the First Flight was SANTOS DUMONT all of Paris saw it only 12 people saw the wright brothers "Flying" that thing was a Jumping machine santos dummont took off flew around the eifel tower and landed!
This was a glider towed into the air by a cable attached to a weight dropped from a tower. The propellers and engine may have extended the glide, but it's unlikely as the props were not efficient and the motor was small and under powered.
@wmacisaac YOU ARE WRONG MY FRIEND! The above video of Wilbur Wright at LeMans France, was taken in October of 1908, when he had been demonstrating the Wright's first production Flyer III "A" to the French and the world. The propeller the Wrights designed for their Flyer I in 1903, has been proven in tests at the NASA/AMES research center to have been 86% efficient at power-to-thrust ratio, modern computer designed (CAD) turboprop propellers are only 83%-86% efficient under ideal conditions.
@wmacisaac As far as the "catapult" the Wrights used, it was nothing more than a "safety" device to shorten their take-off run with a 60' guide rail. The first time the Wrights used their catapult was on 4Sept1904 on their Flyer II test mule out at Huffman-Praire near Dayton, Ohio. During the last half of 1908, while Wilbur was demonstrating the world's first "practical" airplane in France, Wilbur only used the "cat" on 50% of his flights and always when he had a passenger aboard.
@wmacisaac What most people don't understand is that the Wright brothers were scientist/engineers NOT aviators and subsequently were (especially in Wilbur's case) quite afraid of flying. The ONLY Flyers that ever used the catapult were the Wright's personal demonstration models. They sold 62 Flyer "A" models in Germany, 15 in France, 6 in England, and 12 in the United States, do you know how many were sold with the catapult??? NONE! With the "B" variant (which had wheels) they sold 109!
@wmacisaac In 1909, when Orville Wright completed the delayed flight trials for the US Signal Corp (with the Military variant Flyer III "A") Orville used the catapult during the trials only, but the military added "tri-cycle" landing gear (wheels) to the machine they accepted delivery with (tagged USS Columbia). Future deliveries of the Flyer to the US military were "B" variants and they already had wheels.
@lolfaces37 Karl Jatho was the 8th known power hop, the first was Felix du Temple of France in 1874, Moy/Shill (UK) 1875, Mozhaiski (RU) 1884, Ader (FR) 1890/1897, Herring (USA) 1898, Weiskopf (USA) 1901, Pearson (NZ) 1901-1903, THEN Karl Jatho (GR) 1903!
@vlatu I didn't include them because there is no credible evidence they ever managed to get off the ground, especially Cannon, as that was a clear hoax.
@vlatu My point of listing those others anyway was only to point out that though a number of individuals did manage to get off the ground, it is all irrelevant to the invention of the airplane. HTAs are a very complex machine, requiring a cross-section of problems be overcome before successful sustained and controlled flight could be accomplished and the Wrights were the first to do that, as they not only wrote their findings down, they even patented some, so others could have success too.
@artur4467 Santos Dumont had absolutely NOTHING to do with the development of the airplane. Dumont was instrumental in the progress of LTAs (light-than-air dirigibles), but everyone needs to learn about the history of HTA (heavier-than-air) machines. Dumont was simply the most famous failure in aircraft attempts with the ACdeF. Dumont's first "official" flight of an airplane, as we know them today, was on 13Feb1909 and it was with a machine that was originally designed by Louis Bleriot.
@artur4467 Dumont had 2 power hops in late 1906 (the 14bis designed/built for him by G. Voisin and R. E.Pelterie), but in 1907, after 4 tries 4 failures, with 4 different machines, Dumont gave up HTA attempts until 1909. The heroes of aviation in France (1907-1908) was L. Delagrange, L. Bleriot, H. Farman, R.E.Pelterie, T. Viua, and a couple of others. On 31Dec1908, Dumont's total time in air was 59sec, which was 20sec less than Orville Wright in a single flight of a glider from 5 years earlier.
Forget about the Wright's "Flyers" or Dumont's 14-Bis: - The first CONTROLLED airplane was "The Demoiselle", invented by Santos Dumont. That's really matter !!!!
If anyone is curious, the first known successful flight of a man carrying HTA (heavier-than-air) flying machine was the Frenchman Felix de Temple in 1874, after his steam powered machine slid down a rail, but the first to take-off under their own power, from level ground, was Clement Ader on 9Oct1890 (another Frenchman). None of these flights were either sustained or contolled. 16 years later, Henri Farman made the first circle flight seen in Europe (13Jan1908), but his flight was unsustainable.
I'm a student of history, not history as others want you to believe, which usually is just to fulfill some self-serving or overt nationalism, but history has it truly unfolded. I know that everyone, depending on which country you happen to be from, continue to claim this person or that person was the first to fly. Did the Wrights think they were first? Not hardly and when Wilbur Wright was asked, after his first flight at LeMans, he said any flights they made before 8Aug1908 were irrelevant.
@jotathenoble Part 6: In addition to the awards of acheivement the Wrights received, they were also presented with 15 honorary doctrates between them, including engineering doctrates from the University of Munich (Germany), the University of Paris, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale and Harvard Universities (over in America), the University of London, Wilbur Wright personally received the French Academy of Science Honorary Doctrate for his engineering acheivement of world merit.
