It certainly is mate!

I checked out a few Wiki sites - and noticed the one devoted to the Wright Brothers is locked to prevent "vandalism"...

I wonder why? :)

http://i60.tinypic.com/33trneq.jpg

Yes, and on 11th May 1903 he was able to fly about 900 yards with it.

Henri Farman flew without ailerons of any kind for up to 42 km, in close circuit. It is a myth that Wing Warping, or ailerons in general, were essential for making turns.

- January 13, 1908---the first complete circuit of 1000m, 1:28 min.
- March 21---DURATION AND DISTANCE RECORD flight of 2004.8 m in 3:31 min.
- July 6, 1908---At Issy, Farman flew 20 km in 19:6 min.
- September 29, 1908---42 km in 43 min. at Mourmelon.
- September 30, 1908---34 km in 35:36 min. at Mourmelon.
- October 2, 1908---40 km in 44:32 min. at Mourmelon.
- October 28, 1908---M. Painleve carried about two km and other flights made up to 40 km. Ailerons put on.
Source: Very Earliest Early Birds

And it seems the only winners back then were the Lawyers...

Wright brothers patent war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://i61.tinypic.com/1zg3pr7.jpg

Just take a look at the Talk Page and you will find the explanation.
see: Talk:Wright brothers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wiki editor Binksternet, a great fan of the Wright brothers, locked the page being afraid the truth about the Wright brothers will spread quickly if it appears on their Wiki site.

An earlier poster said:

In this case, as in many other inventions, NOBODY was first because you have to define what "powered, controlled flight" means before you can say who was first at it, and the definition doesn't just fall neatly and precisely out of the facts.

But it looks like, amongst all the great pioneers, the Wrights were very early in bringing the things together, through patient research and studying the findings of others, but the "controlled" part took them a long time to get right. The modern experience suggests that in 1903, to maintain control, they had to be ahead of the aeroplane to a paranormal extent.

Turning it into "who was first" just makes it a p1ssing contest. And then trying to win that contest by denying that they did what they did is to miss the point twice.

Parallel case: who invented printing with movable type? Gutenberg actually invented a nifty way of casting type; that brought together a whole lot of stuff, all of which was needed, and which started with the development of alphabetic writing 2000 years before Gutenberg.

That was down to the engine not producing enough power, and is also the reason they had to resort to catapult assist for take off in light/no wind. It was not until the engine was further developed and produced more power that they were then able to fit wheels.

The original engine was rated at 8 to 16 HP, whereas that in the 1910 Model B Flyer, which introduced wheels, was rated at 28 to 42 HP.

Details on the various engines The Project Gutenberg e-Book of The Wright Brothers' Engines and their Design; Author: Leonard S. Hobbs.

Details on the Model B 1910-1914 Wright Model BCould you tone it down and stop being such an obnoxious prat.

brian

that's a quote from "SEINFELD". I just assumed most people had seen "seinfeld" enough to appreciate it. and since it was ok for major network television, I thought it would be ok for you.

revisionist crank is from "silver streak".

and I would rather be an obnoxious pratt than an obnoxious rolls.

Officially - the FAI might disagree with you there !They defined it :)

Please note simplex :ok:

Perhaps it should be remembered that the Wrights were the subject of a campaign by some prominent american scientists to discredit their achievements,and also that during their patient and rational research they found that much of the accepted scientific 'knowledge' about aerodynamics was deeply flawed.They approached the subject in a logical and practical manner or if you prefer - a much more structured manner than others at that time.

one of the very great things that the wright brothers did was to stop using their bodily senses to understand flying and to objectively measure with instruments the forces in wind tunnels.

just everyone has poked their hand out the window of a car, curved their hand and "felt" the lift forces.

but what have they actually felt? the nerves in your skin only react to heat, pinch and cold. you simply don't sense a lot of the pressure variations and forces.
only by measuring with instruments (no matter how crude) will you ever uncover what the forces actually are.

crap on all you like about the wrights but they are acknowledged as the "fathers of flight" for the sum total of their achievements. you can't change that.

Considering that many things had flown before the Wrights, including gliders, birds and pterodactyls and Otto Lilienthal and seeing as 'glide' and 'fly' are both words in use since the 15th century I imagine they'd know pretty well.

1) What prominent American scientist did try to discredit the Wright brothers and when?

