In reply to pinchvalve :
That is not true. there were no reporters at their first flight.
In reply to pinchvalve :
That is not true. there were no reporters at their first flight.
slantvaliant said:Pffft.
Jacob Brodbeck flew before Whitehead was born, if one is to believe accounts.
Seriously, compared to Langley, Whitehead, many others, the Wrights showed a progression of development before and after their first flight. Their powered, controlled flight may or may not have been first, but theirs made it stick.
I wasn't there (no, really) but I wonder if the powered wheels were the problem.
Gliders already existed. POWERED flight was the goal. I could stick wings on my car and get going fast enough to take off, but the flight is not powered, it's a ground assisted glider.
Knurled. said:slantvaliant said:Pffft.
Jacob Brodbeck flew before Whitehead was born, if one is to believe accounts.
Seriously, compared to Langley, Whitehead, many others, the Wrights showed a progression of development before and after their first flight. Their powered, controlled flight may or may not have been first, but theirs made it stick.
I wasn't there (no, really) but I wonder if the powered wheels were the problem.
Gliders already existed. POWERED flight was the goal. I could stick wings on my car and get going fast enough to take off, but the flight is not powered, it's a ground assisted glider.
But, wasn't the Wright Flyer launched from a Catapult?
In reply to snailmont5oh :
No.
pinchvalve said:The Wright Brothers brought one thing to their first flight that no one else did: a newspaper photographer. Being first means nothing if you can't prove it, which led to Wilbur's now-famous quote: "pictures or it didn't happen."
Point:
Counter-point:
- - - - - - - ?
snailmont5oh said:Knurled. said:slantvaliant said:Pffft.
Jacob Brodbeck flew before Whitehead was born, if one is to believe accounts.
Seriously, compared to Langley, Whitehead, many others, the Wrights showed a progression of development before and after their first flight. Their powered, controlled flight may or may not have been first, but theirs made it stick.
I wasn't there (no, really) but I wonder if the powered wheels were the problem.
Gliders already existed. POWERED flight was the goal. I could stick wings on my car and get going fast enough to take off, but the flight is not powered, it's a ground assisted glider.
But, wasn't the Wright Flyer launched from a Catapult?
It was on a rail into the wind for the first flight.
In later flights, they did use a weight to drive it down the rail, but once airborne, it kept going on it's own power.
I know we've been admonished not to thread-jack earlier but I'll add some confusion to the first auto-mobile.
Not necessarily achieved by the makers of some very fine German taxi-cabs.
"Verbiest had also studied the properties of steam. His "Astronomia Europea" describes an "auto-mobile" which he designed as a toy for the emperor around 1672. It used a rudimentary boiler (a prototype of the Stanley Steamer) with wheels turned by steam forced towards a turbine. This was a scale model not constructed to carry passengers, but while the invention of the car may be attributed to Cugnot, Anderson, Benz or Daimler, and some have even proposed Leonardo earlier, there are those on the other side of their planet in remote Cathay who would say that the real inventor was Verbiest."
Above quote taken from this religious article.
In reply to Appleseed :
That picture was taken by a child from the nearby life saving station. It was the first and only picture he took his entire life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Daniels
In reply to tuna55 :
John Thomas Daniels, Jr. (July 31, 1873 – January 31, 1948)[1] was a member of the U.S. Life-Saving Station in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, who took the photograph of the first flight by the Wright Brothers on December 17, 1903.
30 year old "child" proving it's a conspiracy because the facts don't line up.
In reply to Stampie :
Whoops. My memory failed me that time. I thought it was the kid that took the pic.
Isn't there a Brazilian with a strong claim to have been first? I can't recall his name, but in Brazil I think he is still credited with having beaten them.
Appleseed said:pinchvalve said:The Wright Brothers brought one thing to their first flight that no one else did: a newspaper photographer. Being first means nothing if you can't prove it, which led to Wilbur's now-famous quote: "pictures or it didn't happen."
Point:
Counter-point:
- - - - - - - ?
This picture wasn't published until 1908, which was also the first time either Wright flew in public. In France.
Whitehead had a newspaper editor/photographer at his 1901 flight, but he started at 2 AM, and the picture was not good. The line drawing made from that photo was published at the time.
The Wrights spent more time crippling the developing aircraft industry in the US than developing aircraft, which is why they failed as manufacturers.
This is a deep hole, and one of my favorites (firmly Gustave Whitehead supporter), but you should look at the facts if you really care. Even Jane's is giving him the credit he deserves (2013).
Whitehead's flights (plural) of 1901-1902 were documented and published many times around the world.
The Wright's (nor Curtiss) didn't invent wing-warping, it was already well published and understood. Whitehead had it on his planes too. They just patented it.
The Wrights stifled all development in the US by filing for and getting an injunction in 1909. They ultimately lost the case. The rest of the aviation world was way ahead by then.
I will say that the Wright Bro's had a good design and improved upon it, but they didn't do it first, nor without learning from the community at large.
In reply to alfadriver : "The Wrights effort did result in future flying, a lot of it."
I would argue they actually did very little. Fourteen years after Kitty Hawk, at the start of our involvement in WW1, the US still didn't have planes, while a certain Baron was lighting up the skies over Europe.
In reply to llysgennad :
More than Whitehead did. If he was first, nothing came of it- which is curious if it was that good. But the Wrights did fly around- I see the point that they spent more time fighting people than working. And do think they could have made a fortune by just licensing it.
Interesting thread... I’ll toss Richard Pearse in to muddy the waters although as per the link below he always credited the Wrights with actually being first. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/richard-pearse
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