@jotathenoble Part 5: Up until 8Aug1908, a large number of individuals had managed to get off the ground in a powered machine, but NO ONE anywhere in the world had demonstrated the ability to fly, once they were up. Yes, a number of individuals with the ACdeF (Delagrange, Bleriot, Esnault-Pelterie, Farman, and Vivan) had demonstrated some impressive power hops (Dumont failed so badly throughout 1907, he gave up and went back to his dirigibles during 1908), but no one until the Wrights could fly.
@jotathenoble Part 4: Are you aware of the awards Wilbur and Orville received? By the end of 1909, the Wrights had received over 35 awards, not for flying, but for their technological achievement. Of the awards, was included The Aero Club de France Gold Medal of achievement, the French Legion of Honour, the US Congressional Medal of Honor, the French Academy of Sciences Gold Medal, the British Science of Honor gold medal, etc. etc. Wilbur was even nominated for a Nobel in science/engineering!
@jotathenoble Part 3: You should also know that the Wrights didn't like flying, this was especially so with Wilbur and as soon as he was able to train other people to fly, as he did after they opened the world's first flight training center in Pau, France, Wilbur stopped flying himself and left that up to others. Wilbur was an engineer-scientist, not an aviator. Wilbur's little wind tunnel balance scale, for accurately measuring CoL/CoD, is one of the greatest inventions in human history.
@ricksk81993 After Wilbur Wright's extraordinary success in France during the last half of 1908, Dumont did bring out his year-old M18 mono-wing and after Louis Bleriot and Wilbur Wright (indirectly) assisted Dumont at fixing its lack of lift producing airfoils and lack of a control system, Dumont finally flew for the first time on 13Feb1909 out at Issy. Now called the "Demosielle" for the first time, Dumont's M19 could fly for short distances under some control, but it was basically just a toy.
Shut up about santos. It was Richard pearse in waitohi new zealand that flew on march 1902 then and engine powerd flight on march 1903 . Do ur research
@MrMrEvin I should point out that Richard Pearse's flights, were with a machine that in fact lacked any of the technology for a successful and working aircraft and though there is no doubt he did accomplish the flights you mentioned, he didn't tell anyone until 1935 during a newspaper interview.
scew these guys! thats not sustained flight. Curtiss made the first official public powered flight in 1908 with the june bug using one of his own engine designs. also curtiss became the father of naval aviation in 1911 when he flew from land to land in water and vise versa. First amphibion. first seaplane. in US
@LazlosPlane OMFG, really? obviously you know nothing about aviation, Santos Dumont was the first one to fly an engine airplane with its own impulse in 12 november 1906, the 14-Bis, which won the french airclub contest and reconigzed as the first one to fly an engined boosted airplane , NOT WRIGHT BROTHERS, they were the first ones to fly an NON ENGINE airplane, boosted by a take-off ramp, really, i dont see no airplanes nowadays taking off in a ramp, sorry, SANTOS WINS! FATHER OF AVIATION!
@ricksk81993 The first to fly (according to the FAI "official" records) was Frenchman Clement Ader on 14Oct1897 for 300m. Santos Dumont, flying a Type du Wright biplane (designed&built by Voisin/Esnault-Pelterie) was on 13Nov1906 and was "only" the first "observed" by the newly formed FAI. The FAI lists the first "unassisted powered flight from level ground, demonstrating sustained and controlled flight" was Orville Wright on 17Dec1903. First to exceed 100m was Wilbur Wright 17Dec1903 (259m)
@ricksk81993 The FAI and ACdeF archives records "officially" state that Dumont's first observed "sustained & controlled" powered flight occurred on 13Feb1909. During 1907, Santos Dumont is only mentioned for his continous string of failures and after his first/last (21Nov1907) attempt with his M18 (his first mono-wing copied from Louis Bleriot's typeIII), Dumont retired from any further attempts until 1909. Farman, Bleriot, Delagrange, & Pelterie were the only success stories in 1907.
@waguinhoplay So many PRETENDERS to the crown. Santos flew a dirigible, a balloon. Nobody cares. You know how many people throughout history have done that? Please. Besides, In the early eleventh century, for instance, a monk named Eilmer flew more than 600 feet.
@LazlosPlane It was a plane, with an ENGINE, something that those brothers wright didn't made, you americans think that you guys are da best, but not even half of the time, Santos Dumont, a BRAZILIAN, made and used his plane on FRANCE, a actual plane.
@jotathenoble Part 1: You and everyone needs to take a lesson in how to study and understand history. The Wright brothers were not the first to get off the ground with a powered flying machine, even they knew that. What the Wrights did was develop the original technology for a successful flying machine, from Wilbur's original idea of an instrument to accurately measure an airfoil's performance to their original concept of "inherent instability" and the their patented 3-axis control system.
@jotathenoble Part 2: It took the Wrights 6 years and 7 test machines to prove their basic technology worked and they started demonstrating their technology with their Flyer III "A" in 1908. The Wright's Flyer III "A" was merely the platform with which they demonstrated their technology, nothing more. Rather you had an idea for a biplane, a mono-wing, or a tri-wing, it was all irrelevant, if you wanted to fly, as we today know flying, you had to incorporate the Wright's technology, end of story.
@LazlosPlane santos dumont from brazil maked the first real airplane. not wright brothers. they used just a catapult. dumont flew without external aid
@WAYTOPLUTO I do feel sorry that you've been lied to all your life about Santos Dumont, but the truth is he had absolutely NOTHING to do with the developement of the airplane. Because of the internet, it is now easy to find archives that tell the truth of history better than ever. Of all the early aviators attached to the ACdeF, Dumont was least successful. In fact we now know his first time at actually flying didn't occur until 13Feb1909 and then only because of Bleriot and Wilbur Wright.
@WAYTOPLUTO When Wilbur first took off out at LeMans on 8Aug1908, with the machine in the above video, it was the first time anyone in Europe had seen an airplane fly! Everyone that was witness that day, was stunned into silence, especially the aviator leaders of the Aero Club de France, like Delagrange, Bleriot, and Archdeacon. Georges Besancon quote: " Not one of the former detractors of the Wrights dare question, today, the previous experiments of the men who were truly the first to fly...."
@WAYTOPLUTO Even with the success of their 1902 glider, it would still be another 3 years and 3 additional test machines before they would have the world's first practical "airplane". They built their 1st "production" Flyer in the spring of 1907 and it arrived at a French dock (La Havre) on 8July1907. In 1908, Wilbur took it out of its shipping crate and you can see that actual machine in the video above, the World's 1st "practical" aircraft capable of sustained and controlled flight.
@WAYTOPLUTO After first testing their 1902 glider down at KH, using tethered spring scales, an inclinometer, and an anemometer, they found that their full size glider produced 97% of predicted lift, so now they could get back to working on Wilbur's idea of "control" and it was only after 5 weeks of testing they finally developed the world's first HTA with a 3-axis system to control "yaw", "roll", and "pitch". Every successful airplane since uses the same system they developed at KH.
@WAYTOPLUTO Lilienthal, using data from Cayley and Smeathon, used a swinging arm assembly to measure lift. Then he applied the formula of "Pressure=SV²kCL" where "k" is Smeathon's Coefficient of Pressure factor of 0.0054. The Wrights field testing their 1900&1901 glider showed they were all "wrong" and their work was useless for determining lift, so Wilbur developed a new formula of sinθ1=SV²kCL/(SV²kCD)+(SV²k) where he corrected Smeathon's "k" factor to a more accurate 0.0033.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 12: According to the FAI and ACdeF records, Dumont's total flight time in powered HTAs, when he retired from all aviation in 1910, was 1h 35m. Wilbur logged a total of 3h 27m on one single day (31Dec1908). On 31Dec1908 Wilbur Wright also logged his 100 hour of total flight time in HTAs, on that same day, Dumont's "total" logged time to that date was only 59 sec. At the Reims air race in 1909, Dumont failed to qualify his M22 due to it being too slow and his lack of experience.
@BearFlight thanks a bunch, man! i am so sick of these guys trying to take away credit from others. why they should be jealous of someone that lived that long ago is beyond me. the wright brothers perfected control. w/out that, all the other idiots are meaningless cuz they never could make it truly work.
@ajlee35 Yeah, I agree. Dumont did some extraordinary things with powered dirigibles, but to give him credit for anything involving the airplane is ludicrous and frankly a slap to the face of those who really did develop the first airplanes. Its particular shameful against those who lost their lives, like Ferber, Rolls, Delagrange, Lilienthal, and Philcer, just to name a few. The really interesting thing is that what the Wrights did is absolute, its physics & math you cannot argue with, period.
@BearFlight here here.....they may not have been the first to attempt flight but they were the first to truly master it....and THEY are the reason we are where we are today.....I say they so strongly because even though it was Wilbur who took the first flight both of them worked together to make it happen....would they be amazed at where aviation has gone today
@sailorearth2007 True, they did master flight. However, they did not invent the airplane. Americans make an exaggerated claim about them being the "inventors" of the airplane, which, with due reason, upsets quite a few people abroad.
@WAYTOPLUTO In the fall of 1901, Wilbur Wright developed an ingenius device (a balance scale) that could directly measure the CoL and CoD of an airfoil in a wind tunnel accurately. From Wilbur's balance scale, he developed an entirely new math formula and corrected the errors of Lilienthal, Phillips, and Smeathon. With their 1902 glider at KH, the measured lift from their engineered wings was live measured to produced 97% of prediction. From Wil's work, modern aeronautical engineering was born
@WAYTOPLUTO Yes I have and it never flew, besides the 14bis that Dumont powered jumped across the ground on 13Nov1906 wasn't designed by him, it was designed and built by his co-members, Gabriel Voisin and Robert Esnault-Pelterie, from the Aero Club de France. In a Jan1907 issue of the Le Matin newspaper (Paris) Dumont falsely claimed he had designed the 14bis, so 3 days later, Voisin/Pelterie were interviewed in the same newspaper and called Dumont out for lying. From then on he was on his own.
@WAYTOPLUTO In Feb1907, Dumont showed up with his model 15 biplane, the first actually designed by Dumont himself and it was a complete and total failure. Like the Voisin-Pelterie 14bis, it was a biplane that also lacked lift producing airfoils, a propeller, and a control system. Dumont's M15 was so poorly designed and constructed, it simply fell apart when he attempted to taxi to takeoff. Dumont's M15 had flat plywood wings glued together, extremely poor in concept, it could never have flown.
@WAYTOPLUTO In April1907, Dumont once again pulled out the Voisin-Pelterie 14bis, but after 2 days of attempts, he could do no better than bounce across the field at Bagatelle and the Paris newspapers were pretty hard on him. It was Delagrange, Bleriot, Pelterie, Farman and whole string of others that were finally starting to show some improvement. According to the ACdeF and FAI official records, Dumont did hop 220m in 1906, but Clement Ader (FR) had power hopped 300m in 1897, 9 yrs earlier.
@WAYTOPLUTO The longest hop in 1907 was Henri Farman for 771m on 26Oct1907. Dumont made his last attempts in Nov1907 with his M17 biplane and his M18monoplane, but they were both failures, though he did manage to power his M17 biplane for 203m on 17Nov1907. Dumont gave up at this point, as the Paris newspapers were being a bit hard on him, so he went back to his No.16 airship (his last dirigible) and Dumont had no recorded attempts in 1908.
@WAYTOPLUTO All you Dumonters need to do is take some time and do an actual study of who did what and when. Then all you need to do is then gain a basic understanding how an airplane works. Ernest Archdeacon, the Pres of the ACdeF in 1906, learned from Chanute that the Wrights had made several circling flights exceeding 30km in late 1905. This was confirmed by members of the ACdeF that Wilbur had in fact flown for 38minutes on 5Oct1905 covering a distance of 39km.
@WAYTOPLUTO What was confusing to the ACdeF membership, was the Wrights never flew to set records or be first (they knew they weren't, as they were fully aware of Ader and Maxim's flights in the 1890s). The Wrights were only about the testing of their machine to test, evaluate, and improve their machine's performance for the purpose of selling it. Wilbur's flight on 5Oct'05 was simply to test its endurance for the US Signal Corps minimum single tank range of 120 miles (193km).
@WAYTOPLUTO Because so many people were beginning to show up at Huffman-Prairie in 1905, to watch the Wrights fly their airplane, the Wrights had to hanger their machine out of sight until they were issued their patents, which happened on 22May1906. When Wilbur flew 39km on 5Oct1905, there were over 1,100 witnessess to that flight and there are dozens of photographs taken of Wilbur on that day, of the hundreds of witnessess, and dozens of newspaper accounts to confirm it.
@WAYTOPLUTO The Wright brothers broke through the barriers of science and engineering of what it would require to actually fly and control a heavier than air flying machine. It was Wilbur that actually first conceived of the concept of "Inherent Instability" in 1899 and from that he felt that lateral control would be the answer. The problem was they had assumed that Lilienthal/Cayley had discovered how an airfoil produced predictable lift, but by field testing their 1900&1901 they had a problem.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 11: You'll find that after Dumont failed with his M17 biplane and his M18 mono-plane remake of his buddy's (Louis Bleriot) mono-wing from several months earlier, Dumont simply gave up and went back to his last dirigible (No. 16 airship) and didn't try flying HTAs between Nov1907 and Jan1909.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 10: If you go the 2Jan1909 issue of the British magazine called "Flight", the official FAI records are listed there on pages 10/11. Archives of this magazine can be found at "Flightglobal dotcom", from their homepage, click on the "archives" tab and then do a search for "Flight". After Dumont lied about his 14bis in Le Matin, he then designed his M15 (so poorly constructed it fell apart on its first attempt to take off) and M17 & M18, but they failed too, so he quit HTAs after.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 9: The Wrights were not about flying to set records, in fact if you read through their personal letters, particularly those letters between Wilbur and Octave Chanute, you'll discover that Wilbur didn't like flying at all, he was an scientist/engineer and he would much rather have just stayed at home working in his shop. The Wrights didn't make their money selling airplanes, they made their fortune selling the licensing of their technology, so others could fly and set records.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 7: According to the FAI (the only organization in the world that officially records flight records) states that the first official powered flight was the French aviator Clement Ader on 14Oct1897 (for 300m). The first sustained/controlled powered HTA flight was Orville Wright on 17Dec1903. Until 31Dec1908, the longest controlled power flight of an HTA was Wilbur Wright on 5Oct1905 for 39.4 km. Wilbur broke that "official" record on 31Dec1908 when he flew 119 km.
@WAYTOPLUTO ALL of the early aviator experimenters believed the concept was that through "Inherent Stability" they would eventually have success, but they were all wrong. Wilbur Wright (in 1899) believed the opposite was true, as he believed that only through "Inherent Instability" could you be successful with a powered HTA. Wilbur also realized that Inherent Instability would require an aggressive method of control.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 3: When Wilbur measured the actual lift produced by his full size 1900 and 1901 gliders and their actual lift was only 30% of what Lilienthal's lift tables said they should be, he questioned all the science data of those before him, including Lilienthal, Smeathon, Phillips, and Cayley. With their wind tunnel and Wilbur's balance scale, they tested over 200 different airfoil shapes and found that Lilienthal's formula of Pressure=SV²kCL was wrong, as was Smeathon's CoP factor.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 4: Wilbur reformulated Lilienthal's math, from "Pressure=SV²kCL" to "sinθ1=SV²kCL/(SV²kCD)+(SV²k) " and he corrected the CoP value of "k" from Smeathon's 0.0054 to a more accurate 0.0033 factor. After months of testing different airfoils (over 200), they settled on the two best performing shapes and their 1902 glider performed magnificantly. Dumont's best power hop with his 14bis lasted 21.5 seconds, and he had an engine, Orv flew their 1902 glider for 79 secs with no power.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 5: After the Wrights worked through the lift problem, during the winter of 1901/1902, they then turned back to Wilbur's original idea on "control" and after 3 months of testing with their 1902 glider, they finally ended with the world's first 3-axis control system on a machine designed on the concept of "Inherent Instability", adding an engine to a redesigned machine in 1903, with new airfoils for the extra weight, was simply redundant and wasn't particularly difficult.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 6: The Wrights spent 1904-1905 developing their machine further, until they had the world's first "practical" flying machine, with their '05 Flyer III. Then they locked it up and waited until they secured their initial patent for their control system and US Patent #821,393 was issued on 22May,1906. Every successful aircraft since requires the technology in that patent. Even the American Space Shuttle uses the technology in that patent to successfuly fly in the atomsphere.
