Did anyone see Horizon?

[WelshFlyer]

I thought it was fantastic - those guys must have had fun building that machine! The engine's a bit small for my taste, where did they get it? a scooter?

If only he had the chance to fly it - maybee we'd have done it and not the Americans!

Is anyone from that project on these forums?

WF.

[Dop]

Yeah. Great programme. Admittedly they took a few liberties - while I'm prepared to believe that Pilcher would have filled in those gaps in the wings early on, the idea that Pilcher would have fitted a seat was a bit of a leap of faith.

And of course the engine they used to run it probably weighed a lot less than any engine of the day.

But the guy who flew it sounded like he had fun, even if he did prang it on the first go!

I'd never heard of Pilcher before, but he definitely deserves a place in the books as one of the 'nearly men'.

At times in history certain ideas become inevitable and many people try to make those ideas bear fruit. Many of those are the nearly men - people who very nearly get their names in the history books but don't quite make it. Pilcher was definitely one of those guys.

[Philip Whiteman]

See my posting on 'Aviation history and nostalgia'

Wright brothers = story
Percy Pilcher = footnote

I would rank the kind of hand-wringing history re-writing represented by this half-arsed TV programme with all the nationalistic rot we've seen about Richard Pearse, Clement Ader and all the others who nearly or actually 'beat the Wrights to it'.

Bar-room talk, the lot of it.

[UV]

Have to agree with PW here!

Also dont forget that the chap flying it must have had a lot more hours in his log book than Pilcher ever did (!) and, with this experience, would be able to get a lot more from the aircraft than Pilcher ever would have been able to..!

[scottish_ppl]

The story of how man achieved powered flight isn't just about the men who were successful. Like any great endeavour, there were many twists and turns in the path taken before the correct way forward was found. The experiences of those who failed were a contribution to the knowledge of those who ultimately succeeded.

Percy Pilcher deserves his place in history as a courageous pioneer, and maybe a little more respect from us, the aviators of today, than shown above.

Personally I would have liked the program to have told us more about the man himself and his life and work rather than concentrating on rebuilding his machine, but it still made a good yarn.

[Tinstaafl]

Bloody melodrama! Like most 'documentaries' produced recently. Bloody hanging..........














.....sentence construction, blur-cam, shaky-cam, flicker-cam, reconstructions etc etc ad-nauseum. :mad: :mad:

A pity really because the content was interesting. Agree with the comments above about assumptions that were made including engine doubts.

[Whirlybird]

WelshFlyer,

There's a comment from CRAN on Rotorheads which suggests he was involved. Sorry, I don't have time to post the link.

As for the programme, I'd never heard of this chap, and I enjoyed it. A footnote? Maybe, but being a footnote to one of the greatest inventions of the last 100 years is OK. And yes, it made assumptions etc...but it was a TV programme primarily. And as such....I'd give it about 8/10. :ok:

[bookworm]

The story of how man achieved powered flight isn't just about the men who were successful. Like any great endeavour, there were many twists and turns in the path taken before the correct way forward was found. The experiences of those who failed were a contribution to the knowledge of those who ultimately succeeded.

It is, perhaps, fitting that it was the man who acknowledged this (http://www.si.edu/archives/documents/wrightmay301899.htm) most explicitly who was the one who was fortunate enough and skilled enough to be hailed as the first.

[QDMQDMQDM]

Of course it was bar-room talk but still interesting. It showed very clearly the kind of conceptual and practical chasms which had to be bridged on the pathway to controlled heavier than air flight. If he hadn't killed himself he might have come close. At the very least he would have been well placed to get going whent he Wrights showed the way.

Smart, courageous man. I take my hat off to him.

QDM

[BigEndBob]

see...

www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-440/contents.htm

A bit long but very interesting information on the development of wind tunnels.
A few names there i've never heard of including experiments carried out by the Wrights.