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Antarctic's First Plane, Found In Ice
Arvisp writes "In 1912 Australian explorer Douglas Mawson planned to fly over the southern pole. His lost plane has now been found. The plane – the first off the Vickers production line in Britain – was built in 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers executed the first powered flight. For the past three years, a team of Australian explorers has been engaged in a fruitless search for the aircraft, last seen in 1975. Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."
This European is always astonished how Alcock and Brown's achievement of 1919 is so overshadowed by Lindbergh's 1927 flight. Perhaps that's one of the sources of resentment that lead to 'pissing contests'?
Because Lindbergh was the first to do it solo
And Alcock and Brown weren't the first to make the flight over the Atlantic, although they were the first to do a non-stop. The crew of the NC-4 did it first (but they used more than one aircraft) Alcock and Brown did have balls - climbing out on the wings to chip off the ice as they flew.
well... can they take off on their own given enough distance? They are only chucked off because the air craft carrier is not long enough for them to achieve the speed they need, they can take off fine from an airstrip, so they are airplanes that don't require catapults... now, put wright brothers "the flyer" on a airstrip with no wind and tell it to take off, it won't happen.
Why does it matter? Since when does the definition of airplane include the mandatory condition that it be able to take off under its own power? You said it yourself -- they are airplanes that don't require catapults. That is not synonymous with "airplane".
If an F-14 had all the capabilities it has in reality once in the air, but required a catapult, would you say it's not an airplane?
Large military cargo airplanes, the kind that transport tanks, require rocket boosters to actually take off when fully loaded. Are they not airplanes? Or only when empty?
Is Spaceship One not a rocket plane because it is launched from the White Knight carrier?
Before complaining, use some common sense, those fighters launched with catapults from aircraft carriers are full aircrafts that don't require that gizmo. The flyer is just a glider.
Uh... Common Sense says that a glider is something that does not fly under its own power. The definition (common sense and otherwise) of "gliding" is "unpowered flight". The Wright Flyer, once airborne, flew under its own power. Ergo it is obviously not a glider.
It was an airplane that required assistance to take off. It was an airplane with a significant technological limitation. That does not mean it was not an airplane.
americans think they need to invent everything... I feel sad for them.
Maybe, but that doesn't excuse you trying to undo a legitimate case with this terrible logic. Americans did invent some things, trying to prove that was never the case is equally sad.
The enemies of Democracy are
You do realize that the Wright Brothers' plane was not the first airplane invented, right? There were other airplanes before them, which successfully flew (I think some of them were French). The problem was, the earlier planes took off, flew in a straight line some distance, and crashed. The Wright Brothers' plane was the first to master turning. Only an idiot would claim the WB invented the first airplane; what they invented was the first airplane that could actually maneuver.