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 8: Santos Dumont set no records, official or otherwise, with any of his powered HTAs. His first machine, called the 14bis, was designed and built by G. Voisin and R. E. Pelterie, as Dumont had no understanding whatsoever of HTA design, his entire experience had only been with LTAs, which he was very good at. After Dumont lied to the Le Matin newspaper, claiming he had designed the 14bis, Voisin & Pelterie told him he was on his own. Dumont's 1st flight wasn't until 13Feb1909.
@zmangmz Part 12: Probably the most interesting and proof of the superiority of the Wright's work was when Wilbur demonstrated the Flyer III "A" (the exact machine in the above video) for Dr. M. Painleve in Oct1908. Dr. M. Painleve was VP of the French Institute of Science in Paris. Wilbur started with a 270° circle, with diameter measured by the FAI at 31m across, then he climbed to 80-90m altitude, shutoff the engine and glided through a tight figure eight and landed on a pre-determined spot.
@zmangmz Part 11: Though the Wrights started their 1908 demonstrations for the singular purpose of marketing their machines (the European manufacturers of the Wright Flyer were arranged by Hart O. Berg, representing the CR Flint Company of New York), it would be the licensing of their patented technology that would be the Wright's actual business. Farman was the first to purchase a user license and he immediately applied it to his Voisin-Farman III biplane by way of applying internal ailerons.
@zmangmz Part 10: After that 21Nov1907 crash, Dumont stopped his HTA attempts (until 1909) and returned to his last dirigible (No.16 airship) design. Dumont did not have any HTA flight attempts in 1908. On the other hand, Farman, Delagrange, Bleriot, and REP did continue to try, but they, all of Europe, and then the whole world was stunned into a frenzy when Wilbur Wright took off at an auto race track, just outside of LeMans, and demonstrated the world's first "practical" production airplane.
@zmangmz Part 9: On 21Nov1907, Dumont made is final attempt at flight with his first monowing design (M18) and though he did manage a very short 145m hop, his second attempt was a good example of the failings of the French ACdeF members. After about 40-50m, his engine quit and because his machine lacked lift producing airfoils, his machine (M18) immediately quit flying and slammed into the ground, nearly destroying itself, but fortunately Dumont lucked out and only received minor injuries.
@zmangmz Part 8: Throughout 1907, the Paris newspapers Le Matin, Le Journal, and the New York Herald Paris edition covered the distance records being set by the French flyers from the Aero Club. There is no mention of Dumont throughout that year, except to point out his inability to duplicate his short flights from 1906. Delagrange was most often frontpage news because he was French and though Farman was with the ACdeF, he was actually English, he had just moved to Paris to join the Aero Club.
@zmangmz Part 7: The real bit of history that has been distorted by many, especially those of you from Brazil, is just exactly what it was the Wrights did. By reading through the newspapers, particularly in Paris during those years, Dumont didn't excite or reveal the French passion for flight, it was Delagrange, Farman, Pelterie, and Bleriot who did that. Problem was their machines didn't work very well and they could only attempt flight on the most calm of days as any wind at all was dangerous.
@BearFlight Exciting the French public or not is irrelevant. What is important is that Santos Dumont's airplane took off on its own power (and had a motor). The Wrigt brothers' airplane was not an airplane but a glider.
@WAYTOPLUTO Actually, that is why Dumont and the other French aviators (Bleriot, Pelterie, Delagrange, Viula, Farman, and Ferber) failed so consistantly and its interesting to note a letter between Wilbur Wright and Octave Chanute dated 18Nov1906: "Whether Mr Santos finds a motor an aid or an encombrance in his attack upon the real problems of flight, only the future can tell." Wilbur was right, Dumont's first flight wasn't until 13Feb1909, having an engine covered up the real problems he had.
@WAYTOPLUTO The Wrights started out as all successful investigators of flight from that era, first with a glider, so that the actual problems relating to lift and control could be addressed first of all, adding an engine only offered the difference of extending your flight time (gliders are powered by gravity). Creating lift and having control is "EXACTLY" the same for a glider as it is for a powered HTA, there is no difference my friend, you all need to get over it about Santos Dumont.
@WAYTOPLUTO By the way, just so you know, the FAI "OFFICIALLY" states that the French aviator Clement Ader was first to take-off under his own power, from level ground, with his steam powered and wheeled "Aloe" on 14Oct1897 and he flew for 300m (80m further than Dumont did 9 years later), the FAI also lists that Wilbur Wright flew for 39,428m on 5Oct1905, so you just have to get past the lies you've been told by your government.
@BearFlight I think you are the one that needs to get past the lies spread by your system that tries to claim everything for yourselves. It is the same educational system that claims that the US "bought" the southwest from the Mexico. Imperialism sucks!!
