We're talking about powered, controlled flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle. Dirigibles don't count.
Posted on 06/05/2013 10:11:10 AM PDT by servo1969
Are they righting a wrong or wronging the Wrights?
The Connecticut Senate passed a bill Tuesday evening that would delete the Wright brothers from history, explicitly stripping recognition for the first powered flight from Orville and Wilbur and assigning it to someone else.
“The Governor shall proclaim a date certain in each year as Powered Flight Day to honor the first powered flight by [the Wright brothers] Gustave Whitehead and to commemorate the Connecticut aviation and aerospace industry,” reads House Bill No. 6671, which now sits on the governor’s desk awaiting passage into law.
"There’s no question that the Wright brothers retain their place in aviation history," Republican state sen. Mike McLachlan told FoxNews.com. And rightfully so. They just weren't first." The governor is likely to sign the bill as early as next week, he said.
In March, aviation historian John Brown unveiled what he calls photographic proof that Whitehead flew over Connecticut in 1901, “two years, four months, and three days before the Wright brothers.”
"At least in Connecticut, aviation history now appears to have been rewritten,” Brown told FoxNews.com Wednesday. “I have no information about whether school books will be reprinted in time for the start of Fall classes.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Elisha Gray filed a patent interference the same day as Bell. Gray was on essentially the same track as Bell. Bell had better backers and reduced his design to art sooner.
Thanx
The Smithsonian supported Samuel Langley as first in flight. This so infuriated the Wright Brothers that they lent the original Wright Flyer to the British Museum. It was repatriated in the early days of World War II to prevent it from being damaged in the Blitz. The deed of gift to the Smithsonian stipulates that the if the Smithsonian ever recognizes anyone else as the inventor of controlled power flight, the Wright Flyer will revert to the Wright Brothers estate.
The Wright Brothers had the documentation and they made the airplane commercially viable.Columbus was probably preceded by any number of “discoverers” but he sold America- made it commercially viable. That is what matters
“But do the history books still note that the telephone and light bulb were invented by brilliant Russian scientist?”
Brilliant Russian scientist, Comrade Regus Patoff.
Jacob Frederick Brodbeck may actually have invented and flown an airplane about 40 years before the Wright brothers.
“His most cherished project, however, was his “air-ship,” which he worked on for twenty years. In 1863 he built a small model with a rudder, wings, and a propeller powered by coiled springs. That year he also moved to San Antonio, where he became a school inspector. Encouraged by the success of his model at various local fairs, Brodbeck set about raising funds to build a full-sized version of his craft that would be capable of carrying a man. He persuaded a number of local men, including Dr. Ferdinand Herff of San Antonio, H. Guenther of New Braunfels and A. W. Engel of Cranes Mill, to buy shares in his project, promising to repay them within six months of selling the patent rights to his machine.
There are conflicting accounts of what happened next. One says that Brodbeck made his first flight in a field about three miles east of Luckenbach on September 20, 1865. His airship, which featured an enclosed space for the “aeronaut,” a water propeller in case of accidental landings on water, a compass, and a barometer, and for which Brodbeck had predicted speeds between 30 and 100 miles per hour, was said to have risen twelve feet in the air and traveled about 100 feet before the springs unwound completely and the machine crashed to the ground. Another account, however, says that the initial flight took place in San Pedro Park, San Antonio, where a bust of Brodbeck was later placed. Yet another account reports that the flight took place in 1868, not 1865. All the accounts agree, however, that Brodbeck’s airship was destroyed by its abrupt landing, although the inventor escaped serious injury.
(From the Texas State Historical Association)
;’) And it’s getting even worse for the Wright Brothers:
First Flight in America, 1757
http://www.celebrateboston.com/first/human-flight.htm
First powered, sustained flight. I don’t see how a glider fits into powered.
MMmmmm K.
He traveled 700 feet in 16-18 seconds on some glider covered in feathers?
Well, he was traveling about 40 miles per hour.
How did he land and stop his vehicle at that speed?
And the Wright Brothers legacy isn’t in peril:
On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first sustained, controlled flights in a powered aircraft.
So some idiot tried to fly a kite covered in feathers and it fell down.
Retarded state. Must be something in the water.
Engines were Whitehead's forte. Engine building is the talent that probably lead to his being first to achieve powered flight. It is claimed that one of his motors powered the first military plane, which was financed by the US Navy and built by Israel Ludlow. In 1908, it took off from the Smithsonian's front lawn, of all places.
We're talking about powered, controlled flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle. Dirigibles don't count.
Earlier (than the Wright Bros, who were first) attempts at powered flight were doomed by the weight of the power plants available to the builders, heavy steam engines for example.
There’s a myth about a medieval Chinese emperor who had skyrockets attached to his throne and launched himself into the sky, but that is presumably a bit of nationalist agitprop from the 20th c. That would count as powered flight, if true.
When the Swedish flagship Kronan exploded in the Battle of Oland (1676), one of the survivors was blown far into the air, saw all the ships on both sides from up there, and miraculously landed safely in the billows of a sail. Had this happened during a later era, there would have been no sails, and he’d have also lost his priority as the survivor of the earliest powered flight. ;’)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3028784/posts
If memory serves, Orville Wright’s last flight was with Howard Hughes.
40 mph would be 58 ft/s, he flew about 30 miles per hour.
I divided 700 feet by 16 seconds arrive at my figure but, even so I am interested as to how he stopped the airplane .
Really? Kewel ...
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