The rest of the world didn't do much did they?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Hmmmmm (http://www.firstflight.org/shrine.cfm)

G

[Tarnished]

Wonder what's happened since 2002?

I see 1999 was Harriet Quimby, I think her brother Fred was more worthy......

Tarnished

[BOAC]

Good old Fred! - well, someone had to say it:p

[PPRuNe Pop]

My dad did a good job. His attempts at 'scientific' reproduction proved to be a classic. Eight of us have been carrying on the good work! :ooh:

[Peter Barron]

America has always had the greatest people in any field.

Just look at their two greatest comedians, Bob Hope and Stan Laurel :E

And John Wayne did not win WW2 :p

[m5dnd]

ER...

I suppose Alcock & Brown don't count because they missed the Azores !!

"First Direct Trans Atlantic Flight"

Sorry JDK should have made that clearer !!

TTFN

[Genghis the Engineer]

If you read the entry it does grudgingly mention that A&B did the first continuous crossing 2 weeks later!

G

[m5dnd]

Genghis,

Oop's, I should have gone further in !!.. But I agree with Your comment !!

Regards..

[foxmoth]

Link does not seem to work for me - comes up with "Error Occurred While Processing Request" and a message detailing the error.:uhoh:

[Bus429]

Doesn't work for me, either.

[effortless]

The site is down at the moment i think. Maybe thay have been sabotaged by irate "others".:eek:

[Onan the Clumsy]

would this the first site ever to be sabotaged?

[foxmoth]

So any chance of letting those of us that did not see it in on the secret?

[effortless]

It's up now.

[JDK]

I've seen the same Not Invented Here syndrome in Russia, France, Germany and ~er~ Britain where the local heroes are lauded with or without the weasel words like 'solo' 'non-stop' or 'apart from some funny foreigners who don't count' put in or left out.

The two factors making it the same old-same old is that because Britain and the USA both share a sort of similar language, you know what they aren't saying on the other side of the pond. Oh, and your country has to have an imperial sized ego and a few achievements to boost too of course. Working in a different language gives a while different world of aviation achievement.

Australia, Canada and New Zealand have a few notables too, but I guess they are used to being patronised by the fat boys, so it don't notice so much...

To look to the mote in one's own eye, I'd have said Alcock & Brown were first - but they weren't were they? First - NON-STOP... Neither the USN or A&B's achievements were easy or negligible, but a national bias is all too easy to let creep in...

Best version of this was in the Maritime Museum in Amsterdam where all the paintings and models had very short (polite, useable) captions in English, French and German, and a long one in Dutch. It didn't take long to see that the Dutch captions were a lot about tonking the French navy, the British Navy and certainly the Spanish. Guess they were being diplomatic!

The test is can you name ten aviation records set or held by(say) Russia, Italy, France etc. Responses along the lines of "There aren't any..." go in the happy Mr.Xenophobe bin... :hmm:

Everybody knows the home team's stats. How much more do you know?

Just a few thoughts.

[foxmoth]

So - other nominations?
I would go for:-
George Cayley
Alcock & Brown
Otto Lillienthal
Montgolfier Brothers
If they want to be international, and they have Rickenbacker in they surely must include Richthofen.

[effortless]

Pyotr Nesterov first loop
I.I.Sikorsky first 4 engines aeroplane and first real airliner.

[Mr_Grubby]

I’d nominate Frenchman Rolland Garros. 1882 – 1918.

First to fly non stop across the Mediterranean in 1913.
First to invent the forward firing machine gun through the propeller of an aircraft in WW 1.

Didn’t do him much good though as he was KIA one month before the end of hostilities in 1918.


C.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I don't think there's anything wrong with any kind of "hall of fame" celebrating the greats of a particular nation's aviation achievements - so long as they admit that's what they are doing.

But, if you start to introduce people from outside your own parish, you really need to be less partisan.

The area this is most obvious I think is actually in Space. Most space related material we read in the English language is US originated, and thus tends to forget that the Russians managed the first man in space, the first two-men in space, the first orbit, first spacewalk, landing on the moon, space shuttle flight, space station... (Basically the Yanks pipped them for a manned moon landing and a more successful shuttle, but that's about it).

G

[mfaff]

Genghis,

Agree with your points..but the Russians did have a habit of doing it first for the sake of it..and not being able to mature the result....

A number of those items you mention are applicable.....as is the Tu144...first to fly, first to M1 and M2 but never actually achieved its aim.. so was it really the first commercial airliner to fly? It was never subsequently a commercial airliner...

Pedantic I know but it does have a certain validity...

[Genghis the Engineer]

Tu144, I agree, it was rushed and disastrous.

The space programme (and I've worked out there with some of this technology) I disagree on everything except the shuttle Buran - the quality of science, and the amount they did with it is every bit as respectable as the NASA effort, in some cases rather better. Okay, a lot of it was military, but that was hardly missing from the US effort!

G

[Woomera]

I wonder why Richard Pearce (http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html) is not included - or would that cause a major re-write of the US history books, not to mention, offending the Smithsonian Institute?

:E

[JDK]

I don't think there's anything wrong with any kind of "hall of fame" celebrating the greats of a particular nation's aviation achievements - so long as they admit that's what they are doing.
But, if you start to introduce people from outside your own parish, you really need to be less partisan.
G

I'd agree this is a remarkably poor effort (the wonders of the web).

But my point is even when 'pretending' or 'attempting' to be unbiassed, just by the nature of what you know, a national bias always creeps in. The exception is international collaborative listing efforts - such as the 'Chronicle of Aviation' book.

Show me a listing of greats, and I'll tell you what nationality the compiler was...

Yes, we would have to rewrite the history books for Pearce - The jury's in and the answer was 'not successful'. There was an excellent series in Aeroplane Monthly about several pioneers whose achievements were massaged and re-invented for national adulation. Pearce and Santos Dumont were two who'd done a fair amount, but not as much as their NZ and Brazilian boosters would have you believe. "Intelligent Design" for aviation, I'm afraid.

[effortless]

Valentina Tereshkova - first woman in space.

[mfaff]

Genghis,

Buran was a bit of a non starter....However I was wondering more about the manned missions to the moon....

From Starman and Korolev's books it would appear that technically they were making progress to match the americans...if not ahead but political pressure was applied to expedite the operation of immature designs which resulted in failures. especially the main booster (SV euqivalent) which then set the programme back....

Your experience may well contradict this but it is this perception that has generated the impression of a 'rush' to be first regardless....

As for the qulaity we need look noe further than the continued use and 'safety' of designs from that era...whilat the US has allowed these to become obsolete and rely solely on new technology....

[Genghis the Engineer]

Let's face it, both sides were rushing to be first pretty much regardless.

The Soviet rocket, which was designated N1 was kept extremely secret, primarily it was being developed by the Progress and Nikolai-Kolmykov bureaus in Samara - I've met a few of the Engineers who worked on the design and even now they are cagey about it. I've never seen drawings or models, but it was described to me as "very much like the Saturn V". Hardly surprising, since the state of the art in modern rocket technology was fairly similar both sides of the iron curtain.

A problem of the era is that unlike in the US, the Engineers couldn't readily walk away from political pressure when it all got too difficult - and that lack of ability certainly led to a few too-many corners being cut occasionally - I suspect that Tu-144 and Buran were particularly bad examples of this.

However, when the US landed on the moon with Apollo 11, the decision from the Kremlin was to simply bin it all and pretend that the project never happened. When you consider the amount of brilliant work that must have been buried, a real tragedy - what could have happened if they'd carried on?

G

[chevvron]

Peter Barron:
You forget that other 'famous american' Charlie Chaplin, who like Stan Laurel, started his career with Fred Karno's troupe in south london (Elephant & Castle so the wife tells me)

[Footless Halls]

You can learn all that is known (just about) on the website http://www.astronautix.com

[18-Wheeler]

I wonder why Richard Pearce (http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html) is not included - or would that cause a major re-write of the US history books, not to mention, offending the Smithsonian Institute?
:E


*nods*
They just keep on ignoring him and hoping he'll go away ...

