Quote:
June 1912, a plane without ailerons won the first place in Aspern - Wien airshow (Austria) for flying the smallest circle (Jane's All The World's Aircraft)
FFS Simplex - just because somebody flew without ailerons does not necessarily make it a good idea
I would hazard a guess that not one person on this thread has taught themselves to fly in a powered aeroplane which they have designed and built themselves. This, however, is what the majority of pre-1908 aviators did.
To use a comparison to learning to fly radio controlled model aircraft; it is much easier to teach oneself to fly a rudder/elevator model with ample dihedral, than one with aileron/rudder/elevator and the minimal dihedral necessary to make the ailerons effective. If you have a competent instructor ready to take over as soon as things go pear-shaped, that is a completely different situation and the aileron route is quicker.
Whether by accident or design, the early aviators such a Santos Dumont, who were learning to fly from the ground up, rather than being handed control at 500ft plus, were doing themselves a favour by starting with two axis control.
Another modern analogy is the two-axis Wood Sky Pup Ultralight which is intended for ab-initio builder/fliers.
Having said this, I am surprised just how little dihedral the Vlaicu Monoplane had, despite its apparent success.