Slashdot Mirror
(At Least) 100 Years Of Powered Human Flight
Rogue-Lion.com writes "Take a time out to remember the accomplishments of two bicycle shop owners who changed the world immeasurably, 100 years ago today. The Telegraph is running a story about a recreation of the Wright's (and world's) first heavier-than-air powered flight. President Bush will be in attendance at the event." Setting aside even more exotic theories, rod writes with an alternative point of view: namely, that man's first flight took place in New Zealand, on March 31, 1902. "I admire the U.S.A and the Wright brothers,but there are facts to consider today, 17/12/03, on the centenary of Kitty Hawk." Update: 12/17 13:44 GMT by T : Or was it a Brazillian invention? (Thanks,
Anderson Silva.)
Apparantly there are claims that the flight of the Wright Brothers was really just ballistic, i.e. not flight at all. Anyone?
If you are near an IMAX, they are running their History of Flight special. Breathtaking!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
The Wright Brothers. Period.
Some others may have flown a few feet before, but the Wrights were the first to make *controlled, long endurance* flights.
The latest Slashdot meme.
It would have to get off the ground somehow. People have flown replicas of the Wright Flyer since then, and although they didn't fly that well, they *did* fly.
I had never heard of the New Zealand flight until this story, seems like another case of the widely publisised achievement become the celebrated moment in history rather than the one that was actually first.
I know that colossus was because the project was a national secrect until reciently, but this doesn't seem to be the case for the first flight, can anyone shed any light on why nobody has made a fuss over this before? And are we going to see the history book re-written? Or will people just not accept that it and keep believeing the widely known truth? (most likely imo)
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
"Pre-eminence will undoubtedly be given to the Wright brothers of America when the history of the aeroplane is written, as they were the first to actually make successful flights with a motor-driven aeroplane."
Seems like a glowing endorsement of the Wright brothers over Richard Pearse. Who wrote it? Richard Pearse, in a 1915 newspaper.
From the rather interesting BBC Magazine article on the history of flight:
"Aeronautical historian Philip Jarrett calls the claims 'grossly misleading'. 'This is local hero stuff. They choose to ignore their hero's own simple factual statements,' says Mr Jarrett."
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Take a time out to remember the accomplishments of two bicycle shop owners who changed the world immeasurably, 100 years ago today.
...
That's right, where would we be today without rubber tyres and saddles
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
My understanding of the New Zeeland flight was that getting corroboration was difficult at best. The NZ inventor / pilot didn't get the word out, there weren't a whole lot of witnesses, and the plane doesn't exist anymore. If anything, the Wright brothers were much better publicists.
What has always impressed me about the Wright brothers is that they were true engineers. Rather than tinker with bird-like models and pursue a try-it-and-crash-it development approach, they really decomposed the problem and systematically solved the major issues like power, lift, and control. They did not just build the first airplane, they designed it.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
For those in the UK or with a Fortean Times subscription, there was a lengthy article on the alternative claims to the Wright Brothers in last month's issue, including some more on Richard Pearce and several other claimants. It's an extremely thorough article, including photographs and sketches, and well worth a read if you're interested in the topic.
Fortean Times is here if you've never heard of it before...
"This is why men never share their feelings; because women always remember." -Just Shoot Me.
Or like just about everyone else outside of America.
twat.
The Hindenburg burned because of hydrogen, shaking a Polaroid makes it develop, Marconi invented the radio, and the Wright Brothers invented the airplane!
Now some commie-pinko New Zelander tries to claim credit for one of the crowning achievements of Old Glory!?
It sounds like New Zealand needs to be "liberated" from these tyrants.
Actually, no.
It tends to make more sense if you stop and think about it in the "Specific->Less Specific->least specific" way. Especially when you are dealing with current dates. You already know the month and year. You only need to see which day.
the first powered flight also occured in bridgeport ct in august of 1901.
any other first powered flights?
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
The Wrights created the *modern* airplane. The definition of controlled flight is take-off, inflight control, and landing. Just because someone else's design could leave the ground doesn't mean they were in *controlled* flight. Look at the Wright plane and then look at modern canard-style aircraft (e.g. Velocity Aircraft. The premise of design is virtually unchanged.
The Wrights were engineers. Many people have the mistaken impression that they were just bumbling bicycle repairmen that got lucky or that they stumbled upon the right combination to be able to fly. This was simply not the case. The Wrights built the first wind tunnel that they used to test miniature airfoils (and consequently propellers).
The accomplishments of the Wrights cannot be dismissed as they flew an only slightly modifed flyer nonstop over 20 miles in 1906, the time that the Brazillians claim Alberto Santos Dumont achieved the 'real' first flight.
The first heavier-than-air flight took place in Russia in 1880s. I am too lazy to look it up but I am sure others will. ;-)
So this thread is provided for your' all convinience
As a Brazilian, I think that the Santos Dummont flight was a break-thru, as the plane took flight with the whole machine by itself (not using any other external power to get on fly). Anyway, we can't take the credit of the Wright Brothers. Anyway, Santos Dummont was a Brazilian, but he did that on France... I really would preffer if it dit that here on Brazil...
If you ask a Brazilian, they'll probably tell you that Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first to fly.
I think I'll stick with the Wright brothers for now though.
Oxford Dictionaries Online
Oct 9th 1890...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3307743.stm
There was a very interesting article in The Guardian yesterday, looking at the darker side of the history of the airplane. A particularly striking quote:
When Wilbur Wright was asked, in 1905, what the purpose of his machine might be, he answered simply: "War." As soon as they were confident that the technology worked, the brothers approached the war offices of several nations, hoping to sell their patent to the highest bidder.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Don't miss today's Google logo.
The shareholder is always right.
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDet ail/assetid/28339
Did you mentally disadvantaged spotty teenager even know that the svastika is a Hindu symbol for good luck?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
As for kitty hawk, the significant take offs were on level ground, and the final flight of the day was certainly sustained for almost a minute. Like any geek machine, it was hard to control at first.
So while other attempts may have been successful they were not as well documented., or even that reproducable.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Damn right, sensible people use ISO 8601 ;)
Make sure you check out the Google logo!
The irony of today's events in North Carolina is that Bush's attending of the events is shutting down all of the airports in the area because of a presidential movement TFR (temporary flight restriction)!
Presidential TFR
The event coordinators have obtained special clearance for the Wright flyer to fly, along with the other planes for the airshows, etc.
OK. Tell me who flew the first circle in a powered and heavier than air aircraft?
The Wrights figured out how to steer and airplane in flight, they could turn. Nobody until them understood the mechanics of the turn (the rudder does not turn the airplane).
And I'm not even an American..
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Gustav Weisskopf (Whitehead) was actually the first person to fly in an airplane (controlled flight) many months earlier than the wright bros. In fact his aircraft design was so well engineered (German of course) that he helped steer the airplane using a clutch mechanism to slow one engine and give the 2nd engine more power.
;-)
Gustav Weisskopf's distances were also much longer than the slingshot effect the wright bros. had. Go do your google homework!
In addition the wright bros. spent the rest of their time suing people like Curtis who actually made real airplanes and had better aircraft inventions. Try looking up the contract between the smithonian and the wright bros concearning the airplane they have on display. Its an eye opener!