2) What accepted scientific 'knowledge' about aerodynamics was found by the Wright brothers as being deeply flawed? Are you talking about Smeaton coefficient?

Note: I was quoted as saying "Turning it into "who was first" just makes it ...". A different user said it not me.

Hi simplex.

If you're disagreeing with the Wrights claim, then who are you advocating for to take their place instead?

A little on the aileron saga...

http://i60.tinypic.com/243grk2.jpg

On Hiram Maxim's propeller and wing dynamic measuring rig.

"Maxim knows we'll have to separate the wing from the propeller. So he's built a central tower with a 32-foot rotating arm to measure the effectiveness of propellers and wing surfaces. A steam engine drives the arm. At the end of the arm is a propeller with a streamlined engine pod and a short section of a wing. That test configuration circles the tower at speeds up to sixty miles per hour, while an electric motor inside the pod drives the propeller. The apparatus offers means for measuring power input to both the propeller and the rotating arm.
Maxim's instruments let him separate out lift, thrust, and drag. He finds that, at sixty miles per hour, the propeller might use sixteen horsepower to lift the wing and another 35 horsepower to overcome drag and its own inefficiency. With such detailed preliminary work on flight, Maxim had done superb work on the power inventory of flight"

Ref: The Pioneers : An Anthology : Sir Hiram Maxim (1840 - 1916)

This was about a decade before the Wrights' small wind tunnel.

so what.

the wrights were the first to put it all together in an aircraft that could be successfully flown in a figure of 8 flight path.

lightweight multi bay truss wings. control of roll, pitch and yaw. a workable aerofoil that performed according to measured experimental data.
stuff me they even had the first aviation fatality.

just as an aside. charlie taylor's engine was 200 cubic inches, developed 12 hp and could probably run for 20 minutes before it seized.
within 40 years continental had a 200 cubic inch engine that could develop 100hp and run continuously for 2,000 hours. amazing technological progress.

Stringfellow's working model steam triplane shown and flown at Crystal Palace in 1868 had parallel chord 2 bay strutted and wire cross- braced wings. ( It was sketched by Octave Chanute incidentally.) This was the same decade in which Matthew Piers Watt Boulton another English contemporary of Stringfellow patented the Aileron.


Boulton's flight control device, first described in his short 1864 pamphlet "On Aerial Locomotion", was publicly praised by the pioneering U.S. aeronautical engineer Charles Manly. While addressing the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1916, Manly referred directly to Boulton's invention, telling his audience

"...the system of lateral balancing or control now so universally used; [is] that of supplementary planes, now called ailerons. The description he gave of these in his British patent was thorough and clear. It is the first record we have of appreciation of the necessity for active lateral control as distinguished from the passive lateral equilibrium secured by having wings set at a dihedral angle. With this invention of Boulton's we have the birth of the present-day three torque method of airborne control. The only thing then lacking [in 1868] to enable man to learn to operate flying machines was the one great organ – a suitable engine."



Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier (30 March 1754 – 15 June 1785) was a French chemistry and physics teacher, and one of the first pioneers of aviation. He and the Marquis d'Arlandes made the first manned free balloon flight on 21 November 1783, in a Montgolfier balloon. He later died when his balloon crashed near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais during an attempt to fly across the English Channel. He and his companion, Pierre Romain, became the first known fatalities in an air crash.

The much celebrated 66% efficiency of the 1903 propellers not confirmed by wind tunnel tests

"Flyer I 1903" used anachronistic propellers!!

In a March 6, 1903 note, with calculations regarding the efficiency of their propellers (see Local Hangar: Wright Flyers (Demo Site) - Picture Page ), the Wright brothers just applied a known elementary relation:

Efficiency_propeller = Thrust * Plane_speed / Power_available

66%=90lbf*24mph/8.73HP

They simply needed a 90lbf propeller at 24mph considering a 8.73HP engine was available and they calculated that their propeller should be at least 66% efficient otherwise the required 90lbf thrust to keep the plane aloft would not have been reached.

Their calculations show just how great the performance of the propeller should have been not how great it really was.

