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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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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
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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.
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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.
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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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..
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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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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.
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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!
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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?
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.
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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.
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!