So, Richard Pearce may have flown a heavier-than-air craft a year earlier than the Wrights, but it was little publicized and did not have much of a follow-on.
Now, the other side of the coin.
I'm very surprised by the posters that say the Wright's flight was better publicized, because in fact the Wrights played their cards so close to the chest that, at the time, relatively few people heard of their flight.
Santos-Dumont's flight in October 23rd, 1906 in the "14-bis" took place very much in public, with the press and representatives of the French Aero Club in attendance, and was very widely attended. It was far more publicized than the Wright's flight and most people at the time thought it was the first heavier-than-air flight. To this day, there are still those (particularly, for some reason, French and Brazilians) who believe his flight is the one that should "count."
Really, what the Wright Brothers truly deserve credit for was the brilliant engineering, their aerodynamic studies, their wind tunnel work, their conceptualization of the problem as one of controllability rather than stability, and their conscious understanding of the importance of what would now be called a good "user interface." Their flight wasn't a stunt. Most important, unlike Santos-Dumont's flight, it did not depend on having a pilot of extraordinary skill.
Now, about Friese-Greene's invention of motion pictures...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Isn't the Hindu version of it a mirror image of the Nazi one?
I'm sure the residents of Swastika, Ontario would agree.
whether it would work using the materials of his day, such as wood, etc, is another issue.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Seems a bittersweet celebration to me. Most of the major progress in aviation seems to have ended around the 1970s. After all, the most advanced space vehicle available, the space shuttle, was designed in the 1970s. The only supersonic passenger jet, the Concorde, was designed in the 1960s and is no longer flying. The largest commercial jet, the 747 (not sure about Airbuses) is old enough to have been in the movie "Airport 77". Although they have some newer planes, I believe the US military is still flying F-14s and F-15s, like back in the 70s. Where has the major progress, other than incremental improvements, been in the last 35 years? Is it just a matter of lack of funding, the economy, or a change of national and global priorities?
My earlier post seemed to bring the anti-Wrights out of the woodwork. To address some of their points.
.nz and .br! Why didn't your guys start an aircraft industry there? Perhaps they did not invent a USEFUL flying machine.
1. It does not matter if someone else drew an airplane (Leonardo) or allegedly flew a few feet (Whitehead, et al). You have invented something WHEN THE THING ACTUALLY WORKS, not when you file a patent.
2. Every country seems to have its own local flying machine inventor. Good for you,
3. Taking off under its own power is not part of the definition of an airplane, so the fact the later Flyers used a catapult is not germane. F-14s don't take off with ony their own power from a carrier deck, do they?
4. The Wrights were reliably making long distance, cross country flights LONG before anyone else.
5. The Wrights invented the science of aerodynamics. That is, they did replicable experiments before anyone else figured out how.
Compared to all this, that Brazilian guy with his motorized balloon who buzzed around Paris is merely an endearing eccentric.
The latest Slashdot meme.
Ah yes, that is why Gustav Weisskopf used a clutch mechanism to shift the power from one engine to the other. He used this as a pseudo aileron LONG before the wrights even got their glider off the ground!
It's been used either way, both by Hindus and by Nazis.
I'm a Kiwi myself, but my understanding is that while the Pearse did fly first, the Wright brothers were the first to have a CONTROLLED flight. I think I recall that Pearse cheated too, and used a hill...
Who invented the TV? Ask someone in America, Britain, and Germany, and you'll get three different answers.
Who invented powered flight? Well, the Wright brothers were probably the first to achieve sucess in this area, but they didn't invent it. There were people all over the world attemting to master powered flight. Ideas circulated, individuals pulled these ideas together in an effort to get their machines to fly. People failed. People died trying. Perhaps people even suceeded. But 100 years ago the Wright brothers did suceed and told the world.
The way I see it, inventions are of their time. No one person can claim all the glory for anything. Sure, let's celebrate the Wright Brothers, but let's also celebrate the human spirit which drives such people whether they suceed or not. If we do that then it really does not matter one bit if the Wright Brothers really were first, or merely one of the first.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
There is an excellent article in the NYtimes about this anniversary that talks about who was first in what. The last paragraph is enlightening regarding the danger of patents:
In the end, the advance they made in flight technology was quickly squandered. European aviators lost little time in following the Wrights into the air. The brothers did receive a patent on their stabilization system in 1906, and they spent years trying to enforce it on both sides of the Atlantic. They were particularly zealous in going after American infringers - and the divisive, protracted court battles may have slowed down the commercialization of the plane on this side of the Atlantic. As one government official in 1917 put it, the brothers' lawsuits caused the country to fall "from first place to last of all the great nations in the air" - not exactly the stuff of legends.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Maybe he owed some back taxes, and thus didn't dare to overpublicize his exploit? You know, that Kiwi tax administration is rather fear inspiring...
If you look carefully at the Kittyhawk photographs you can see the shadow of two different light sources AND they forgot to put stars in the sky! Obviously the whole thing was shot on a Hollywood sound stage and Man has never flown!
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
... and fly together like butterflies?
If you read carefully, the link provided only says that it was the film that was faked, not the existance of Pearce or his aircraft. Pearce, as far as I know, really did exist, and really did build that plain,according to articles like this and others. Just google it up. Hard to believe a faked film was the basis of evidence for several books on the subject.
http://www.weisskopf.de/history.htm
What the Wright Brothers did do is build the first successful, controllable airplane. The controllability is the key because they were the first folks to really work out how to make an airplane go where you want it to go. They also figured out that it was going to take some practice for the pilot to become proficient in flying it. They also built propellors whose efficiency wasn't bettered for decades and along the way they laid the foundation of the whole theory of propellors.
In fact, like the telephone, the airplane is a perfect example of one of those things whose creation is inevitable once the supporting technology is available. There were many, many folks working on the solution to powered flight once small and lightweight engines were available to power the craft. The groundwork had been laid more than a century before with Cayley's conceptual leaps all it took was somebody to work out the details perhaps with a leap or two of their own.
As a practical matter, history records that the aileron was invented by Glenn Curtiss in an attempt to get around the Wright patent on the airplane. History also records that it's not that difficult to get a newspaper reporter to write a story even if it's only printed in one paper. When people put forth the claim that the Wrights built a successful flying machine and the date on which it was done, they produce a photograph of their machine flying and a dated telegram with the details of the flights.
On the Website talking Mr. Pearse's claim, there is nothing of the sort. The lack of evidence that the machine flew is explained with "he didn't realize the historic importance of the flights". What crap! Flight had been a human dream for thousands of years. Wouldn't fulfilling that dream seem to you to be of some historic importance? Shouldn't it have occured to one of the numerous witnesses to mention something to somebody or to write it in a diary or something? Everyone else working on heavier than air flight seemed to realize they were solving a momentous problem, why didn't anyone in Waitohi, New Zealand?
Take a time out to remember the accomplishments of two bicycle shop owners who changed the world immeasurably, 100 years ago today.
I wonder what's wrong with these bicycle guys (Scroll to the Armadillo Team description, last paragraph of it).
This is np;t the forst time I've heard of Pearse. And otherwise I can only say, RTFA. It's not just one person's word. There are scans of documents, plans of the engine, and links to books about it. Just because you've never heard of him doesn't mean it's a hoax.
