Hot air is for balloons

[Dave_Jackson]

An open e-mail.

Mr. Filippone,

On your web page http://aerodyn.org/History/milestones.html#sikorsky you say,

"The First Helicopter Flight
The first direct-lift, rotary wing vehicle to ever take off was the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 on Sept. 14, 1939. Igor Sikorsky himself piloted the vehicle he had designed and built."

On Feb 19, 1938 Ms. Hanna Reitsch flew the Focke Achgelis Fw 61 V2 before a large audience at the Colonial Exhibition in Berlin.

In fact, the first Federation Aeronautique Internationale recorded flight for the Fw 61 V1 was June 25, 1937, for an endurance record of 1 hr, 20 min, 49 sec. The first Federation Aeronautique Internationale recorded flight for the Fw 61 V2 was June 26, 1937, for a speed record over 20 km of 122.553 km/hr.

You may find the book 'Helicopters of the Third Reich by Steve Coates' very interesting and informative. http://www.germanvtol.com/hotr/hotr.html

Yours sincerely;

Dave J.

[PANews]

I note that the web site you linked to states it is the Selected History of Flight ... perhaps 'Selective' would be a better title.

Lots of it about.

With this year of the 100 years of powered flight TV screens are being [selectively] filled with US image media material [often dubbed with local presenter voices] showing history from the US point of view. So we get the first flight across the Atlantic as being that chap Lindberg and not Alcock and Brown. And where is Percy Pilcher? World War 2 tends to get truncated by National standards .... 1941 to 1945 in both the USA and Russia....

On the helicopter front there is not only the 'lie' about Sikorsky there is also the one about 'the first dedicated police helicopter' always pumped out as being New York.... That privately upsets the Czechs a bit ...... [well a lot actually]....

I suppose in a Nation used to getting 'first' regularly they think they ought to have it all!

But we who know better are watching....

[Genghis the Engineer]

This is a bit of an American abberation.

Let's be fair, the USA has done more in and with aviation than any other country, and has every right to be proud of that. So why this blinkered vision about other people's achievements.

A couple of years ago I had a very enjoyable visit to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Without doubt one of the great museums of the world, and well worth the visit, yet...

- The Spitfire there is annotated with some (perfectly correct) data about it having been flown by US Eagle squadrons during the early part of WW2. Of the RAF, Mitchell, or for that matter people like the Canadians, Indians, Israelis who used the aircraft to great effect - not a mention. You could easily get the impression that it was designed in the US.

- The ME262 is annotated with lots about the US test pilots who evaluated it, but virtually nothing about Willy Messerschmidt, German pilots who flew it during the war, etc.

(And don't even get me started on the space race.)

Why - I've no idea. The US has achieved so much more in aviation than the rest of us, yet some people over there seem to feel it's their duty to conceal the fact that any other nation has achieved anything at-all.

G

[Dantruck]

Sadly it's a bit of a national trait; not limited to aviation either.

In the other dimension in which I live, heavy trucks, International (International Harvester) came out with the silly claim a few years ago that it had developed the world's first flat floor cabover - for the uninitiated, a cabover is the more European layout where the cab sits atop the engine, rather than behind it as preferred in the US). They even put out a press release about it.

All this came as quite a surprise to Renault which had put its equivalent Magnum range into mass production in Europe many years before.

Couldn't resist tipping off Renault, who duly mailed International's press office a Magnum brochure and a very nice letter inviting them to come and take a look.

And you'd have thought they'd have heard of the 'Magnum'? You got to love them, though


:ok: :ok:

[RDRickster]

This is probably way too much generalization, but American's don't seem too concerned with things outside our little corner of the world. If you ever watch U.S. news channels, there isn't a lot of focus on stories internationally. I find the BBC slightly biased, but at least I get a more rounded approach to the world scene rather than CNN, ABC, NBC, or CBS. After all, we only have two neighbors... Canada & Mexico. I don't think we are exposed to as many cultures as you folks are because of proximity. Eventually, we'll start thinking more along the lines of a global community instead of how much we can get out of the global economy. (My 2 cents).

Concerning the slant on aviation, one only has to look at the fact that 73% of all General Aviation flight hours are flown in the U.S. In contrast, virtually all other nations are regulating, taxing, and pricing aviation to the point where it’s beyond the reach of ordinary citizens and small businesses. In most nations, private citizens, and entrepreneurs will never have the freedom to fly.

The excessive regulation, bureaucracies, and artificial price increases applied through user fees and taxation hinder general aviation in other countries. It is the free pilots of America that year-after-year achieve the world’s most outstanding safety record and highest level of economic productivity. That's not an attack... just a summary of experience on how much General Aviation is a part of American life.

The U.S. has 219,000 General Aviation aircraft, 18,345 public and private airports, and 5,400 community airports. In fact, there is a growing number of aviation communities. These are residential housing neighboods that are actually built AROUND an airport with aviation as the focus of the community. In these private neighborhoods, the streets are usually large enough to taxi your aircraft from the flight strip into the garage of your home!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Your points RDRickster, by and large, fair. But in that context, doesn't it make my point more strongly that when other countries have achieved something, the US should have the good manners to acknowledge the fact.

Incidentally, I think that the UK has a slightly better GA safety rate than the US, and also a better airline safety record (no fatalities in the last 15 years or so) as I think has Australia - but given that we're paying around 2-3 times as much per hour for the privilege and the Ozzies not much less I'm not necessarily arguing that we have the balance entirely right !

G

[PANews]

- The Spitfire there is annotated with some (perfectly correct) data about it having been flown by US Eagle squadrons during the early part of WW2.....

They had better send it back .... unfortunately it seems that they flew the humble Hurricane in the Eagle squadrons [from North Weald not Biggin Hill as they prefer to tell the World]... they did not get their Spitfire's until after they joined the war .... so thats wrong as well!

Is nothing as sacrosact as the truth!

P.S. Please do not mention the British and such as the Zulu War ..... it seems we have quite a few too many skeletons to be shouting about anybody else changing history to suit National pride! But what the heck!

[Dave_Jackson]

Dr. Antonio Filippone sent back a very polite reply. Unfortunately, at the bottom it says: :ooh:Privacy Notice: This email and its attachments are confidential documents.
They cannot be forwarded or circulated in any form without prior consent. Was it even wrong to circulate this Privacy Notice? :O
_________________

Prof. Leishman thinks that Cornu may have been the first. He has an article in
Vertiflite (fall-winter 2001) entitled 'Cornu's helicopter - First in
Flight?'. Coincidentally, in the same issue, Ray Prouty debunks many myths in his article 'Some Confusing Helicopter History'.

Prof. Leishman is well respected. In fact, he and other 'westerners' now dispute the widely held belief that the coaxial rotor is less efficient than the single rotor.

[Hilico]

Their 'gyroplane' (which looked like a forest with rotor blades) lifted itself under its own power in 1907. However, it certainly didn't control itself - there was a man at each of its four corners holding on for grim death.

This presumably means a) it wasn't a five-seater machine, and b) translational lift was not a concept with which the designers were familiar.

I mean, they were French...

[John Eacott]

Let's not even mention the Kiwi first powered flight 6 months before the Wright Brothers......:rolleyes: