(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.)

Comments

The real invventors of the airplane.

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

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.

Re:Kind of like colossus

[ahillen]

I guess it is basically impossible to name the person who really made the first powered flight. One problem is the credibility of the reports, the other the definition of 'powered flight'. Is a short hop of a couple of meters enough? Or should it be 10s of meters? Or 100s of meters? All that really can be said IMHO is that a couple of brave and intelligent man broke this barier in he beginning of the 20th century with varying degrees of success.

Further claims of '1. powered flight' include for example Gustave Whitehead (or Weisskopf) and Karl Jatho.

It's really about more than getting off the ground

[mirio]

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.

Re:Kind of like colossus

[ChuckDivine]

The widely believed truth happens to be true.

For instance, the Wright brothers' flight was not the first heavier than air craft to fly. That record belongs to a small experimental glider near the beginning of the 19th -- not 20th -- century. The first manned heavier than air vehicle? What today we would call a hang glider was flown in 1870.

The Wright brothers' claim to fame is as the first repeatable, controlled, powered heavier than air flight. All that is important. Earlier efforts contributed to their accomplishment, but were essentially only experiments in learning the basics of flying.

The Wright brothers also eventually publicized their work. Pearse seems, according to the reports, a bit of an eccentric who didn't call much attention to his work. That's important too. A discovery you don't tell the world about is only half done. Others must know about your work and be able to replicate it.

We now know that Viking journeys to North America preceded Columbus' voyage by some centuries. But, again, they didn't follow up their voyages or make them known to the world at large. We also suspect some fishermen made it to North America years before Columbus. But, again, they didn't tell the world.

Repeatability and disclosure are vitally important parts of discovery. 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.

Documentation

[Alien54]

While others may have been first, they did not document their claims. The Wright brothers documented their cliams with photos, etc. There is an extensive record of their achievments. Even so, years later they shocked people when they showed up at an exhibition and flew around the field in circles, etc for many minutes.

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.

Progress?

[CrazyTalk]

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?

First flight?

[xA40D]

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.

Re:Another one

[etcshadow]

Do you honestly believe that the significance of the Wright Brother's flight was the control system? Please.

ABSO-FRIGIN-LUTELY!!! The thing that set the Writes apart from all the other would-be aviators of the day was there understanding of aerodynamics, and how crucial that was to powered flight.

They invented the technique of using a wind tunnel to measure lift and drag.

They improved propeller efficiency from the standard at the time of 40% to 80%! Modern propellers have an efficiency of about 85%. Holy crap.

Their wing-warping (which many people criticize, even though it is on the come back... Heck, people criticized the flying wing until the B2) mechanism was critical. They learned from their extensive and analytical study that the only way to control a plane in flight was to vary the aerodynamics by varying the wing geometry. Granted, most methods for vairable wing geometry used since then have involved hinged, surfaces, but the critical idea was there.

While many people look at Otto Lilienthal's work as being the foundation of the Write brothers, this is really not true. The Writes tried to follow Lilienthal's work, but were not able to scale it up to a large enough plane to carry a motor. It was only once they reallized that Lilienthal's assumptions about wings were flawed, that they came up with truly modern and workable wings.