On the other hand, one slashdot comment was that the Wright's had controled flight, but if this fellow had working ailerons, I suspect that his flight was controled. Rather one should say that the Wright brothers significantly advanced the science of flight, and for that, they deserve a significant place in the history of flight.
Urm... shouldn't references to "first powered flight" be modded down just like "first post"s? Seems to me that they amount to the same thing.
-DU-...etc...
"Don't sweat the technique."
"On 23 November of that same year, the executors of Orville Wright's estate entered into a contract with the Smithsonian for the display of the aircraft which dealt with, among other - things, the wording to be used on the accompanying plaque. Paragraph 2 (d) of the Agreement reads: "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." "Failure to observe this condition by the Smithsonian would result in a return of the "Flyer" to the vendors, according to paragraph 4 of the contract. "The implication is clear. By trading its integrity for an aeroplane, the Smithsonian one of the most prestigious public institutions in the world, was condemning Gustave Whitehead [and by inference also condeming all other early aviation pioneers including Richard Pearse of New Zealand - CJB] to obscurity." Full article: http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/pearse/smithsonian.htm
" As a Brazilian, I think that the Santos Dummont flight was a break-thru"
Of course you do. most brazilians were living along the amazon doing head-hunting and living off grubs. The fact that someone could *spell* aeroplane in Brazil at that time was considered a breakthrough.
One flew away, how many left
98 airplanes sitting on the ground, 98 airplanes
I've heard of him. I've even read the article. I'm just not that impressed by net.cranks. I know its fun to "know" that evil americans stole the invention of the airplane from some poor (french/brazilian/new zealander or even a poor scandanvian chap in connecticut) but those claims generally aren't credible in the face of serious research. Others have already posted links to Pearse's own commentary that the Wrights were first, and to criticism of the veracity of the documents which "prove" Pearse was first. The bottom line is that if you want to "know" that the story of the Wright brothers is a great conspiracy nothing can change your mind.
Apparently, because President Bush is expected to be at the ceremonies at Kill Devil Hill, All aviation activities in the vicinity are going to ceace. A special exception had to be made for the Wright Flyer Replica so that it would be allowed to leave the ground. Gosh, those new-fangled flying machines might hurt someone!
This article gives details and links to the actual NOTAM text published by the FAA. The practical upshot of all this is that we private aviators of this country are not welcome to the event.
I wonder what Orville and Wilbur Wright would have thought of this.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
He didn't realise the historic importance of the event, and so didn't bother to have any photographs taken of his machine flying, though [as mentioned above], there is extensive evidence from witnesses describing his flights.
So with no evidence and 100 year old witness testimony we are expected to believe this?
Is the Iraqi Information Minister working for the New Zealand Tourism Board now?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
Uhm...good troll but a few blatant errors give you away.
1. Iraq != Persia...Persia is actually present day Iran...unless you know something about GWB's plans the rest of us don't.
2. The airplane is a tool. It is morally neutral and under the control of human decision. Use it to bomb people from the air, and it is evil. Use it to drop food and medical supplies and it is good.
From that day 100 years ago (and ok maybe sooner but the proof is sketchy at best) we have gone from using twisting wings and the equivelent of "lawnmower" engins to supersonic flights, humans landing on the moon and in about 8 days, we will have the first of 3 landers touch down on Mars, looking for extra terrestrial life.
I'd say those are pretty good achievements.
But following your logic, are ships evil too, since, in you own words, naval bombardment can be used against people?
Things aren't evil, actions are evil. Anything can be used for good or evil, depending on what the human using it decides to do....
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I learned that Santos Dumont did the 1st self powered flight, like an airplane. The most that those Wright fellows did was to create the paraglide.
And that notion that the 1st manned flying device is Santos Dumont or Wright brothers is purely dependant on where you live. Anyway, I'd say both deserve the honor of being parents of the airplane. And it may include that Newzealandese fellow too.
Want to learn Manga P2P way? try www.mangaschool.com.
Forget about the Wright brothers and this Kiwi, the aliens who put us on this earth were obviously the first to fly. I mean come on people, it is simple logic!
Ya ya, offtopic.
"On August 14, 1901, almost two and one half years before the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, Gustave Whitehead ... lifted his acetylene-powered monoplane into the air at Fairfield, Connecticut, for his first flight."
http://airsports.fai.org/jun98/jun9805.html
i might've been born yesterday, but i stayed up all night
See http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/ellehammer. html (or just google for Ellehammer). Several month before those silly French. But I must tip my had to the mad New Zealanders.
-Lars
what a fauxking corepirate nazi boot licking 'nothing else matters' sucksass you've become?
It wasn't stoned hippies or drunken playboys who concocted the space shuttle.
... whoa, dude! Helluva ride, man!
Yeah, but if stoned hippies and drunken playboys had built a space shuttle
-kgj
-kgj
I shoudn't be surprised by now...Here I am prepared to celebrate the achievements of the Wright Brothers, when along comes Slashdot saying "Hang On! The were not the first! Here's some conspiracy theories saying, YET AGAIN, that America lied and stole the accomplishement from someone else!".
Thanks, yet again, Slashdot and its wonderful readers.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Finally, the issue is resolved!
LFS. Have you built your system today?
Actually, in France (been living there for a while, talked to more of them than you could throw a frog at), if you ask anyone who the 'father' of the plane would be, most of them don't know much at all of Santos-Dumont. However, that Clement Ader invented the plane is questioned by none (and it is hard to question when the plane in question is still in the CNAM museum for all to see...). This thing actually flew in 1890, a whole decade and a half before other widely recorded successes such as Santos-Dumont's, and first proved the possibility for heavier-than-air flight.
/. seems more interested in the engineering history than national dick contests, which is good).
Which, of course, doesn't diminish in any way the extraordinary feat that the Wright brothers pulled, please don't take me wrong: no matter whose shoulders they were or weren't standing on, they're the ones who saw farther, and there is no questioning it their place in history for it. They didn't give up where others did.
It's just that Santos-Dumont was never a contender for the title of first man to fly, and not even the French claim so (although I can see people pretending that they do, for the sole sake of pointing out that the Wright brothers came before Santos-Dumont, and thus "Go us we invented the plane!", I suppose... but thankfully the average enlightened geek here on
If you're ever in Paris you may want to go see this thing in the CNAM museum. It's hanging from the ceiling over a large stairway. Extremely impressive sight.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
"Viking journeys to North America preceded Columbus' voyage by some centuries"
I've often wondered how one can be creditied with discovering a place populated by hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people.
1st airplane was constructed in Russia in 1883-85h tm
by Alexandr Mozhaysky),
see (if you can read russian)
http://www.airshow.ru/people/mozhaysky.
He got his patents in 1881-82! Also see
http://www.maks.ru/etable.htm
What a load of lies tosh.
d myhouseprice, the modern computer was invented to kill people by reading their codes and the internet to allow military communications. Go and smash your computer and modem.
Just as the Holocaust was prefigured by colonial genocide, so the bombing raids which reduced Guernica, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo and parts of London to ash had been rehearsed in north Africa and the Middle East.
No, the colonizers didn't decide that the problem with the world was the existence of native people (the Nazi creed was basically "The Jews are to blame for everything") and then systematically eradicate them in deathcamps. Furthermore, massive bombing was invented by the Germans (London and Zeppelins in 1917, Spain in 1936), not Italians.
