The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew in 1908.

[Haraka]

Re the above: Plus 1

[dubbleyew eight]

the wright brothers aren't remembered for inventing the aeroplane.

they are remembered for inventing the first successful aeroplane

[HAS59]

Just my two penneth but ...

What the Wright brothers flew was not the first successful aeroplane, that came later. What they were tinkering around with was an experimental flying machine. They were one of many groups venturing into unknown territory and learning (often by mistake) as they went. I'm glad they did, I'm just as glad that others did also.

They are not particularly special in this field, just lucky enough to have been remembered by most as 'the fist'.

What exactly constitutes successful aeroplane? One that can actually do something other than get up and down again without killing its occupant or wrecking itself in the process?

[dubbleyew eight]

What exactly constitutes successful aeroplane?

one that can be controlled.
sure the wright's first aeroplane was quite anaemic but it had in place the fundamentals that were developed into the controllable aeroplane.
all the other "firsts" lacked the ability to turn in a controlled fashion.
it was the wrights who were the first to be able to control an aeroplane in a figure of 8 turn.

you'll note that the figure of 8 turn, demonstrating the ability to control the aircraft, was a fundamental element in the Cramer prize for man powered flight.

[Haraka]

the Cramer prize for man powered flight.

The what?

I presume you are referring to the first of the Kremer series of prizes for the development of man-powered flight.

[dubbleyew eight]

blame the effing spell chequer for that one. I gave in to its suggestion.

[Haraka]

There you are you see, that's what comes of being easily lead.

[Haraka]

Actually the Gossamer Condor flew its figure of 8 course for Kremer on 2 axis aerodynamic control only....

No need for the famous Wrights rudder, wing-warp co-ordination there, for the simple reason that it didn't have a rudder.

[dubbleyew eight]

no I'm not easily led. all the crap that has been posted on this thread hasn't changed my mind at all.
Harry Coomb's and Martin Caidin's book 'Kill Devil Hill' has been verified by every original document I've ever seen.

The wright brothers are the father's of modern aviation.

you and simplex are twits. it is as simple as that.

[Haraka]

no I'm not easily led. all the crap that has been posted on this thread hasn't changed my mind at all.
Harry Coomb's and Martin Caidin's book 'Kill Devil Hill' has been verified by every original document I've ever seen.

The wright brothers are the father's of modern aviation.

you and simplex are twits. it is as simple as that.

And that, dear readers, would appear to conclude our learned friend's case for the Wright Brothers.

[glendalegoon]

dubbleyew eight

I agree with you. HARAKA's argument is amazingly dumb. He won't enter the entire book "Kill Devil Hill" into evidence. And really, who cares what PEARCE says?


Haraka, if the wrights didn't do what they said they did, how come every plane you have flown (assuming no home builts) paid homage to the wrights with royalties?

How come the state of ohio has a license plate proclaiming the birth of aviation and the state of north carolina has first in flight on their license plate ?

Folks like Haraka are just lonely and troll to get attention.

And weakest of all are the attempts to say that coordinated control isn't needed and its OK to slop a plane around on rudder alone.

While ailerons, spoilers, wing warping are all related, I can't think of any plane built that is in general use without at least one of the above. AND ON TOP OF EVERYTHING the wrights included ailerons in their patent.

The wrights figured it all out and put it all together.

And if HARAKA can prove it otherwise, let him overturn the patent. UNTIL SUCH TIME that he does, I hope he will SHUT THE F$% up.

Sad, revisionist crank. I'll even bet QUEENS flight has paid the royalty to the wrights for that dopey little plane she flys around in.

[Haraka]

Another reasoned and constructive comment from glendalegoon I see,

[joy ride]

Patents generally give cover for 18 years, then are extendable for 2-3 years more at exceptional cost. Once the patent has expired royalties usually are no longer paid. Copyright, Registered Design and Registered Trade Mark owners fare MUCH better and for hugely less cost, the greatest iniquities in Intellectual Property law; inventors are cash cows and disposable.

I have been pondering about craft which glide and fly without mechanical 3 axis control (not including lighter-than-air-craft) :

Various gliders from Otto Lillienthal's up to modern hang gliders etc. are controllable by shifting body weight.