@WAYTOPLUTO If you would take the time to learn how an aircraft works, you would realize just how many years advanced the Wrights were with their machines compared to anyone else and if you would spend some time reading through all of the newspapers (French papers), magazines, documents, and Aero Club minutes of that time, you would learn that Dumont wasn't much of a factor at all, when it came to powered HTA flight. For a few days there was some excitement in 1906, but that didn't last long.
@BearFlight Public excitement about something does not translate into a true invention. The issue is what is an airplane. Without a motor, the Wrights' machine was a glider.
@BearFlight It is hard to keep historical lies in the age of the internet, isn't it? Santos Dumont has been hidden in history for too long. It will be hard to do it from now on.
@WAYTOPLUTO I'm a retired British Aeronautical Engineer, not American. You state the lies about the Wrights, but what you don't understand is that the Wrights developed the original method of accurately measuring an airfoil's CoL, CoD, AR, Camber, Camber to Cordline Ratio. Then Wilbur developed the correct formulas so that the data collected from his wind tunnel balance scale set, into useable numbers which could be tanslated into a full size airfoil with predictable performance.
@WAYTOPLUTO About the Wright's 1902 glider you mentioned, you should realize that Dumont's best powered flight, before 13Feb1909, was for 220m on 13Nov1906 and it lasted 21.5 seconds. In October of 1903, Orville was playing around with their 1902 glider at KH, while they were waiting for their new drive shafts for the Flyer I, and he flew their glider for 355m and his flight lasted 79 seconds, not bad considering he had no engine???
@zmangmz Part 6: As far as the Wright brothers, when they happened to have first flown is all irrelevant. If they happened to have first flown their Flyer I on 17Dec1903 or not, doesn't mean anything, at least to what they did for the world in the end. Then in 1904 and 1905, they continued to perform extensive R&D on their base engineering, with the Flyer II and Flyer III test units, until they built their first production/marketable machine in 1907. Which they didn't reveal until 8Aug1908.
@zmangmz Part 5: Throughout 1907 and into the first half of 1908, those members of the Aero Club of France that were successful at getting off the ground, were Farman, Delagrange (who was also the 1907 President of the ACdeF), Bleriot, Esnault-Pelterie, Vuila, De Pischoff, De La Vaulx, Gastambide-Mengin, Moore-Brabazon, and to a lesser degree, Vaniman. It wasn't until 13Feb1909 before Dumont was able to exceed Ader's (of France) 14Oct1897 hop of 300m.
@zmangmz Part 4: As far as Dumont, he did manage a couple of short unsustained and uncontrolled power hops in 1906, but in 1907 his M15 biplane was so poorly designed and constructed, it simply fell apart around him the first time he tried to take off in Feb. In April1907, Dumont pulled his 14bis back out, but after 2 days of trying, he could do no better than bounce across the ground. In Nov1907, Dumont tried with his M17 biplane and M18 monowing and they both failed so he gave up.
@zmangmz Part 3: During a 3 or 4 month period (1901-1902) the Wrights tested, in their wind tunnel, hundreds of airfoil shapes with different camber & aspect ratios. They spent hours and hours, testing different shapes and those that showed promise, they re-set their gauges through 40 different AoA and from their mountains of engineering test data they designed full size airfoils that when tested, produced a CoL/CoD within 97% of their prediction, that was an astonishing engineering acheivement.
Santos Dumont is the Father of Aviation.The first real fly with public wittness.Dumont never have to use a catapult to take off.The brothers never took off without a spoon.The true is hard.Besides everything was in secret.The funny part it is Alberto Santos Dumont is recognized all over the world as a Father of Aviation.14BIS was the first fly. You guys can believe in whatever lies do you want.Your Country is nameless bcause North America is a Continent name. Everybody over the world joke about.
@zmangmz Sorry, but Santos Dumont was not the first to get an HTA off the ground, Felix du Temple of France was in 1874. Officially (FAI), the first was Clement Ader on 14Oct1897, the first to get off the ground with a machine capable of sustained/controlled flight (FAI) was Orville Wright 17Dec1903. First to fly a circle, Wilbur Wright 20Sept1904. First to exceed 10 kilometers, Wilbur Wright 5Oct1905 (he went 38km or 24m with 1,100 witnesses).
@zmangmz Are you aware that the Wright brothers were presented a gold medal by the Aero Club of France (the same club Dumont belonged to) in 1909 with the following inscription: "Presented to Wilbur and Orville Wright for outstanding achievement in the development of the world's first airplane".
Can you tell all of us which was the first flyable airplane actually designed by Dumont and when did he first fly it? hint: (it wasn't until 13Feb1909 before Dumont flew for the first time).
@zmangmz Dumont DID NOT design the 14bis, Gabriel Voisin and Robert Esnault-Pelterie did. Source: L'Aerophile magazine 1908/1909 and Le Matin & Le Petite Journal January 1909. There's film and photographs available showing why the Voisin-Pelterie designed 14bis was incapable of flight and could never had flown.
@zmangmz The first airplane designed by Dumont capable of sustained and controlled flight was his model 19 Demoiselle (it was capable of flight only because Dumont's friend, Louis Bleriot, added airfoils that Wilbur Wright helped him with and Bleriot wired Dumont's little machine with the Wright's wing warping for lateral control) and officially Dumont flew it for the first time on 13Feb1909. Dumont did enter his Demoiselle in the Aug1909 airraces at Reims, but it was too slow to compete.