Japan sought to negotiate peace, but the Allies refused to talk until they had taken their firebombing to its logical conclusion, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Bullshit. Japan did not seek peace with the Allies, on any kind of reasonable terms. The peace imposed on it was extremely reasonable considering how many of its neighbours the feudal, militaristic, racist, imperialistic and fatally suicidal (messing with the US was as good an idea then as it is now) country had killed. The Allies used an atomic bomb to demonstrate to the Japanese that they could stomp the country out AND kill the generals and Emperor. The bastards in the Japanese military finally realized that they had messed up (there were no shelters to hide in that could withstand an A-bomb as compared to a B-29) after starving their country to a standstill in pursuit of a futile war. They had previously been prepared to sacrifice tens of millions of Japanese lives in a suicidal defence of their homeland.
The airplane., more precisely than any other technology, represents the global ruling class. In the past we raised our eyes to the men on horseback. Today we raise our eyes to the heavens. Air travel is cheap and available to anybody. Ever heard of people taking their goats onto planes in Africa? Well they do. And they aren't a global ruling class. Airplanes are definitely not a symbol of domination.
Last week the World Health Organization calculated that climate change is causing 150,000 deaths a year. Bullshit, SHOW ME THE LINK.
By then the 400,000 won't be the only ones wishing that Wilbur and Orville (if indeed they were responsible) had stuck to mending bicycles. You mean those carrying their goats onto planes, or those who got airmail, or those whose medicine and food is delivered by cargo plane, or those who visit their families around the world in a trip lasting a day not a month, or just about anybody who doesn't live near an airport.
Despite almost 400,000 objections to the expansion of airports in Britain, the transport secretary will announce new runways at Stansted and Birmingham, and more flights to Heathrow.
Are you one of the 400,000? Let me guess, you're just pissed off that your little bit of England is near an airport. I think the entirety of your rant is motivated by your falling house price. Nobody wants a shit recycling plant near the house but hell, somebody, has to have it. A lack of new airports would stifle the UK economy, but I guess you're alright, jack, you've got a job. For now...
Oh by the way Mr Ihateairplanesbecausetheykillpeopleandhaveaffecte
Yeah this is flaming but I have a flaming reaction to lies and egoism dressed up as morality.
The French have a good case for regarding Clement Ader as the person who made the first powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine (in 1890). It really depends on how you define "flight". Does the machine have to take off entirely under its own power? (Ader's did, the Wright brothers' didn't, it needed help from the wind). How far does it have to fly before it's "real" flight? Does it have to be able to make controlled turns? (Ader's could not; the Wright brothers' machine could). And so on.
My opinion is this: In about 1890, the underlying technology required for powered flight became available - engines with a sufficiently high power-to-weight ratio. After that, it was really just a matter of time before somebody put all the pieces together. It needed a lot of work, perseverance, ingenuity, funding etc. But it was going to happen at about that time, whether or not Ader or the Wright brothers (or the Brazilian guys or the New Zealand contender etc) existed.
If we went to talk about a truly DOCCUMENTED birth of flight, just look at da Vinci. Talk about an engineer.....this guy was creating solutions to problems that wouldnt exist for 100's of years. His parachute comes to mind....
Kiss my shiny metal ass
I would contend that we do not count that way (by incrementing the 2nd digit until carry, then carry into the 1st digit, which carries into the 4th digit, which carries into the 3rd digit, which carries into the 8th digit, which carries into the 7th digit, etc.).
Makes more sense to me if you do yyyy/mm/dd. Makes for easier sorting too.
But as an American, I am bound to the mm/dd/yyyy convention by birth (which wasn't my fault).
it doesn't count if it's not an American doing it. (I had the same problem with a project here @ college for a robotics competition).
Ok, I'm willing to accept the possibility. But other than eyewitness accounts, where is there any documentation of any of the flights. Remeber, According to "eyewitness" reports we've been visited millions of times by aliens. Just look at the roswell incident to see how inaccurate memories often are. Not only did he not realize at the time that it was something that should be recorded, but none of the eyewitnesses did either? You must admit, that is a little hard to believe. Not imposible, but enough to require further documentation.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
What a load of revisionist crap.
Should the lowly bulldozer, used to build lowcost housing for the disadvantaged, be frowned upon because it is an outgrowth of a tank?
Or the helicopter, used to pluck an unlucky hiker from a deep ravine?
Or how about the elephant? Used to carry Hannibal's troops across the Alps.
How about we condemn the Chinese, for inventing gunpowder and rockets in the first place? After all, the tank, helicopter, airplane, and even the elephant are merely delivery devices. Except in rare circumstances, the actual killing is done by the explosive.
Why isn't Marconi on your list? Military use of radio is what allows them to kill over long distances.
We could go on, but I'm sure you get the point by now.
In the US, we call it 0186 OSI!
But the important fact to me is that the Wrights are the people who fundamentaly changed the course of manned flight. Pearse had no impact on that course because he never told anyone.
Further, the Wrights, from what I understand, took a far more thorough and scientific approach which helped further aviation more than any of Pearse's discoveries (had they been known). The Wrights established pioneering methods for testing airfoils, measuring lift, and controling flight.
In addition, scientific discoveries are judged on the critera of reproducibility. The Wrights experiments were indeed reproducible by themselves and others.
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/pearse/smithsonian.htm
It's okay - Water is like Acid to Them!
The machines we fly in today trace their lineage directly to Kitty Hawk and the Wrights. They don't trace it to Brazil, or New Zealand or any place else.
/. is fueled by the same kind of self-alienated ill-informed vindictiveness that fuels much of what is posted here.
An aircraft is a machine the takes off and lands under its own power and can be controlled in pitch, yaw, and roll by a pilot. The Wrights did that 100 years ago, and no one before had done that.
Sniping at the Wrights on
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Way to take the bait, genius.
it was Richard Pearse's plane that *did* have ailerons. the Wright's plane used a wing warping system...by pulling on a set of cables, it twisted the wing tips.
Next time, take the train!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Actually he was proven to be the first to fly in the US, and likely the world. I'd do some research/googling on it but it's not worth the effort. The Wright Borthers mythos is to embedded.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
If the brazillian truly invented it, they would've choosen a better time to dispute the claims, ie: 1903 Leonardo da Vinci is a fricken genious.
Thaddeus Gore, Al Gore's great father describes how he made the first sustained powered flight in 1899 in Tennesee.
Ok, people, I guess this is a difficult thing to discuss... For people in Brazil, the real inventor was Santos Dumont (who has flown in 1906)
The difference is:
The Wright Brothers made THE 1st FLIGHT with something HEAVIER THAN THE AIR (apart from ballons)
Santos Dumont flew THE FIRST AIRPLANE...
The difference? Wrights' Brothers "plane" did not get airborn all by itself. They had a pulley/weight system, a kind of 19th century booster...
Santos Dumont got airborn all by itself. Start engine, gets airborn.
how long until
Preston Watson
Following the link http://www.google.com/ I was redirected to the Google Brasil page at http://www.google.com.br/ which shows a standard Google logo with the name "Brasil" just below the letters "le". In that page there's a link to the "Google.com in English" page in which I was able to see the airplane in the logo.
:-)
I guess they don't want to annoy us Brazilians today.
Gustavo.
