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(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!
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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.
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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)
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"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."
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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.
NPR did a nice piece during the morning drive time.
but there's no question that the Wright brothers built the first airplane that a pilot could control and fly. The basic principles that were built into the Wright Flyer remain a part of every aircraft flying today.
Competing claims aside, I think we can all agree this was a great moment in American history at least.
the first powered flight also occured in bridgeport ct in august of 1901.
any other first powered flights?
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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.
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.
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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.
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Alexandr Fyodorovich Mozhaisky.
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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.
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...
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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.
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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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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
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.
You could make a bathtub fly using modern matrials and computers. That doesn't mean it's a realistic design. You've been watching Hudson Hawk one too many times.
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.
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
True, they had patents, and defended them (at least in the beginning).
However, my understanding was that they were persuaded (by Henry Ford, the story goes) to release their hold on some of the patents for the good of the development of flight.
I don't think others "waited for the patents to expire".
I'm not an expert on the subject, so I'm not sure how much of this is hearsay...
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.
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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"
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.
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.
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...
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!
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.
Actually, the first flight was accomplished by caveman Grog in 2,000,000 B.C. After a vaguely disturbing encounter with a black monolith, Grog blundered into the path of a rabid Sabre-Toothed Cave Goat. While running from the Cave Goat, Grog (who wasn't looking where he was running) encountered a cliff, off of which he launched himself. Grog's flight was propelled by his panicked writhing and arm flapping.
His various animal skins and pelts provided significant lift but little control. After a short, and very steep flight, (approximately 20 Grog-lengths long and 100 Grog-lengths down with a duration of at least 15 Grog-heart-beats) Grog landed in the river below. Head Caveman Skrog didn't believe Grog's fantastic story -- apparently there were no eyewitnesses or supporting cave paintings -- and Grog went back to hunting and gathering and thereafter avoided Sabre Toothed Cave Goats.
-------------------------
A person of moderate zeal
> 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
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!
> 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".
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?