Various micro-lights and para-gliders also do not appear to have controls for all 3 axes.

Autogyros, including the unpowered Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 "Bachsteze" do not have 3 axis control.

The Harrier and other vectored Thrust planes have 3 axis controls, but are not solely reliant on these and can perform amazing manoeuvers with reduced or even no use of the normal 3 axis control systems.

This seems to highlight that talk of "The First To Fly" inevitably requires EXACT definition of all the various parameters and these parameters then exclude various machines which SHOULD be included. Could Pearse's plane have been controlled by body movement?

Now, over 100 years since any of "the first" alleged powered, controlled sustained flights, can we ever know CATEGORICALLY whether gradients, head wind, human or mechanical assistance, exaggeration, unreliable witnesses, vested interests, Lawyers, National pride or other factors might have tipped the scales?

[glendalegoon]

haraka

I've met people like you all my life. Your type never really accomplishes anything. So, you tear down others who have done something. I really feel sorry for you.


But your type never really wins in the long run. The US national park service won't be tearing down the monuments to the Wrights near Kitty Hawk, NC.

The Wrights' bicycle shop in dayton won't be torn down based on your views.

Ohio and North Carolina won't be changing their automobile license plates because of what you write.

No one will be tearing down the sign in Virginia, USA, Just west of the district of columbia hearlding the birthplace of the Wright Brothers mother.

Haraka, you will have to be content sitting yourself down in your cluttered room and laughing to yourself.

HARAKA you are the same type of person who doesn't think the moon landings happened. That they were faked in a movie studio.

Haraka. You are not worthy to scrape the sand off the shoes of the Wrights from walking around Kill Devil Hill.

Reasoned and Constructive? Who died and made you king?

I mean it. How much real talent does it take to place a clapping emoticon on a web site?

How many young people are out there just saying: Boy, I want to grow up and be like HARAKA!

Did Henry Ford ever meet you and create an homage to HARAKA? He did for the Wrights.

How many movies have been made about HARAKA? (oh, and the title, ''the mouse that roared'' has already been taken)

haraka, go right ahead and quote obscure failures in aviation as real evidence to counter the wrights. we'll all laugh a little and shake our heads at poor HARAKA>


The WRIGHT naysayers are all sad little bookish sorts who don't ever get out and DO anything. Talk is cheap, actions speak louder than words and the WRIGHTS' actions are amazing.

Did Lindbergh get his picture taken with HARAKA or Orville Wright? Sorry Haraka, make any comments you like about my views, but I am on the side of WRIGHT/RIGHT. You are just one of those folks. We understand. We'll send you a fruitcake because, ''you are what you eat''.

[Haraka]

Hi Joy Ride

Autogyros, including the unpowered Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 "Bachsteze" do not have 3 axis control

I did some evaluation and development flying on the Wallis Autogiro in the 80's. It had the "Wallis" patented offset rotorhead which could be controlled in both pitch and roll as well of having rudder of course so it certainly felt like it had 3 axis control in flight.

Colleague Bill Sayer (of the RAF Museum and Shuttleworth's) built and flew successfully a replica Voisin ( Papillon Blanc) which is now in the Brooklands museum. I had long discussions with him on it's flight characteristics, hence my earlier remarks about flying 2 axis control with automatic stability in the 3rd.

[simplex1]

According to his own words, Richard Pearse did not start to build any plane before 1904

The interview Richard Pearse gave to a journalist from the Timaru Post, likely on November 16, 1909, is clear. Pearse did not start to build any flying machine before 1904. He just claimed he had flown the week before the interview (in the beginning of November 1909). Pearse said nothing about possible flights made by him in 1904-1908. This inventor from NZ also made a ridiculous claim according to which, to his knowledge, the lightest available 25 HP engine in 1909 (excepting his motor that was only 100 lbs) weighted around 300 lbs!

Richard Pearse was an ignorant. He certainly had a plane in 1909 that was seen by the journalist who interviewed him but this is not a definitive proof his machine could really fly. There are also other claims of this man from NZ that are hard to believe like the take off speed of his airplane being only 12 mph and the plane itself being able to come down to the earth gradually like a parachute had the engine stopped. He also pretended that many of his inventions, which he had patented in NZ, had come into use in the world?!