In addition to all the bogus assertions about others being the first to fly (premised on an incorrect definition of "flying"), the Wrights are still inaccurately portrayed as two amateur tinkerers from the Midwest who got lucky.
That's wrong. They were educated and skilled engineers living in a city that was a focal point of technology in 1903. They attacked their problem logically nd methodically, and were well-versed in the technical literature of the day.
The Wrights did not tinker their way to flight. The insights that allowed them to design and build an aircraft that could be controlled in all 3 axis wasn't an accident or a stroke of luck. Nor was their design and construction of a propellor appropriate for flight. (This was, in fact, revolutionary, and is usually overlooked. Efforts prior to the Wrights' had assumed that an aircraft propellor would be a copy of the kind of propellor used to propel a ship. That's incorrect -- it doesn't work -- and the Wrights were the first to understand that and to design, test, and use a true aeronautical propellor.)
After Kitty Hawk, and until Wilbur's premature death at the age of 45 in 1915, the Wrights continued their research, their flying, and their engineering efforts. Not only can we trace the airplane's lineage to the brothers, we can also credit them for founding the aeronuatical industry.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
As Assimov stated in the book Contact. Has human society on the whole improved due to technology? Or have we simply traded convienance for a completely different set of problems. People need to consider the entire history of humanity and put things in perspective. We as much history as we know, even if it is flawed and incomplete.
Uh, just google on Otto Lilienthal and you will find well documented evidence and pictures of him loggin over 2000 flights in the 1880's
It doesn't matter who actually invented the first powered airplane.
My GF (who is also an engineer) says: "If you didn't write it down, then it didn't happen."
Meaning that if there isn't proper documentation on what you've been working on, then your work is useless. I think that's as true today as it was 100 years ago. You can be the most brilliant hacker, and develop an O(n) sorting algorithm. But if you don't document it somehow, it might as well not exist.
The undisputed fact is that the Wright brothers were the first to invent an airplane, and document the invention. So they invented the airplane. Period.
Gustav Whitehead? Don't we give our German immegrants any respect?
Image
Eventually he gave up because steam engines just didn't have the power-to-weight ratio and moved on to other things, such as breech-loading-cannons (the family has a letter from the Dept of the Navy telling him, if I remember, that they were impractical/impossible).
He started his work in England, and moved to the US. His assistant, Stringfellow, continued making models and is fairly well-known in early aviation history. You can find a reproduction of Stringfellow's gliders in the Franklin Institute in Philladelphia, and last I knew the Smithsonian had either an original glider or a full-size reproduction.
When we went to the Smithsonian in the mid-70's to donate his papers, they took us into the closed section (renovations) to show us "Henson's glider". My mother said "that's not his glider, that's Stringfellow's" (we had most of his original drawings).
When I was, oh, 11 or 12 I was interviewed by phone by the London Sun about him. They must have gotten our names from the Smithsonian I imagine.
William Samuel Henson"
When you USians make movies that murder historic accuracy and claim that you invented everything of any benefit for humanity it is good that you are reminded that even your greatest inventors stood in the shoulders of giants (my things decrypton of enigma machines, rolls eyse in despair).
Those giants are not necessarily born in the U.S. of A.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Humans have been flying longer than that.
I did not know that discussion to reach a better conclussion about historical events was an Antiamerican activity, I guess we all have to fall in line with what the proganda minstery tell us to think.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
NO. Why are people messing this up. The first WB's flight took off at a dead stop under its own power. The pully/weight thing came much later.
r ig ht.html
"They had calculated that they needed 90 pounds of thrust. When they measured the thrust, it was a spectacular 130 pounds."
"Orville climbs onto the airplane, and when everything's ready to go--he has Wilbur on the right wingtip to kind of keep it balanced...and Orville flipped the clip open, and down they went into the air."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3015_w
The only question is:
Why do you use the caps-lock key to embarass yourself?
Yes, it was used a CATAPULT! The first self-propelling flight was made by the Romanian Traian Vuia near Paris. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traian_Vuia
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
The Wright brothers flight could hardly be called LONG ....................
... like the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The Wright brothers were the first in the USA, but definately not the first in the world. Infact quite a few people flew before Richard Pearce but none of these events were recorded.
The first flight of the Wright brothers was not recorded either, so their claims are just as questionable.
The Smithsonian Institution has almost removed all reference to Nikola Tesla for the same reason as it does not mention Richard Pearce, that is, he wasn't an American.
All the so called "moon walks" could also be said to be dubious as we, ordinary individuals, have no proof at all that man acutally walked on the moon in the was it is shown on television. We have taken their word to be fact
From what I've heard the Wright's first flight wasn't particularly "controlled" either - they just didn't crash which isn't necessarily the same thing. In fact the first heavier than air powered flight was: Cayley in 1809 . . . no wait, I mean: William Stringfellow in 1868 . . . no that's not right it was Clement Ader in 1890 . . . or was it Richard Pearse in 1903 . . . no no it was definitely: Alphonse Penaud 1871 . . . period. Who was first is a silly question because it depends too much on definitions. Really powered flight was an achievement of the human race and the Wright Brothers built upon others work as others later built upon theirs. If the Americans want to go in for this rather sad flag waving - best of luck to them, it was still an international achievement whatever they may think.
If you read about the achievements of Santos Dumont you would see that they are as remarkable as the Wright Brothers'.
While they were catapulting their models, Santos Dumont's were taking off by their own means.
So as long as the accomplishment is fully and exactly described, nobody will have a problem to celebrate the achievements of anybody.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I hear a lot of speculation that the Wrights were not the first powered flight. Well then, where is the proof? Really. Where is it? The Wrights have PLENTY OF PROOF. All of these talks and speculation were created to debunk the fact that two guys in a bicycle shop did something that the US Gov't and 50 thousand US dollars (50k! in 1903!), as well as other governments were trying to do top secret couldn't do. Then all of these crackpots say that there was a goof, that they flew the skies. RIIIGHT.
It all comes down to proof. The proof is there. The Wrights had machines that they made themselves that created tables to show wing lift and speed. They attempted it with German tables, but they were wholly inaccurate. So as good little scientists, they did it themselves. The propellar design (another wing, designed with heavy math) was created by the Wrights, as well as the control scheme. All of these tools they used still work today. They still exsist today. These guys took notes, the rest of the world didn't think that was as necessary as making something that looked like a bird.
A lot of people talk about proof. Well, let me say this. The Wrights were some of the best amateur scientists ever. Period. They took a little bicycle shop and some tools and then THEY DID THE MATH while the rest of the world was still thinking, "how should this thing be shaped?"
The proof is still there people. Where are all of these other crackpot fliers? Are they around? Do they work? Did anyone ever do anything but print about them.
My grandfather told me about his father who went to see the Wrights as a boy when they toured (yes, toured) the country. They offered anyone $100 to fly with them. No one came forward. They thought they were nuts. What they saw defied reason at the time.
Someone said this:
One wonders what poeple 5000 years from now will say about our time. They might remember the Chinese (or New Zealanders perhaps) as the real fathers of space travel -- and make a brief footnote for the academics about a certain event in 1969.
Well, there is always going to be a flag up there, and the bottom half of a lunar lander. The last time I checked, that is all the proof you need. I bet it has US Gov't stamped all over it. Probably a couple of dates written on it too.
Guys, this is all about proof and speculation.
