Flying Magazine: Wright brothers not first to fly?

[vento]

http://www.flyingmag.com/pilots-places/pilots-adventures-more/wright-brothers-not-first-fly?cmpid=enews031413&spPodID=030&spMailingID=16968402&spUserID=NDc4NjI3MTQ5NQS2&spJobID=212821821&spReportId=MjEyODIxODIxS0

What do you guys think?

[Майор Хаткевич]

Part of their deal with the Smithsonian was that they be acknowledged as the first. The whitehead controversy has been around from the start

[a2capt]

What do you guys think?

Use the URL shortening "function" in the post editor.. "and click here for the link"

"...and we're hearing about this 110 years later?" "again?"

Lame. You think they would have had their story straight by now?

[EMT-83]

For those familiar with Bridgeport, this flight being lost to history is no mystery. As soon as the plane landed, it was stolen.

[NIN]

The Wright Bros had a better PR person.

[NIN]

Plus, who wants to become a C/SSgt and get the Whitehead Award.

When you're a teenager, no need to call attention to your skin issues. Gosh.

[vento]

I just wonder what if they had the Internet and Facebook back then...  :angel:

[Майор Хаткевич]

We would be like the papers and ridicule their insane claims of flight.

[Newslick]

I once did a presentation summarizing pre-Wright claims to flight. Some "aircraft" didn't even have airfoil-shaped wings. Others would have had so much drag that there was no chance they could have flown. 

I am fairly sure that some pre-Wright claimants did in fact get something into the air; however, no one had a means of control once they got into the air, before the Wrights. They devoted years to solving the problem of three axis control, which is the basis of the Wright patents. 

Whitehead was the only one I could not discount just by looking at pictures of his aircraft.
 
I am pretty certain that his airplane "flew". At any rate, enough people said they saw him fly. However, the only description of his means of control, as I recall, was that he had a way to differentially throttle the two propellers. That, coupled with the healthy amount of dihedral, probably let him turn, in a limited way.

In fact, one way to discern from photos whether someone had a way to control their craft is to look at the dihedral. If there is a lot, then they depended on that for stability, like when we make a paper airplane to be "self-centering". The Wright Flyer, in fact, had anhedral, sacrificing stability for responsiveness, showing that they solved control.

Did Whitehead fly? Well, he probably got something into the air, and if it was calm he may have gone a good distance, as a paper airplane can. His aircraft looks more like a modern aircraft than the Wright Flyer, and seems aerodynamically sound. His engines were far superior to those of Charles Taylor. Others probably hopped as well. But the Wrights had control, the same three axis system that I use when I fly a Cessna today.

To a layman there is no difference, but as an engineer and pilot, let me tell you there is a lot.

In the sense of powered, sustained, controlled heavier than air flight, to my satisfaction the Wrights were first. Period.

Incidentally, just as the Smithsonian does not want to (actually they contractually can't) talk about Whitehead, the Whitehead people do not want to talk about Pittsburgh. Whitehead reportedly flew his aircraft into a building near what is now the Pitt campus in the Oakland section of the city in 1899. The police allegedly ran him out of town and he ended up in Bridgeport. The Whitehead backers are from Connecticut and certainly don't want Pittsburgh to trump them!   

[lordmonar]

Bottom line is.......at this late date.....it does not matter.

Whitehead may have "flown" first.....but then what?   The Wright Brothers did not stop and worked their butts off and got airplanes out there as a going comercial concern.

It took them years of hard work to turn their experiment into something that sparked the aviation industry.

An anology would be to say that Ford "built the first car"......it is not true....but before him cars were just a gimic

So.....at this late date.....it is okay to correct the historical record.......but the cusp point in aviaiton history is still the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk and not Whitehead in Bridgeport Conn.

[Newslick]

Bottom line is.......at this late date.....it does not matter.

Whitehead may have "flown" first.....but then what?   The Wright Brothers did not stop and worked their butts off and got airplanes out there as a going comercial concern.

It took them years of hard work to turn their experiment into something that sparked the aviation industry.

An anology would be to say that Ford "built the first car"......it is not true....but before him cars were just a gimic

So.....at this late date.....it is okay to correct the historical record.......but the cusp point in aviaiton history is still the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk and not Whitehead in Bridgeport Conn.

You are correct that figuring out how to fly was not a "eureka" moment. It was painstaking research work, and nothing anyone had done before was of much use to the Wrights. It mattered a LOT at one point that they were first. Because everyone had to pay royalties to the Wrights or figure out  a way around their patents, there arose a dirty conspiracy between the Smithsonian, who wanted Langley credited as first to fly, and Glenn Curtiss, who wanted the Wright patents voided. I will leave it to those who read this to research it. It's pretty interesting. The Smithsonian nearly lost the right to display the Wright Flyer, which would have been in a museum in London forever!

Anyway, I feel that if they "worked their butts off" they should get some credit, and not Whitehead, Santos-Dumont, Karl Jatho, etc...who some believe flew before the Wrights.

Another way to infer that other claims are false, is to look at what the claimant did after they "flew". The Wrights continued to perfect their aircraft. The others were mostly not heard of again.
The Wrights actually held aviation back for years because their patents were upheld!.

