and fly a distance that satisfies most skeptics of the day. The feeling was that a flight, starting from level ground and lasting 200+ feet and a few seconds would suffice. Another key to the "first flight" was the ability to control the aircraft during flight. The Wright brothers did a great job of engineering their 1903 Wright Flyer. They took methodical approach to the design and building of their aircraft. They questioned and determined that the coefficient of lift (being used for ~100+ years) was wrong (it should be ~0.33 instead of the accepted 0.5). The Wright brothers definately should be credited with the advancement of powered flight and with the first documented powered flight on Dec. 17, 1903. The Wrights made their first flights powered from level ground but into the strong winds of Kitty Hawk and barely demonstrated controlability with the Wright Flyer (they did demonstrate more controlability with their gliders). The winds gave them quite an advantage. The Wrights didn't fly again until summer 1905. By then their new aircraft required a catapult to get airborne because they did not have a powerful enough engine---hardly meeting the requirement of getting airborne under its own power. This along with their absense from public demonstrations cast a lot of doubt into the Wrights claim and definately delayed the further advancement of aviation (not to mention their greed for a over generalized patent). The first US PUBLIC flight was done by Glenn Curtiss on July 4, 1908. This (a flight over 1 Km in length) won him the first leg of the Scientific American trophey (even though the organizers held out for the Wrights to demonstrate their aircraft in public. Curtiss's plane also incorporated tricycle landing gear and did take off under its own power (it did not require the catapult like the 1905 Wright Flyer). The Wrights were just another group in a long line that led to powered flight and definately deserve credit for taking a systematic approach and demonstrating limited powered flight. Credit to successful powered flight needs not to rest solely on them (as much as the general public believes) but on all the players to include: Chanute, Lilienthal, Curtiss, numerous Europeans, and possibly even Mad Pearce
No, an airplane is not a glider with power (I'm talking about hang-gliders not modern thermal gliders which actually do share technology with airplanes.)
An airplane creates lift by creating a high pressure zone below its wing. This is done by creating more surface area below its wing vs. above and having air move along it (more air will pass above than below creating a high pressure area under its wing.)
A glider creates lift by creating a high pressure zone below its wing. This is done by having a large surface and falling. There are also gliders that create a high pressure area by thermals and of course, flying near a large mountain (ground-effect.)
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
This man invented an airplane and movie player before his time? Maybe he traveled from the future?
Just as an aside, I think Whitehead was German- just an emigre to the US. He anglicised his name from Weiskopf.
The first man that made a fly by it own was my grand-grand-grandfather. On July 13th 1879,when it was making a very good whiskey the distiller blows and he made a fly for over 45 seconds at 123 feet height covering the incredible distance of half a mile... Unfortunatelly the flight was never done again.
Typical American attitude.
I run an ISP down here, and all these refernces to NZ sites are lagging out the US - NZ connection. Our customers are complaining about slow leeching speeds of US porn, Movies and Pirated Software. US is the first/biggest/badest yeah yeah now let us get back to leeching from you.
This is old news. But good to see that the editors are paying attention since they stuffed up the Quantum Physics anniversary
STF
With a first name like Gustave, I wouldn't doubt it, especially from someone who's home page is .
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/article s/view/BB/fbr63.html
An except...
-----------
There are conflicting accounts of what happened next. One says that Brodbeck made his first flight in a field about three miles east of Luckenbach on September 20, 1865. His airship, which featured an enclosed space for the "aeronaut," a water propeller in case of accidental landings on water, a compass, and a barometer, and for which Brodbeck had predicted speeds between 30 and 100 miles per hour, was said to have risen twelve feet in the air and traveled about 100 feet before the springs unwound completely and the machine crashed to the ground. Another account, however, says that the initial flight took place in San Pedro Park, San Antonio, where a bust of Brodbeck was later placed. Yet another account reports that the flight took place in 1868, not 1865. All the accounts agree, however, that Brodbeck's airship was destroyed by its abrupt landing, although the inventor escaped serious injury.
After this setback, his investors refused to put up the money for a second attempt, so he embarked on a fund-raising tour of the United States. His papers were stolen in Michigan, however, and he failed to persuade his audiences to invest in his scheme. Brodbeck returned to Texas and lived on a ranch near Luckenbach until his death, on January 8, 1910, six years after the Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk. No drawings or blueprints of Brodbeck's craft have survived, and his aviation achievements remain shrouded in doubt. He was buried on his farm near Luckenbach.
-----------
Sketchy, granted, but a neat story nonetheless.
I wonder if the Wright Brothers were given credit because of the ability to record their flight. The infrastructure that the U.S. had to record events and to keep a record of them.
Maybe the first powered flight was made by someone from another country? It's possible.
Just because a person isn't American doesn't mean they're stupid or couldn't have flown first.
Too bad he couldn't read/write or he would have published first.
"...it's not what you know, it's how fast you publish." -- Isaac Asimov
Jerry Fletcher,
Privacy Protection By:
http://www.cotse.net/servicedetails.html
I felt the need to comment as there is much misinformation floating about here.
Pearse is well known here in NZ, and there has been quite a bit of research into what he did and did not actually achieve.
He certainly did not have a more advanced aircraft that the Wrights. Whether he actually managed any form of flight before the Wrights is somewhat debatable also. Certainly he managed powered (but uncontrolled) flight around the same time as the Wrights. The Wrights flight was significantly more important however, because they managed fully controlled flight, with controlled takeoff and landing. Pearse, at that time, did not manage such things.
Much of the popular literature about Pearse is largely myth making with regard to how well and when he flew - the facts generally point to the fact that he was really quite behind the Wrights.
Which is not to say he doesn't deserve a lot of credit for a remarkable achievement. This is a man who managed to independently (whether he flew after or not, he didn't copy) develop a workable aircraft in the middle of nowhere - back country New Zealand (near Oamaru I believe it was) was not exactly the height of technological advancement at the time.
We need to remember pioneers like Pearse, but we serve them better if we remember them correctly for what they truly achieved rather than for mythical achievements.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Thank you. I am Indian, reside in India, work in software, and have no desire to work in the US or on outsourced projects for US companies.
:-)
Now that we have got that out of the way, why do you associate this attitude with America? Given that I am not too fond of the USA, and worried that it's heading for a dictatorship, anything "typically American" in something I say worries me
Could we have some discussion instead of labels?
Check out the story on Richard Pearse on Salon.com that was posted back on August 22: Bamboo Dick, first in flight (not sure if that is a premium article of not...) I remember that it was a good read.
We all know that kiwis can't fly!
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as
Africa. Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31.
We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in
Africa. Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule: Up at
6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00. Pretty soon we were back in bed by
6:30. Now Africa is full of big game. The first day I shot two bucks. That
was the biggest game we had. Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose
and Knights of Pithiests.
The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their
annual conventions. And you should see them gathered around the water hole,
which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water. They
weren't looking for a water hole. They were looking for an alck hole.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my
pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. That's a tough
word to say, tusks. As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were
imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out. But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa,
but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.
We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.
So we're going back in a few years...
-- Julius H. Marx [Groucho]
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...