We live in a world of FACTS. Slashdotters should be the more understanding bunch about this subject. The facts, and diligence towards those facts, is what seperates your civilization from space travel and worshipping 'dark wolf the moon God' every time there is an eclipse.
14 Bis flight was not just watched by thousands, you can even watch the movie.
...then I would be trying to get out of it, too.
All things in moderation; including moderation
I was expecting this anonymous coward to be saying "In pre-soviet russia...."
In Pre-Soviet Russia, YOU fly Planes!
The NZ inventor / pilot didn't get the word out, there weren't a whole lot of witnesses, and the plane doesn't exist anymore.
Where I come from, we call that bullshit.
No, the Wright Flyer did not use a pulley/weight system to get airborne.
Makes more sense to me if you do yyyy/mm/dd.
Same difference. The order is the same, but in the reverse direction.
The American way just doesn't make sense.
You do know that the wright brothers had a 40 minute, 24 mile flight before santos-dumont had even his first flight. Give it up, I know you want to be proud of your fellow brazilian, and you should be, but don't embarass yourself by trying make something out of it that it wasn't.
If somebody ever attempted to fly a replica of Pearse's "airplane", it's pretty obvious it would not fly. There was no airfoil to its wings, its engine produced only 15-22 HP, and had woefully inefficient propellers. Contrast this with the Wright Flyer, which had an efficient airfoil, very large lifting wing area, a 12 HP engine and a 90% efficient propeller, and still had barely enough power to get airborne. There's no way Pearse's alleged airplane could have flown. Too little power.
If anyone wants pictures of previous some of the earlier days down here, check out:
h t/
http://bill.herrin.us/pictures/200312-firstflig
I have a bunch of pictures, including the formation which included two A10's, an F15 and a P51.
I missed yesterday though, and I havn't uploaded today's meager pickings yet. Between the rain and the crowd, I didn't get many worthwhile today anyway.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Isn't that the guy who flew around in a bathtub?
There are tales of an 11th-century monk building a primitive hang glider and flying it off the local Abbey tower in Malmesbury. Apparently he got quite far in it until hit by some form of catastrophe which caused him to plummet to the ground, breaking both legs. After recovering from this he decided that he probably needed to modify his design to add a tail, but the Abbot forbade him from ever trying to fly again. Shame - imagine if he had perfected his glider, almost 1000 years ago...
>"President Bush will be in
>attendance at the event."
So will Bin Ladin
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I know it's just a joke, but very unfair to the Wright Brothers and shows a significant misunderstanding of what the "bicycle" was then. It was relatively new and a relatively advanced piece of technology. It was like being a personal computer hobbyist in, say 1975. The mechanical features of bicycles were nontrivial and a bicycle shop owner had to do a lot of significant hands-on mechanical work.
Furthermore, it was their experience with the bicycle that gave the Wright brothers insight into some of the issues of stability and controllability. When the Wright brothers' plane was first demonstrated before big audiences, people were surprised and shocked that the thing banked, thought something had gone wrong, and expected it to crash. Probably the other aerodynamic pioneers knew better, but there was certainly a mindset that heavier-than-aircraft would maneuver like boats--being turned with a rudder and staying level along the "roll" axis.
The cycling experience was undoubtedly relevant to their achievements.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
...Glenn Curtis?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The Wright Brothers actual performed the test is Kill Devil Hills, NC. And set the telegraph from Kitty Hawk. Usually a few people catch on to this fact each /. post, I guess I am the first today.
BTW they have a nice little museum on the spot with workshop recreations and markers where the first few flights landed.
He didn't realise the historic importance of the event, and so didn't bother to have any photographs taken of his machine flying, though [as mentioned above], there is extensive evidence from witnesses describing his flights.
And previously...
in fact the first formal mention of his achievement was some seven years later in the newspapers of 1909.
So what we got here is a newspaper article written 6 years after the fact, as referenced by a web site author who doesn't know the difference between "proper ailerons" and spoilers.
By the way, kids, the South won the war. Just thought you'd like to know. I read it in a newspaper from 1870.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
Assuming the various claims are true, heavier-than-air controlled powered flight is the achievement of several individuals in a variety of countries, not the amorphous "human race".
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Maybe. But could it turn?
The Wrights discovered what is now called "adverse aileron yaw" and build their controls to compensate. The wing warping was actually control would also move the rudder to compensate for the adverse yaw. The F-16 uses a similar mechanism. :)
...richie - It is a good day to code.
you are so funny, i am laughing my brains out. this is one of the most amusing trollposts i've read :)
sorry if you were serious (although that is hard to believe).
(cutie pi.... grin)
I wouldn't write off the inventiveness of the aerospace industry just yet. Get ready for the Airbus A380.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Excuse me, but everyone knows the best way to keep track of the date by how many seconds have passed since midnight December 31st 1969.
There's a model of the Flyer on the Great Dome (Pictures from the Boston Globe).
I thought they did have shelters (or maybe it was just underground caves?) that could withstand the strength of an atomic bomb. It's just that I heard that the Japanese stored their jet fighters in underground caves that could withstand atomic bombs (although, that was by pure chance, they didn't do it intentionally).
There's a model of the Flyer on the Great Dome (Pictures from the Boston Globe).
In the famous photo of the first flight of the 1903 flyer at the lower-right foreground there are some tools (a shovel and an oil can) and a box with wires coming out of it. The box is a supposed to be a large dry-cell battery which was used to help start the plane.
Question: Does anyone have any details on this battery? There's a logo on its side which I can't identify. Any ideas?
When all else fails, run.
With enough 'headwind', even a completely noaerodynamic rooftop will fly :)
How affordable is it? The Blue Mountain Avionics EFIS/One, for example, is about $15,000 (Pretty cheap, for what it does. Solid state gyros cost $$$). The Garmin one looks more expensive, but I couldn't find the price on their site (Probably because it's still a few months from production, and prices haven't been set yet).
is an empennage. It's behind the fuselage.
The swastica was a symbol of good luck for more than just the Hindu.
Obviously not the first human flight. Or controlled flight. Or powered flight. Or flight over level ground. Etc. People were already doing kites and gliders and models and a plethora of flying machines.
Serious attempts to say "first what" seem to say something like "the first flight which was manned, and powered, and controlled, and sustained, and over level ground, and blah, blah, blah".
With the corollary that if you drop a parameter, then some other effort was "first". Providing for no end of silly arguments over "firstness". And for laughably absurd "the Wrights were the first _foo_" claims in news coverage.
Flying was "in the air"...
good job. Sure you could have taken the high road and refused to acknowledge a troll, but if you weren't allowed to indulge occasionally, life would be too dreary.
-------------------------
A person of moderate zeal
...that there are always questions about who did what first. But keep in mind that the originator of an idea RARELY recieves any credit or praise for it. It's usually the business/politics/religion friendly zealot that gets the biggest accolades. For example, Galileo knew that the earth rotated around the sun by his calculations. Yet because he wasn't supported by the religious/political fops of the day, he died penisless and discredited, only to be proven correct later. Then there is the whole Marconi vs. Tesla thing. Most intelligent observers realize that it is truly Tesla who invented the use of RF and not Marconi. In fact, Marconi specifically used some very shady business practices to invalidate Tesla's patents on induction coils. Marconi was just another Bill Gates. NOt a real inventor but just a busoness man. The two are typically mutually exclusive. So, on this day, consider the possiblity that the Wright brothers may have just been using the typical American method of pulling the wool over people's eyes to gain some notoriety.