@zmangmz Need to correct you on something else too, the world DOES NOT think Santos Dumont was the father of aviation. If you happen to be Brazilian, you may have been lied to about him and may have this abstracted idea about Dumont, but the rest of the world knows the truth. The first to "officially" get off the ground was the French flyer (also listed as the father of French aviation) Clement Ader on 14Oct1897 when he powered hopped for 300m. (Federation Aeronautical Internationale records)
@zmangmz A good place for you to learn the truth is by going to the website "Flightglobal dotcom". Click on the "Archives" tab at the top at their homepage, then do a search for "Flight", which was a British aviation magazine from that time period. In the 2Jan1909 issue, go to pages 10/11 and there is the "OFFICIAL" FAI record listing of all record flights and all recorded attempts by all those in Europe up through 15Dec1908. You're going to find that Dumont was at best a failure at HTA flight.
@zmangmz Also of interest is that over in America, the Wright State University (holder of many of the Wright brother photographs, especially those photos taken of their astonishing series of performance demonstration flights in 1908/1909) and you might want to take a gander at the photos from Wilbur's first demo flights in Italy in 1909 where 500,000 people attended or Orville at Berlin, where he set a altitude record of 300m AGL while 1,500,000 German spectators wildly cheered him on!
@zmangmz Part 1: The most compelling evidence, about the invention of the airplane, is that most laypersons like yourself, don't realize that designing and developing an HTA that is capable of sustained/controlled flight was far more complex than any of the early pioneers had assumed. Even the Wrights fell into the false success of their first two gliders (1900-1901), the difference with them was even though their first gliders worked, their measured numbers were wrong and they questioned them!
@zmangmz Part 2: In the short period of about 45 months, the Wrights revolutionized the aviation world on powered flight. In October of 1901, Wilbur developed a method to "accurately" measure the performance of an airfoil, with his set of balance scales used in a wind tunnel. Wilbur then had to develop a math formula that would convert the measured data into something useful. Wilbur's original formula: sinθ1=SV²kCL/(SV²kCD)+(SV²k) is want did it and is why their machines flew as predicted.
@agodinho64 Part 3A: .....science which is honoured by their great and historical achievements, and in themselves personally on account alike of their great genius and superb example of tireless devotion to the service of all mankind for their having establishing human flight and have now presented it to the world......"
@agodinho64 Part 2A: ...sense rival, British bodies established in connection with aviation. On Monday the little brothers, who have earned immortality for themselves by gaining a fame that will last to the uttermost reaches of history, will arrive on these shores for a brief visit of a two or three days, which is the longest they can spare.......and it is desirable, because it is meant to show these great American pioneers what a very lively interest is taken in the........
@agodinho64 Part 1A: Thought you might enjoy this from the May 1, 1909 issue of the British Aviation magazine "Flight". Headline reads: "WELCOME TO ENGLAND, WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT TO ARRIVE ON MONDAY". Article reads: "The honour and the pleasure of welcoming the Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright to these shores is going to be conferred sooner than we had dared to hope on those who, in taking an interest in human flight, have become members of the two leading, and not in any......
@agodinho64 Part B: 3: American Wilbur Wright, for his discoveries in aerodynamics in 1901/1902. He founded modern Aeronautical Engineering and it was his developing the means to accurately measure and calculate the ratio between the CoL/CoD of an airfoil and their relationship to airfoil cord-line camber and aspect ratio, combined with his theory on "Inherent Instability", that established practical HTA flight. All aircraft since, fly on the Wright's scientific and engineering discoveries.
@agodinho64 Part A: In my opinion, the three greatest minds of the 20th century were: 1: German theoretical physicist and theoretical mathematician Dr. Albert Einstein, established original time-space theories with his publications of “The General Theory of Relativity” and “Special Theory of Relativity”. 2: Hungrian Dr Edward Teller for his work in nuclear theoretical physics, chemical reactionary physics and was the father of the theoretical science in fusion reaction.
@agodinho64 Part 15: The reason that the "French Institute of Science" does not list Santos Dumont as either "an aviator" or "an engineer" is because Dumont's flights were sadly far less successful than many others during that time period and Dumont failed to contribute anything of value (scientific or engineering) to the cause and development of the airplane. Dumont's ONLY successful flights of an HTA was on the design or engineering basis of others (Voisin, Pelterie, Bleriot, and Wilbur W.).
@agodinho64 Part 14: From the French Institute of Science:
"Early French Aviators": Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Clément Ader, Roland Garros, Léon Delagrange, Robert Esnault-Peltérie, Henry Farman, Louis Blériot, Wilbur Wright, Captain F. Férber, Georges Guynemer, Hubert Latham, and Sophie Blanchard.
"Early French Aerospace Engineers:" Henry Farman, Louis Blériot, Léon Levavasseur, Claude Piel, Clément Ader, Guy Lebègue, Albert Tissandier, and Wilbur Wright.
@agodinho64 Part 13: Want some more, try this: "Miracle at Kitty Hawk" by Fred C. Kelly (Kelly was a friend of Orville's and this book is a cronological reprint of just a very few letters sent, from and to, the Wright brothers between 1April1881 & 9Oct1946). If you would care to see them all (all the letters that is), then they are available over in America at the Manuscript Division of the US Library of Congress. Oh, just to warn you, there are about 30,000 individual papers in that file.