This efficiency was never obtained by people from the Wright Experience project. The site Mechanical Engineering "100 Years of Flight" supplement, Dec. 2003 -- "Prop-Wrights," Feature Article says that many tests were effectuated and efficiencies between 75% and 82% were obtained, which is not 66%. They also say they reconstructed, with the help of computers, the propellers using badly damaged parts of the originals. However, in their reconstructions, they acknowledged they had made some assumptions that could have alter the efficiency. In conclusion that 66% efficiency is not confirmed. When a team wants to replicate the results or predictions of some inventors the team has to obtain exactly the same results not much better!

In the article "The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane, O. and W. Wright, The Century Magazine, September 1908, pag. 648-649, The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane [Orville and Wilbur Wright, The Century Magazine, September 1908] | Library of Congress ", the Wright brothers wrote:

"Our first propellers, built entirely from calculations, gave in useful work 66 per cent. of the power expended. This was about one third more than had been secured by Maxim or Langley."

The text is clear, based on calculations the two brothers built a 66% efficient propeller, a claim not backed by that March 6, 1903 note (66%=90lbf*24mph/8.73HP).

An advanced high efficiency propeller, made by Lucien Chauviere, can be seen in L'Aerophile from May 15, 1908, pag. 182 (see L'Aérophile (Paris) ). It is above the propellers presented by the brothers starting with Aug. 8, 1908 and clearly made before their propellers became known. Definitely, Europeans did not learn from the Wright Brothers how to make efficient propellers. The opposite seems to be true.

Basically, the two brothers came in Aug. 1908 with propellers of a type already existent since 1907 and claimed they had invented them in 1903. The existence of these propellers in pictures allegedly made in 1903 increases the number of doubts the photos were made in that year indeed.

Has "first in flight" been designated appropriately?
 

The credit for "First in flight" has been assigned for various reasons by the gov't. The United States of America itself is on the Contract with the Wright heirs which requires Orville and the Flyer to be recognized as first in flight, in order for the Smithsonian to obtain the coveted Wright Flyer and keep it. It is not just the Smithsonian who must adhere to that Contract. So don't be so sure that any pronouncement by any federal agency or entity is based on accuracy or an evaluation of the criteria - they have a heavy conflict of interest that prevents unbiased determinations, at this time. It is still both financial and heavily political. By Orville Wright's own account, and the documentation of both brothers, the four flights were not "in control" on Dec. 17, 1903, as they dashed into the sand. From page 16 of "How We Made the First Flight" by Orville Wright describes the flight he is now credited with as being first, sustained, and with control: The flights were not necessarily from level ground, either, this is easy to ascertain from the photo and the accounts of the witnesses.

The Wrights trotted around and studied all available resources and inventions before they had their engine built for them. They visited Gustave Whitehead in his shop at Bridgeport, CT, according to multiple witnesses. Chanute recommended that they take a look at his lightweight engines. Whitehead's flights and accomplishments, including statements about his two opposing propellers and his self-built lightweight, powerful engines had been covered in the national media, the Scientific American, and trade journals. So it is not surprising that some of the elements Whitehead had used successfully in flight at least for the past four years had turned up on the Wright Flyer of 1903. Wilbur admitted that they were using ideas from others in a letter to Chanute. The issue of who was first was a non-issue at the time. It was "who could make a practical airplane". Only much later was there incentive to be called "first". This occurred during the patent trials and later, during skirmishes with Smithsonian due to Orville's intense craving for fame and long-lasting recognition. His friends and relatives finished up the job by making sure a legal contract bound Smithsonian to recognizing Orville. Wilbur had been dead since 1912, and the 1948 Contract completely ignored the fact that his flight had been considered the only successful one of the day, up through 1913, and by Orville's own admission (back then). Facts, particularly historical facts, can be "fluid", as we gain more information about what really happened over time. We should not simply "follow the leaders", as in this case, they are shoving the real history over a cliff, for profit (the Wright Flyer, National Monument at Kitty Hawk). Critical thinking calls for true evaluation of the evidence - through primary sources. Jane's All the World Aircraft now recognizes Whitehead as first in flight, with very good reasons. It should be noted that the evidence they based this on was researched by Maj. William J. O'Dwyer (USAF retired) and Stella Randolph, two tireless researchers. Their research was then summarized and presented to Jane's by an Australian who came upon it in Germany. Gustave Whitehead First to Fly.

We had a Wright flyer prop displayed on the wall of the crew-room when I was a student at the Central Flying School. It didn't look like it would have been very efficient.