Un-news
Everyone knows Yogi Bear invented TV.
Clearly the Wrights could see farther because they stood on the shoulders of giants. It is well known that they were obsessed with a German's (sorry, can't remember his name) research into gliders. The German fellow was the one that pieced together the idea that the top of the wing should be longer than the bottom of the wing, thus creating an area of relatively low pressure on top of the wing. The Wrights discovered that the optimal shape for an airoil is the now common teardrop shape.
The Wright flyer was controlled because it had controls for all three axes: lateral=elevator, vertical=rudder, longitudinal=ailerons. Was it erratic? Yes? Difficult to fly? Absolutely. Controlled? Yes.
Clearly the Wrights didn't come up with everything on their own. Using your logic we can argue that relativity was never really Albert Einstein's discovery/theory...it was an international accomplishment because he used so much information from folks before him!
Given all of these comments (and historically too) for this article, people seem to detest giving the US credit for anything at all, besides being evil and war mongering. We chew up smaller countries, we take others' ideas. All of these comments are strikingly similar to the anti-microsoft rants we're all so familiar with.
IANAAE - Aeronautical Engineer, that is. But it has always struck me, when looking at the New Zeland aircraft, that it does not look as if it *could* fly. It appears to have much less lifting area than a biplane, and the engine is usually carefully hidden from view. Horsepower:weight ratios were a big deal at the advent of powered flight, so I guess the question is this: given the structure as depicted, and the performance details of the engine and propellor -- could the New Zealand 'aerostat' actually have flown at all?
In principle, I think this could be answered definitively.
Nope. Sorry buddy. Stupid wrong answer. The Wrights didn't come up with the Bernouli effect. Bernoulli did. (Gee do ya think that's why it's named after him?). The Wrights took what all these other people did, and added their little bit to it. Other people in other places did impressive stuff too. To discount them and say "A miracle happened and these two guys did it all by themselves" is a big fat lie. If you would get your "my country has a bigger dick than yours" mentality out of your a@@ you would actually read the history. The brothers watched Langleys work with interest (Langley was an American TOO! dummy! Langley even worked at the Smithsonian Museum!!!). They also followed the work of Percy Pilcher, read Etienne-Jules Marey's book, The Flight of Birds, followed the work of German engineer Otto Lilienthal and read his book:Bird Flight as a Basis for Aviation. They did add a bit to what was already there --enough to call it an airplane albiet a danmed unsafe one. (On 17th September 1908, the brothers had their first plane crash. Orville Wright was seriously injured and his passenger, Thomas Selfridge, was killed.) Maybe you could read a little before shooting your mouth off?
Was in Russia, no?
In 1890 Yuri Balenkov vas runink from Cossaks, he slipped and fell rollink down big hill, at bottom vas cliff, Yuri knows that he iss goink to die so he opens big coat and flaps like mad, he is flyink, no? Vas first, no? |-)...
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Don't worry, I've fallen victim to trolls as well; however I would like to point out that (from what I've been told) the US did have the option of showing the Japanese a test of an atomic bomb, but decided against it. It is debatable whether that would have affected the outcome or not.
It is hard to say exactly what may or may not have happened had we not dropped those bombs on Japan, and it is just as pointless to speculate about why those decisions were made. I highly doubt that Truman would have advocated the use of such a powerful weapon if there were a more peaceful alternative. (Indeed, if we really wanted to rub their faces in the mud, wouldn't we have dropped them on Tokyo?)
What?
Refusing to acknowledge reality is fine, just don't be surprised when people point and laugh when you speak.
> In fact, like the telephone, the airplane is a perfect example of one of those things whose creation is inevitable once the supporting technology is available.
That's the main reason I'm cynical about patents. Technology seems to advance in a wavefront, and and there is an endless list of people who invented the same thing, independently, at the same time. And they always stand on the shoulders of giants.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
YBHIT (You Have Been Inadvertantly Trolled)
HANCoA (Have A Nice Centennial of Aviation)
Are you there, Anonymous Coward? It's me, God.
I'm very sorry you are so upset that Americans invented the airplane.
When the Americans invent time travel, maybe they will go back in time and make someone from AnonymousCowardLand the inventor.
It is a shame that many general aviation pilots won't be able to attend!
If you want to get really pissed off about this, read "Unlocking the Sky" by Seth Shulman (sp?). It's a great read about the hoops Glenn Curtiss (a true aviation genius) had to jump through to avoid being bankrupted by the Wrights SCO-like patent tactics.
Totally destroyed any respect I might have had for the Wright brothers. They might have been very clever engineers, but they were also ruthless, greedy, selfish bastards. And don't you DARE tell me that's what America's all about.
: )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Since you don't seem to understand that differential thrust would produce a yaw moment, not a roll moment, I have a difficult time crediting your understanding of the situation.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Hackers placed a replica of the Wright Flyer on top of MIT's Great Dome today. (There's another nice photo on MIT's home page, temporary, no doubt.
The Wright brothers did manage to get US patents for their adjustable wings that let them control the aircraft. However their patents were virtually ignored in Europe while they fought tooth and nail to defend them in the US. By the time they were done fighting for their IP, the US had fallen into last place in aviation technology.
> Or was it a Brazillian invention? (Thanks, Anderson Silva.)
Alberto Santos-Dumont was an exceptional man but he simply did not fly an airplane before the Wright brothers. They flew in 1903 while Santos-Dumont -- according to his own notes -- took his first flight in 1906.
The only reason for the confusion was the secrecy that the Wright brothers insisted on surrounding themselves with. Even the French government, which was completely behind Santos-Dumont, acknowledges the Wright brothers as being first.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
This sort of thing gets said about planes all the time, the contrast being with computers pretty often. Bill Gates, I think, has said stuff like "If airplanes had progressed as much as computers in the last X years, we'd be flying to x-and-so for $10 in 10 minutes." And progress was that rapid for a while.
Thing is, any industry will go through a period during which it grows by leaps and bounds at first, but then levels off and doesn't change nearly as dramatically.
You can describe the same rough curve in talking about, say, your skills as a tennis player. At first almost anything you learn is going to improve your game dramatically, right? (Hey, now I can hit a backhand that'll get near the court!) As you get better and better, the period between big jumps in your ability is going to be longer. Eventually, at the pro level, the difference in skills between one player and another is very fine, and you can't just improve 10 places in the rankings by spending an extra day practicing like you could before.
(And while the planes aren't changing that much, I'd say our ability to work the logistics of how to move them around has in the last twenty-five years or so. Fedex was a risky proposition, at first, 'cause nobody thought it'd work economically. Similarly, in military applications the way planes have folded in new innovations in computing and communications has been impressive.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
OK, maybe I didn't make the point as clearly as I could have. Multiple independent inventors were rapidly approaching the point where powered flight was going to be achieved. However, because the definition of exactly what consitutes an acceptable "first powered heavier than air flight" is subjective (I think some of the other comments are ample proof of this), it is effectively impossible to pick out one of these as indisputably the first.