[Peter Barron]

chevvron.

I did know about Charlie Chaplin being English but never really rated him, each to their own I suppose, I found Stan Laurel much funnier.

For some reason Americans seem to think that they were the first and best in everything even when they are not.
I have a model American Steam Engine, its called the J Class, it was a Streamliner Engine in the 1930s and very fast.
The model is made by an American company and has the history of the Engine on the box.
According to them the J Class was the fastest Steam Engine in the world ever made.
So my question to them is What about the Mallard, everyone knows that the fastest steam locomotive ever made was the A4 Mallard, its never been beaten, so why say the J Class is the fastest when its not, I just can't see the point of them saying that.

Errol Flynn did not take Burma :E

Peter.

[JDK]

Hi Peter,
~sigh~ I could substitute 'Britons' for your 'American'. But that's OK (for the Brits.) As I said above, look to the mote in your own eye. It's easy, and frankly boring to go on about xenophobia, and I'm afraid coming from the UK, often hypocritical. :hmm:

Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania. Obviously he was very unpatriotic not to go to Ealing but to Hollywood, maybe because it *shock horror* offered better opportunities? :ooh:

I could find the same attitude on a number of British websites and box-tops, but, you know, life's too short.

No offence intended...

[Genghis the Engineer]

None taken, but do you want Rolf Harris back?

G

[JDK]

Nooooo...

I TOLD him not to do that portrait.

Can your majesty see what it is yet? :p

All better, thanks nurse.

Back (sort of) on topic - John Gilespie McGee Jr. (Yes him, surly bonds etc...) American, Canadian or RAF hero?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Back (sort of) on topic - John Gilespie McGee Jr. (Yes him, surly bonds etc...) American, Canadian or RAF hero?

Almost certainly all three, making him the perfect WW2 hero!


Of course, more recently, many people in Britain are still convinced that Michael Foale was a British Astronaut!

G

[Windy Militant]

That would be Helen Sharman shurely!
If you've a few spare moments this is an interesting site
Russian Space web (http://www.russianspaceweb.com/index.html)
If you think the N1 was a monster have a look at the UR-700.
The Mars mission plans are pretty impressive as well.
It's a shame that the political system in Russia allowed personality clashes to divide the efforts to achive these things.
As an aside aren't they using regenerative engines which were originally built for the N1, which were hidden by the engineers who could not bring themselves to destroy them when the programe foundered on American airframes now. Apparently they are extremely efficient despite being forty year old technology.

[effortless]

Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania.

Good lord was he? I knew his dad, lived in Woodingdean. No trace of an accent and quite a decent chap. Not a bit antipodean! :E

[JDK]

Flynn...

From Wikipedia:
Born in Hobart, Tasmania, he was taken to Sydney, Australia as a child, where he attended two schools and was expelled from both. Shortly afterwards he moved to New Guinea, where he bought a tobacco plantation, a business which failed. In 1933 he starred in the Australian made film In The Wake Of The Bounty directed by Charles Chauvel. In the early 1930s he left for Britain and in 1933 got an acting job with Northampton Repertory Theatre, where he worked for six months. According to Gerry Connelly's Book Errol Flynn in Northampton, he also acted at the 1934 Malvern Festival, and also in Glasgow and in London's West End. After gaining this experience in the acting trade, he moved to Hollywood looking for film work.

Incidentally, I never knew either, until recently, when on hols in Taz - he's often regarded as a 'famous export' there :} and I was guessing at the not happy in England, but, there y'are. (Not a fan, don't care where anyone's from, it's how that act that counts...)

[Peter Barron]

JDK.

Errol Flynn might not have taken Burma single handedly but he was THE Robin Hood, its never been played better by anyone :ok:

Peter.