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Senior Member
On December 17, 1903 they did what had been oft dreamt of but never achieved... sustained flight in a pilot controlled heavier than air craft. To the Wright Brothers.... Salute!!!!
Worf
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Senior Member
S! one of the most spectacular moments in human history, but so taken as granted nowadays.
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Junior Member
Or were they...
From Wikipedia:
Around the years 1900 to 1910, a number of other inventors made or claimed to have made short flights.
Lyman Gilmore claimed to have achieved success on 15 May 1902.
In New Zealand, South Canterbury farmer and inventor Richard Pearse constructed a monoplane aircraft that he reputedly flew in early 1903. Good evidence exists that on March 31, 1903 Pearse achieved a powered, though poorly controlled, flight of several hundred metres. Pearse himself said that although he had made a powered takeoff, it was at "too low a speed for [his] controls to work".
The first balloon flights took place in Australia in the late 1800s while Bill Wittber and escapologist Harry Houdini made Australia's first controlled flights in 1910. [6]. Wittber was conducting taxiing tests in a Bleriot XI aircraft in March 1910 in South Australia when he suddenly found himself about five feet in the air. He flew about 40 feet (12 m) before landing. South Australia's other aviation firsts include the first flight from England to Australia by brothers Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith in their Vickers Vimy bomber, the first Arctic flight by South Australian born Sir Hubert Wilkins and the first Australian born astronaut, Andy Thomas.
Karl Jatho from Hanover conducted a short motorized flight in August 1903, just a few months after Pearse. Jatho's wing design and airspeed did not allow his control surfaces to act properly to control the aircraft.
Also in the summer of 1903, eyewitnesses claimed to have seen Preston Watson make his initial flights at Errol, near Dundee in the east of Scotland. Once again, however, lack of photographic or documentary evidence makes the claim difficult to verify. Many claims of flight are complicated by the fact that many early flights were done at such low altitude that they did not clear the ground effect, and by the complexities involved in the differences between unpowered and powered aircraft.
The Wright brothers conducted numerous additional flights (about 150) in 1904 and 1905 from Huffman Prairie in Dayton, Ohio and invited friends and relatives. Newspaper reporters did not pay attention after seeing an unsuccessful flight attempt in May 1904.
Public exhibitions of high altitude flights were made by Daniel Maloney in the John Joseph Montgomery tandem-wing glider in March and April 1905 in the Santa Clara, California area. These flights received national media attention and demonstrated superior control of the design, with launches as high as 4,000 feet (1,200 m) and landings made at predetermined locations.
Alberto Santos-Dumont made a public flight in Europe on 13 September 1906 in Paris. He used a canard elevator and pronounced wing dihedral, and covered a distance of 60 m (200 ft). Since the plane did not need headwinds or catapults to take off, this flight is considered by some (primarily Brazilians) as the first true powered flight. Also, since the earlier attempts of Pearse, Jatho, Watson, and the Wright brothers received far less attention from the popular press, Santos-Dumont's flight was more important to society when it happened, especially in Europe and Brazil, despite occurring some years later.
Also see:
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html
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Senior Member
I came across this photo a short while ago.
It is from the Wright brother's house, the year is 1900.
Merry Christmas all!!!
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Banned
Nice photo M_S!
What a day in history.
My son was born on Dec 8th, 2003, so you can guess what I was watching on the History Channel while I was in the delivery room with my wife.
I actually learned things about the Wright brothers that I didn't know before.
It was a very well done series of programs.
I was so glad I had that to watch and pass the time.
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Senior Member
Cheers to this magificent achievement that changed our world. They may not have been the absolute first, but they were definately the best.
A few years ago on a family vacation to Washington DC we were visiting the Library of Congress where on display was an original print of that ultra-famous and iconoclastic photo of the Wright Brothers' first flight. It was sitting in a glass display case along with other artifacts, much like something you would see at any old county museum. Well I flipped out, something akin of a religious experience and I'll never forget it; that impressed me more than the actual Flyer or the Spirit of St. Louis did which were on display at the Smithsonian just a few blocks away.
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Senior Member
More Wright Brother's photos.
In-flight this time.
You need to click twice to see the pictures full size.
http://www.shorpy.com/image/tid/140
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Banned
The Wrights made Pilot's Licenses and IIRC Wilbur got #1 but I saw a copy of #2, guess who had it?
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Senior Member
I grew up in the small town (800 people when I lived there in the 80's) that Richard Pearse made his first powered flight in.
Pretty sure my parents took us on a bike ride to his old house once, though that may be my memory inventing things.
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Banned
Well, genial inventors have not much taste about tree decoration, hehe.