Very true. The best example of their skill was in their propeller design. Even by modern 21st-century standards, these propellers are extremely efficient for the application in which they were used and it is difficult even today to improve on their design, except in the area of materials (carbon fiber, etc.)
Too bad they weren't very good businessmen; they never really capitalized on their invention.
The Globe and Mail is reporting that the planned re-creation of the Wright brothers' flight was a miserable failure, with the flyer dropping off the end of a wooden track into a mud puddle. Apparently heavy rains were causing a problem.
Actually, the Wrights did not invent the wind tunnel (see this link for some history). However, they did put their wind tunnel to good use when designing their craft.
I happened to notice this afternoon that this weblog takes issue with the same essay that the parent poster used for their diatribe. It's a depressing little editorial from the Guardian. I didn't read either the parent post or the editorial very closely, but after a quick glance at both I suspect you got to read the editorial in its entirety as you composed your reply.
It is common knowledge:
Kiwis are flightless birds!
Sorry, Just couldn't resist
are you saying the write brothers invented warp drive?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
of course it was og, the inventer of the wheel, that is the real inventer of the automobile! all the other guys just built on his concept.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I wouldn't get too worked up about "historical FACT" (my emphasis) if I was you. His-story(sic) tends to be written by the winner, the influential, etc.
This is not to denigrate the achievments of these people, but to blindly follow the textbooks that the education system of your country provided for you is a far more dangerous thing than to acknowledge that science is a collaborative endeavour. That great leaps (calculus for instance) can be made "independantly" by multiple people. Why were the discoveries simultaneous? Because it relied upon the intellectual environment to enable the discovery.
In a rarefied intellectual atmosphere, the rate of progress slows to a crawl. It is only through open and communal supposition, criticism, and debate that we can advance at our current rate.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Yes, because some company should be able to come in, stamp there name on it, and sell it without giving the inventor anything.
As much as I am agains software patent, patent on an actual, physical, invention is a good thing. as long as they expire in a reasonable time frame.
Software should be under copyright.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I can't help but wonder what people would be saying if the Wright brothers flew first, but didn't make a fuss about it, and then Pearse flew 6 months later, but did all the publicity schtuff. Would overall sentiment be that Pearse flew first? or would the Wrights be championed?
The Wrights didn't patent an invention. Their patent was interpreted to cover any method of controlling the lateral stability of an aircraft.
Even if somebody used a totally different, fundamentally better mechanism for accomplishing that aim, they were successfully sued by the Wrights.
That's bad.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The swastica was a symbol of good luck for more than just the Hindu.
Indeed, it was a widely used Indo-European symbol, which is why the Nazis used it in the first place. They latched on to the idea that Indo-Europeans, and in particlar the Aryans, from whom the swastika and what we know today as Hinduism came to India, originated in the area now known as Germany. The truth of the matter is far more complex than they made it, but this was one of many things they used as examples of the "superiority of the Aryan race." There was a lot of pop psychology, revisionist history, and spurious science involved in the Nazi curriculum, all of which used credible theory as a base to the ultimately fractured mess. Sadly, their "ideas" survive to this day because their are people mean enough to spread them and others stupid and ignorant enough to believe them.
The flyer didn't fly today.
It rained off and on, and the wind was varying from 3-20mph. The entire place was soaked, and there was standing water up to 8" deep. Rain was not a factor, but wind (or lack thereof) was.
The 10:35am flight was canceled due to not enough wind -- 5mph when 10-22mph is needed.
They tried flying it at appx. 12:30 est, but the plane did not lift off, instead sort of flopping off of the end of the rail.
They were slated to fly it again at appx. 2pm. However, the wind shifted to where it was coming from the W/SW at appx 15mph. There is a line of trees to the W that caused turbulent air, so they scrubbed that flight.
At appx. 4:00, they wheeled the flyer out onto the field for the second time. They started it, did the run up (it sounds very similar to a lawnmower engine), but had to scrub the flight due to not enough wind -- 3mph. The front that brought all of the rain had passed through, and left a lull in its wake.
There were several things to see at Kill Devil Hill, including the replica 1911 flyer, a couple other replica 1903 flyers, and several other displays including a space shuttle engine.
They alluded to trying again next year. The replica 1903 flyer is slated to be displayed at the Henry Ford museum.
Well, there was this Romanian dude called Henry Coanda who kind of invented the aileron in 1910, together with a couple other nifty things such as the reactive engine, the gas tanks in the wings, the "sesquiplan" layout (double wing with the lower one shorter and hanging behind to improve aerodynamics) as well as discovering what is known as the "Coanda Effect".
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/coanda.htm
...but, according to a report on TV I saw a while ago, he did not publish his results very widely, because being employed by the state meant that you were not allowed to run businesses in parallel or something like that.
The Wright Brothers only had the far better public relations.
All of this argument about whether or not the Wright brothers were "first" is academic. What matters is that we remember the Wright brothers as the fathers of aviation, because they made aviation useful. I could invent a FTL starship tomorrow, but if I don't tell anyone and nobody knows that I invented such a thing, then my accomplishment is irrelevant.
does half the community all the sudden become "experts" on flight mechanics as well. Do some of all really think you know everything about everything? Give me a freakin break...
Nobody is saying that the Wrights did not perform thier feat independantly. They certainly could not have known about Pearse, and Pearse almost certainly did not know about the Wrights until long after his own exploits.
Wether Pearse was first, or the Wrights, or Dumont, or.... a myriad of other contendors around the world doesn't matter really because at the time there was little if any collaboration between them - they each performed similar aeronautical feats, independantly. That one was before another does not diminish the achievements of either.
The Americans in the world celebrate the Wrights, because they were first.
The New Zealanders celebrate Pearse, because because he was first.
etc...
They were all first.
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All this debate about Wright v Pearce causes me to recall an article I read many years ago (possibly published in connection with 50th anniversary of Wright flight) about another American pioneer, who may have had a good claim to have built the first successful aircraft, although he never flew it, and it didn't fly until after the Wrights.
As I recall, the story was that he built a number of successful models before building a manned machine. After several unsuccessful attempts to fly, he became ill, and more or less gave up. He died shortly after the Wrights' flight. But his assistant dragged out the machine and succesfully flew it after his death.
Does anyone know the name of this inventor? Or anything more about his aircraft?
HEY DID THE MATH while the rest of the world was still thinking
With a little help from Lawrence Hargrave
Face it, powered flight was invented by a group of people, using each others work.
I have found today (12/18) an interesting article about the Wright Bros. flight on the Brazilian newspaper O Globo.
It tells about yesterday's failed attempt to duplicate the Wright Bros. flight, and it goes on to explain why his flight is not accepted by Brazil (and France?):
Quote: "Wright Bros flight was not homologated by the International Aeronautics Federation as the first. A record on a sport event must take place on an official contest. On aviation is the same."
It goes on to explain that Wright Bros flight was assisted on take-off, something already discussed here that seems to be not true (except maybe for the high winds...)
Sweet as we aussies seem to claim any famous kiwis as aussies (so the kiwis say), I am now claiming pearse as an aussie. u can have russell crowe back.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
"Just as Alexander the Great worshipped his horse, George Bush, the new conqueror of Persia, will tomorrow worship the airplane."
You might want to consider taking a geography lesson and getting a clue.
You're exactly right. I meant that the Wrights where the first to actually use a wind tunnel to test airfoils.