vanselow wrote:
On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 15:13:34 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:


"Platon67" wrote in message
...

Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Flight (1903-2003)


Are you saying that the Wrights did not achieve powered, sustained,
controlled
heavier-than-air flight in 1903, or are you saying that someone else
achieved it before them?


There are a number of claimants to the first powered heavier-than-air
flight.

Clément Ader, 9 October 1890 to 14 October 1897
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Ader
www.daviesharbour.com/aiaa/hist/fra.html

Lyman Gilmore, 15 May 15 1902
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Gilmore

Gustave Whitehead, (Gustav Weisskopf, he was a German) 14 August 1901
www.deepsky.com/~firstflight/Pages/gpage4.html
http://www.weisskopf.de/

Richard Pearse, 31 March 1903
www.destination.co.nz/temuka/pearse.htm
www.billzilla.org/pearce.htm

Karl Jatho, 18 August 1903
www.flyingmachines.org/jatho.html


May be the first kiter:
Otto Lilienthal, 1891
http://www.lilienthal-museum.de/olma/ehome.htm


There were many powered lighter-than-air flights well before the
Wright
Brothers were even born.

Henri Giffard, 24 September 1852
www.skytamer.com/famous/1800.htm


the borther Wrights were just be filmed doing that, and they were
USamercians.

Nonsense. None of these stand up to scrutiny. I've already dealt with
Ader's false claims. Whitehead made an uncontrolled hop and later tried
to boost his claim into something it wasn't. Pearse made some hops - but
in all these cases, not one of the aircraft was capable of lateral
control. As I've already said, the key contribution of the Wrights was
to produce an aircraft capable of aerodynamic control in all three axes.
Theirs was the first (and for several years after, the only) aircraft to
have actual roll control capable of turning the aircraft in the way we
do it now (all others were trying to turn the aircraft using rudder). So
yes, although there were many hops into the air before the Wrights, none
of these were in aircraft capable of full control. Also, most (such as
Ader) achieved these hops through pure brute force - the aircraft were
not capable of sustaining flight because their 'flight' was more
ballistic than aerodynamic. So the claim that the Wrights were the first
to achieve powered, sustained, controlled flight in a heavier-than-air
craft is unassailable.

The sad thing about all this hoopla surrounding the Wrights is that it
is so distorted. The Wrights did not invent the aeroplane - that had
started at least a century before (earlier claims for people like
Leonardo don't stand up). If you want to give the credit for the
intellectual process of inventing the aeroplane, that should go to
George Cayley and the publication of his 'On Aerial Navigation' papers
in 1809/10. Cayley identified the four forces of flight - the defining
and critical concept that underlies the aeroplane. However, the Wrights
took what existed in the way of knowledge, added a little of their own,
then applied their engineering excellence to make it all *work* - and
that's why they get the credit.

The irony is that, just six years after they first flew, the Wright
design of aircraft (which was inherently unstable) was already obsolete,
replaced by a European concept which is the true ancestor of today's
aeroplanes. That European concept, however, would not have worked
without the Wrights' contribution of three-axis aerodynamic control.


Therefore, the claim that the Wrights made the first