PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew in 1908.
Old 26th Jun 2014, 00:37
  #617 (permalink)  
FlightlessParrot
 
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@simplex1

That sort of composite photograph (which is clearly NOT a "fake") was absolutely standard repertoire for a 19th c. photographer, just as no modern wedding photographer would survive without good knowledge of Photoshop.

You still haven't explained why you believe the Wrights did all this faking--I do NOT mean why, in your opinion, they did it but why you have that opinion, to motivate you to the sort of torturing of the evidence you are undertaking, which would be a bit strong even if done by a lawyer handsomely paid by G. Curtiss or G. Voisin.

It is pretty clear that the Wrights would be convicted in a modern court, to a criminal standard of proof, of having committed aviation between 1903 and 1905. The only interesting questions are about the relative priorities of the various groups (which is really vicarious willy-waving, a lot of the time), and much more interestingly, about how important the knowledge of the achievements (and failures) of the groups were to the rest of them.

I find it illuminating to discover just how meticulous the Wrights were in keeping records. Were any other of the pioneers this careful? You would expect Langley to have been careful, as a professional scientist, but he wasn't a professional experimentalist.
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