[Майор Хаткевич]

I brought up the patent innovation issue a few months ago on our unit fb page. Interesting to ponder.

[a2capt]

This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last..

[Newslick]

I brought up the patent innovation issue a few months ago on our unit fb page. Interesting to ponder.

Well, like so many things in life the motivation for what Curtiss and the Smithsonian tried to do was money and acclaim. Money on the part of Curtiss, and acclaim for Langley on the part of the Smithsonian.

And to the general public (and even some on this forum) there is no difference between someone able to get something off the ground in a straight line and then be at the mercy of the wind, and true controlled flight. There is really a lot.
I think if the Wrights had one of Whitehead's better engines they might have killed themselves! Every replica of the Wright Flyer that I know of has crashed. The original Flyer never flew again after that first day. But they perfected their invention at Huffman Prairie the next year.

National pride comes into play. If you ask a Brazilian about the Wrights, he will say that their flight didn't count because they used skids instead of wheels, and that Santos-Dumont was first.   

[A.Member]

I once did a presentation summarizing pre-Wright claims to flight. Some "aircraft" didn't even have airfoil-shaped wings. Others would have had so much drag that there was no chance they could have flown. 

I am fairly sure that some pre-Wright claimants did in fact get something into the air; however, no one had a means of control once they got into the air, before the Wrights. They devoted years to solving the problem of three axis control, which is the basis of the Wright patents. 

Whitehead was the only one I could not discount just by looking at pictures of his aircraft.
 
I am pretty certain that his airplane "flew". At any rate, enough people said they saw him fly. However, the only description of his means of control, as I recall, was that he had a way to differentially throttle the two propellers. That, coupled with the healthy amount of dihedral, probably let him turn, in a limited way.

In fact, one way to discern from photos whether someone had a way to control their craft is to look at the dihedral. If there is a lot, then they depended on that for stability, like when we make a paper airplane to be "self-centering". The Wright Flyer, in fact, had anhedral, sacrificing stability for responsiveness, showing that they solved control.

Did Whitehead fly? Well, he probably got something into the air, and if it was calm he may have gone a good distance, as a paper airplane can. His aircraft looks more like a modern aircraft than the Wright Flyer, and seems aerodynamically sound. His engines were far superior to those of Charles Taylor. Others probably hopped as well. But the Wrights had control, the same three axis system that I use when I fly a Cessna today.

To a layman there is no difference, but as an engineer and pilot, let me tell you there is a lot.

In the sense of powered, sustained, controlled heavier than air flight, to my satisfaction the Wrights were first. Period.

Incidentally, just as the Smithsonian does not want to (actually they contractually can't) talk about Whitehead, the Whitehead people do not want to talk about Pittsburgh. Whitehead reportedly flew his aircraft into a building near what is now the Pitt campus in the Oakland section of the city in 1899. The police allegedly ran him out of town and he ended up in Bridgeport. The Whitehead backers are from Connecticut and certainly don't want Pittsburgh to trump them!   

Agreed.  The bold and underlined portion above is key.

[bflynn]

A note - someone built a replica Whitehead 21 and flew it - at least the replica is flyable, although there is no telling how closely it resembles the original since there are no plans for the original.  There's no reason to not think Whitehead stumbled across something, but since he did not repeat it nor did he record his design, I cannot recognize it as a great achievement.  He was not able to repeat it and that shows he did not control or even understand how he flew...it was an accident.

[Newslick]

A note - someone built a replica Whitehead 21 and flew it - at least the replica is flyable, although there is no telling how closely it resembles the original since there are no plans for the original.  There's no reason to not think Whitehead stumbled across something, but since he did not repeat it nor did he record his design, I cannot recognize it as a great achievement.  He was not able to repeat it and that shows he did not control or even understand how he flew...it was an accident.

I don't think that many of these early experimenters really thought about what they would do once they got into the air, the point was just to get something into the air in the first place.
The Number 21 certainly looks like it could fly. I don't think it was an accident. Whitehead did a lot of gliding in Lillienthal type weight shift gliders, and understood center of gravity, lift, and wing dihedral. You couldn't design a flyable glider otherwise. He possibly eventually understood torque and spiral slipstream -  I noticed that Number 21 appears to have counterrotating propellers, which no one ever mentions. But once again, the basis of the Wright patents, and hence the Wright claim to primacy in flight, is three axis control of the aircraft, NOT just getting something into the air. It is unfortunately a point lost on most people. You could "fly" without control, and it does not count. Whitehead was one of these early experimenters who probably got something into the air, and he deserves IMHO, better consideration than to be branded a charlatan as he is by some. I speak as an engineer and pilot. My German speaking ancestors lived within 5 miles of Whitehead when he was in Pittsburgh, they may have even known him. I'd love for Pittsburgh to have the honor of being first in flight, but no cigar.
 
What Curtiss did with the Langley Aerodrome, with the collusion of the Smithsonian, secretly modifying and flying it years later to attempt to invalidate the Wright patent claims, was quite underhanded. I am glad we don't have a Curtiss Award.