"A New Zealand flying machine Mr Richard Pearse of Waitohi the Inventor

(From The Timaru Post, November 17, 1909)

A newspaper reporter receives curious instructions from time to time, but surely none more curious or pleasing than that which awaited the writer, a Post representative, on his arrival at the office on Tuesday morning. It read with that brevity peculiar to editors: "Inspect Mr Richard Pearse's flying-machine at Waitohi".
A quick ride in the express train to Temuka, and an inquiry of a very respectable hotel keeper put me on the track leading to the house of Mr Pearse, the inventor.
I crossed the field and rapped at the door of the dilapidated old structure. "Come in," said a cheery voice. The impression made upon my mind is one that I know will never be effaced.
"To the right of me was an empty room resembling a miniature barn, littered with sack and chaff. In the passage, immediately in front of me, rested three pieces of mechanism, built of bamboo poles and sail, for all the world resembling the spars and sails of a yacht.
To the left of me, however, was "the" room, I was face to face with the replica of an up-to-date engineering establishment.
There stood the forcing furnace, the time-honoured lathe, bores and innumerable other tools.
The litter of scrap iron, tins, oils, wire, etc, inseparable from an engineering establishment, and in the midst of it all, king of his own little den, stood the inventive genius himself, Richard Pearse – the man who day in and day out, from 8 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock in the evening, for five long, weary years, with a patience and doggedness almost inhuman, has plodded on, until the very chink of his chisel would seem to have become tragically monotonous, and the mention of a flying-machine an anathema. But it is, and for Pearse, happily not so.
The man is an enthusiast, heart and soul. He is as fresh, as happy, as healthy and as determined as the day, when five years ago, he set out to achieve the dream of his life – the inventing and making of a flying-machine. And has he succeeded? Well it would appear so. The beautiful network of machinery, bamboo, wire and tarpaulin – looking for all the world like a huge spider's web, with a fly in the centre, and wings at the rear and at either side – answers affirmatively. From the equilibrium rudder at the tail to the propeller at the front and the engines in the centre, the machine is entirely original and demonstrates clearly the untiring patience, indomitable pluck, and engineering skill of the inventor.
But perhaps it would be as well to tell Pearse's tale in his own words. For the information of those who have not had the privilege of meeting this silent worker on the plains, I might mention that he is a man of striking personality and appearance.
He is of good physique, stands well over six feet in his socks, and his hands are large and hardened as those of a man well used to the rough toil of life. His story is simply told, and put in connected form, reads as follows:
"I am the son of a farmer, and have two brothers, both of whom, and myself are bachelors. My father is a retired man, and lives with my mother at Temuka. His farm is cut up between myself and brothers.
"From the time I was quite a little chap, I had a great fancy for engineering, and when I was still quite a young man, I conceived the idea of inventing a flying machine.
"I did not attempt anything practical with idea until, in 1904, the St Louis Exposition authorities offered a prize of 20,000 to the man who invented and flew a flying machine over a specified course. I did not, as you know, succeed in winning the prize, neither did anybody else. But I succeeded sufficiently to realise that there was a future for the flying machine and to send me on the course which is now within a week or two of complete success.
"Many of the parts for machine have been used on the other side of the waters. I do not say, mind you, that inventions have been copied. It is but natural that different people working on the same ideas, should arrive at the same conclusions. But I will say many of my inventions have come into use on the other side of the world since my own were patented in New Zealand.
"Almost every portion of my machine is of my own exclusive manufacture. The 25-horse power petrol engine (in four parts) and radiator built myself specially for a flying machine. The lightest 25hp engine in the world to my knowledge, weighs somewhere in the vicinity of 300lbs.
"My 25hp water-cased engine weighs 100lbs only, turns the four sheet steel propeller blades at the rate of 800 revolutions to the minute, and under the very severe tests to which I have subjected it, it has never shown the slightest sign of failure.
"My propeller connects direct with the crankshaft, thus obviating the necessity for clutches or any other weighty gear. The whole secret to a flying machine is in its lightness, and sustaining power. My machine weighs altogether, with me in it, only 500lbs, as against 1000 and 2000lbs the weights of the machines on the other side of the world.
"I have 900ft of sustaining area, as against 500 and 700ft, the sustaining areas of the 1000lb and 2000lb machines in the northern hemisphere. The action of a flying machine is simply that the propeller drives the machine along, and like a boy with his kite, as soon as a certain velocity is attained (in the case of my machine 12 miles per hour) the machine is elevated with its tricycle into the air, and sustained there by the 900ft of canvas beneath the body of the machine.
"Would the machine drop instantly if the propeller stopped revolving? Certainly not. The machine would descend as gracefully as a parachute.
"At the present moment, my rear rudder is slightly too heavy for the rear of the machine, and I am shifting it to the front, when every piece of the working mechanism will be within my sight as I sit in the machine.
"I have had several tests. Last week's was my most successful one, the machine rising readily, but tilting gradually at the rear owing to the rudder in that position disturbing equilibrium. As you may imagine, after five years labour without a return, and the expenditure of about 300 in raw material, I cannot afford to take any risks with my machine. Next week, if my trial is satisfactory, I will make preparations for the giving of public exhibitions.
"There is no commercial value in a flying machine itself at present. If I can get my machine right for flying exhibitions throughout Australasia, within a short time, my fortune is made. If through any case I am delayed, and foreign machines are exhibited here, I will simply get no return; but that will not prevent be bringing my machine to perfection. Would you like to see the petrol engine and propeller in operation?"
I admitted that I would, and my desire was promptly gratified. The engine was set going, the propeller was given a twist or two, and with a suddenness wholly unprovided for, I was almost blown off my feet by a veritable hurricane of wind.
The propeller blades spun round until they appeared as mere shadows in the daylight; the machine heaved and rattled like a living thing, seeming every moment as if it would spring from the earth and disappear.
A touch of the hand, and the vibrating mechanism was as dead as a stone. It was then that I recollected that the last train left Temuka at 6.18 o'clock and that I had no chance of catching it, but I was content to lose it. I had seen the first completed flying machine in Australasia, and that was worth missing a dozen trains to see. It was therefore in a cheerful spirit that, after partaking of the lavish hospitality of the Pearse Brothers at their bachelors' house, a couple of miles distant, I crossed the seat of my antiquated bicycle – one of the first I imagine, that was imported into New Zealand – and pedalled all the 15 miles to home and Timaru.
It might be mentioned for the information of those who find time hanging on their hands, that the machine in question is not yet open to minute public inspection, but will be as soon as the inventor is ready."

