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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."
Richard Pearse: FIRST FLYER
Famous New Zealanders - Richard Pearse
And a sidenote from an article in Time magazine:
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>
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"
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]
...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.
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.
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.
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."
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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.
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.
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
The reason why most serious aeronautical historians credit the Wright Brothers was the fact that the Wright Brothers did a lot of very serious scientific research into flight before that first successful powered flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. They used wind tunnels for research, a idea very far ahead of its time!
There are other claimants but none had the repeatability of what the Wright Brothers did in 1903.
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.
I think there are a couple of things that made the Wright Brothers' first flight more believable to the scientific community.
First of all, the Wright Brothers--being bicycle mechanics--already had the experience to build and design machines of various types. They just applied much of their bicycle engineering experience into building the Wright Flyer.
Second of all (and this is the very important one), the Wright Brothers methodically used the scientific method to design and refine the Wright Flyer design. Why do you think they were using wind tunnels to study airplane design on scale models, an idea far ahead of its time?
Finally, they actually bothered to get someone out there to take pictures proving such a flight did occur. That's why we have a number of pictures of the setup of the launching system and the actual flight itself.
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.
Their work was based on Lilienthal's work. Including the methology.
Lilienthal reduced some problems into small self-contained experiments to devise several formulas for aerodynamics and published them.
And he build small models and real glider out of this data and documented that, too.
In other words, he did scientific work on aerodynamics.
The Wright Brothers discovered (probably among other things), that one constant in Lilienthal's formulas was wrong.
From the The Wright Brothers Page (hardly a page underestimating the work of the Wright Brothers):
So, attributing creating the field of flight to them seems to me a bit overestimated.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
It has nothing to do with patriotism, but with documentation. The Wright brothers flight was well documented, as was their research surrounding it. No one had to do anything special, like digitally enhancing a film of the flight to read the date of the newspaper in some guys back pocket, to verify when and where it happened.
There are other Americans who claim to have flown before the Wrights, such as Lyman Gilmore, who claimed to have flown in 1902. Of course, the guy was nutty as a fruitcake, and the only reason he wasn't dismissed out of hand was that he actually invented stuff that worked. No one was ever found that could verify his claim, though, so he remains obscure.
If Newton's documentation hadn't been as good as it was, Leibniz would likely get all the credit for Calculus.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.