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(At Least) 100 Years Of Powered Human Flight

Posted by timothy on from the culminating-in-southwest-airlines dept.

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.)

3 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Kind of like colossus by ahillen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. It's really about more than getting off the ground by mirio · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Progress? by CrazyTalk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?