An Historical Perspective on the Wright Accomplishment

"Gary Osoba" wrote in message
...

snip
As such, I would suggest that when Paul MacCready's
team
achieved sustainable, controlled human-powered flight
by
winning the Kremer Prize in 1977, the seminal flight
event in the
past century had occurred. Although the flight did
snip
Here's to the Wrights, MacCready, and all pioneers
in flight!

Best Regards,

Gary Osoba


Now 26 years later what have been the economic, political, scientific,
cultural, etc. etc. impacts of MacCready's flight? Pretty close to zero in
most of the big categories. By 1929, 26 years after the Wright Bros.
flight, their invention had enormous impacts in all of those areas.
Choosing to view the importance of an invention by the extent to which it
fulfills primitive dreams is romantic, but I don't think it is how most
people view progress. The Wright's invention changed the world in many,
many ways; MacCready's was a very cool toy. (Besides, my flight dreams
never involve any extertion, and the Gossamer pilots had to work like hell.)
mm