Why the Wrights?

That was an attempt at humor to make a point-- Pearse and Whitehead and Maxim and Ader didn't invent anything more than DaVinci did. Orville and Wilbur did.

["Junior"]

Originally Posted by Capt Rick

That was an attempt at humor to make a point-- Pearse didn't invent anything more than DaVinci did. Orville and Wilbur did.

Yeah right mate. Total bunch of arse

Have a squizz at Pearse's bus, monoplane construction, ailerons, variable pitch puller prop, centrally mounted control column. Oh and it flew as well.

[timjnf]

Ooops, my bad. I have this problem where I take things people say far too seriously. I'm thick, I need to be beaten over the head with a " " or I might not know you're joking.

[Bernard Saintagne]

Hi to all,
For those interested : Clement Ader was the inventor of the terminology "avion" (aircraft) and creator of lots of industrial inventions... : please have a look at my web site :
http://www.lapatinedesailes.com/

[Bernard Saintagne]

Originally Posted by MattyBoy

You have to remember that even the Wrights took stock of what people before them had done. They looked at the works of Lilienthal, Pilcher, Chanute etc. It's not like they did it all on their own without any clue of where to start.
Don't get me wrong, the Wright Brothers were very clever, but (and this is only my opinion, of course) I think the reason they became the first the fly - and they were the first in my book - was because they experimented thoroughly and practically non-stop.

Funny about Ader flying in 1890. I think once you've learnt something it is hard to un-learn it.
What I mean is if he did hop or fly around this date, then why didn't he improve his flying machine over the next thirteen years?
After the Wrights' first flight in 1903, within two years they had been making flights of over half an hour.

Matt.

Clement Ader made 3 "avions" (aircraft)-(it was the creator of this terminology) and flights attempts between 1890-1897

He worked hard to improve his machines but the French ministry of the Army leaved him to his fate and stopped the funds. Desillusioned, he stopped and destroyed his planes and discoveries It was long time before France gave him reconnaissance for all his works...
please visit my web site:
http://www.lapatinedesailes.com/

[duckman]

Seems to me that the folks backing the Wrights claim focus on a single point. That they solved the few remaining problems remaining that prevented powered controlled flight. Their aerofoil/wind tunnel work was superlative.

But even if the Wrights WERE the first, surely that achievement needs to be seen in light of the people who came before. To follow anothers analogy - yes, Hillary and Tenzing were the first to top out on Everest, but the walked in the steps of superb British, Nepalese and Swiss mountaineers who had paved the way.

The claim about being the first to fly is in some ways a distraction. Mans ability to fly owes as much to Lilienthal, Hargraves and so on, simply because the Wrights never had to worry about solving the problems that their predecessors had already solved.

And the biggest factor in that was their correspondance with Chanute, who was probably the world expert on aviation developments in the decade leading to Kittyhawk. The answer to "Why the Wrights" (such as it is) is Chanute. He was their advantage which Pearse, Hargraves (who Chanute declared in 1901 - I think - would be the first to fly) etc didn't have.

Pearse exists as a phenomenon - outside of the development stream, he solved his own problems. But outside the development stream, few paid attention to his work. It is hard to say how much influence he had on aviation development. But my understanding is that he was able to turn and follow a river valley. Now THAT is controlled flight.

This is a bit like Edison and the light globe. His wasn't the first. It wasn't even the best of it's time, and later models were improved by "borrowing" other peoples advances. Doesn't mean Edison didn't do important work in the field that should be recognised - but the term "invent" does not apply. And other peoples work (eg Swann) was devalued by being unable to market their ideas (existance of an expensive infrastructure for of gas lighting, which would have been rendered useless). Most folks saw aircraft not in terms of the revolutionary technology that we now see, but as expensive and pointless toys for rich people. It's hardly surprising that some crackpot New Zealander didn't exactly achieve world-wide fame.

For the Wrights as businessmen, and in the enterprising culture of the US, their ability to market and tap into "early adopters" was crucial, not only in terms of their own fame, but also (as a consequence of the fame) in their impact on aviation development in general.

Could somebody please post a photo of Pearse flying down the river valley? Or at least flying?

["Junior"]

Hell's bloody bells! If you need photographic evidence for everything there goes 99.9% of history.

Go and get Pearse's biography (or one of a number of books on him), read it. Then it might make some sense.

[baldeagle]

Boy, you guys are sensitive...

But the Wrights do have photographic proof, and since most of us do not have those books in front of us, could you post some of what's presented as evidence for Pearse for all of us to read? I'm curious too, but not enough to go searching for Pearse books.

[EricGoedkoop]

Junior, I can see the veins in your forehead throbbing from here.

It's a lost cause, mate. You're up against a story that's been so ingrained in the culture that it's considered heresy to question it - like Manifest Destiny. American culture is black or white, now or then, us or them, first or everyone else. At the risk of repeating myself, the development of flight was a human enterprise spanning a very long time and made up of the efforts and accomplishments of lots of people in lots in places. Pearse is an undeniable high point in the endeavor and a lesson in what would work, and it's hard to fathom how anyone could look now at what he did and not see it as prophetic, if not downright revolutionary. He found the path and stuck to it, at a time when most everyone else was stumbling down deer trails into the woods.

The thing you have to understand, though, is that in America's win-place-show worldview, everything is a competition and there has to be one and only one winner. We won the powered flight game, right? We lost first man in space, but we made up for it by winning first man on the moon. We'd have somebody on their way to Mars already if another country was trying to beat us there, but the Space Program plateaued as soon as there wasn't any competition. It's part of the culture here - America doesn't do something just for the sake of doing it, they do it faster, bigger, better or sooner than somebody else.

You and I both know the Wrights weren't the first or only guys to succeed in powered flight, but they've been granted that "title" by the court of popular culture and what really happened will not alter the court's decision. We do other things like that, too