[simplex1]

Model planes, most of them, do not have three axis control

Many model planes have just two axis control. Only the rudder and elevator can be steered by the operator. They are quite stable.
see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb-XS7p6QBE

There are even model planes where just the rudder and throttle can be controlled and they take off, fly and land without significant problems.

[joy ride]

I do not think that monuments, photo ops, license plates and museums can really be considered as proof of a fact. I doubt there are any monuments to or museums about George Cayley and other pioneers at the Royal Aeronautical Society in USA. Does this mean that their work did not happen?!

There are monuments and exhibits concerning Clement Ader in France and many French people are as convinced that their Local Hero was the "First" as Americans with the Wrights and New Zealanders with Pearse. Others favour Maxim, as his plane clearly "wanted" to fly but was held down. Farman and others have loyal supporters too, plus monuments/museum exhibits and all the other ephemera associated with any local hero.

I believe that the evidence for many early flights would be unlikely to pass modern standards (for instance the Guiness Book of Records) and there is enough discrepancy, vagueness, partisanship and litigation that I personally do not really like to single out a single "First".

[18-Wheeler]

According to his own words, Richard Pearse did not start to build any plane before 1904.

Quite simply totally incorrect.
He made and flew gliders from 1899 onwards, his first powered flight was in early 1903. (Slight chance of 1902 though)
A quick tip - Not everything can be found on the internet, there's still good information that can only be found in books.

[jondc9]

http://www.owensarchive.com/images/u...e_22,_1927.jpg