@agodinho64 Part 12: If you decide No. 2 from my previous post is something you would like to try, then I can offer a whole lot of suggestions for you! Newspapers: Le Matin, Le Petite Journal, New York Herald Paris Edition. Magazines: L'Aerophile (offical mag of the Aero Club de France), Les Sports, Flight (official mag of the Aero Cub of Britain). Documents: Wilbur's "Some Aeronautical Experiments" (18Sept1901), USPatent #821,393, Section 3, lines 45-100 (claim14) is of particular interest.
@agodinho64 Part 11: The way I see it, you have 1 of 3 choices here! 1; You can just believe me, which I suspect you won't. 2; You can become courious and spend some time searching through the mountains of available documents, period newspapers, magazines, scientific materal, film, photographs, and personal letters/journals of those that were there then, 3; You can continue to keep your head buried in the sand and believe the false propaganda you've been fed all your life! The choice is yours.
@agodinho64 Part 10: The "military" version of the Flyer III "A", which Orville flew at the US Signal Corp trials in Sep08, was slightly different than the Flyer III "A" Wil is flying in the video above. The military Flyer III "A" had a 3" shorter cordline and a 6" narrower wingspan, to assure it would exceed the min 40 mph avg speed over a 2 mile oval course. It did, by 2 mph, which paid an additional $5,000US ($30,000 total). The 1st Flyer delivered to the USgov had tricycle gear by the way.
@agodinho64 Part 9: The Flyer III "A" in the above video, was the Wright's "1st" production version of the Wright Flyer (it was built in April/May of 1907 and shipped to Le Havre, France the first week of July, 1907). The Wrights had incrementally worked through 7 test prototypes to get to the world's first "practical" flying machine you see above. The no 2 Flyer III "A", the military version, was flown by Orville, for specification match trials, at Ft Myer USA at the same time as the one above.
@agodinho64 Part 8: In 1910, after Dumont had announced his retirement from all aviation activities, Wilbur Wright met with the management at LCGdeNA, in France, and personally asked that Dumont's name be removed from the lawsuit they had filed. Wilbur stated in a written formal request, to the LCGdeNA, that he had originally allowed Dumont to use their patent in 1909, for the purposes of experimentation. Dumont never attempted to counter the Wright's contract bids in Europe, so wasn't a threat.
@agodinho64 Part 7: At the Rheims, FR airrace in Aug1909, several entrants (including Dumont) entered machines using unlicensed versions of the Wright's control system. Afterwards, all were named in a lawsuit filed in French court by the LCGdeNA. Dumont was named in that suit, for his gross violation of the Wright's patent with his M21. Because Dumont had illegally used the patent for financial gain, French law, at the tiime, stated he could have been jailed for his criminal behavior.
@luaudesigndf Actually the Wright's USP #821,393 opened up the technology and immediately progress was made on all fronts, especially in France. The Wrights never stopped anyone from using their technology, in fact went to great lengths to make it available to everyone, all you had to do was pay their user's license fees, as most did, such as Bleriot, Fokker, Shorts, Farman, Voisin, and list goes on and on. There were some though that continued to defy the law, Curtiss, Paulham, Dumont, etc.
@BearFlight hey man thanks for the explanation... they did the right thing. Sad there's still patents that aren't even explored, just landing down as trigger to fill lolsuits...
@luaudesigndf I agree, there are many such examples throughout history, someone gets a patent, then does nothing with it, but won't let anyone else do anything either. The Wrights really didn't like flying, they wold have rather worked in the lab to continue their studies on the advancement of the technology. The Wrights made their fortune, not from selling airplanes, but from selling the license to use their technology for a modest fee, the more people who used it the better they liked it.
@luaudesigndf Often missed is that during the Wright's first live performance demonstration flights of their discoveries, using their Flyer "A", Wil and Orv were working on an automatic stabilization system, first flight tested at Kitty Hawk in 1911,which they applied for the patent in 1909 and received in 1912. They sold the patent rights of their system to Lawrence Sperry (son of Ambrose) and it become the world's first auto-pilot. Sperry combined it with their patented gyroscope technology.
@luaudesigndf If you interested, there are two things I can suggest. First, go to the website "Flightglobal dotcom", click on the "archive" tab at the top of Flightglobal's home page. From there do a "search" for "Flight". "Flight" is a magazine published by the Aero Club of the United Kingdom and they (Flight Global) have archived every weekly issue of "Flight" starting with the 2Jan, 1909 issue. Its really interesting to read through each issue.
@luaudesigndf The second place to go, is find a copy of the book; "Miracle at Kitty Hawk" by Fred C. Kelly. Fred Kelly was a personal friend of Orville Wright's and his book is a timeline collection of the key letters to and from the Wrights and others between 1881 and 1946. This collection of letters is focused during the time between 1900 and 1910, specifically. Over in America, in the Manuscript Division of their National Archives are ALL of the Wright papers, all 31,000 of them.
@agodinho64 Part 6: The French company, Clement-Bayard, offered 3 engine options for the M19 Demoiselle, one of which was the Wright's 1906 Vert4. The Wright's had licensed the Clement-Bayard Company as their European manufacturer of the 1906 Vert4 engine and the French LCGdeNA had licensed C-B to use the Wright's USP #821,393. After a year, C-B sold only 15 Demoiselles (2,500 francs each), so scraped the remaining 35 Demoiselle airframes and used the parts to build Voisin designed biplanes.
@agodinho64 Part 5: In 1909, Bleriot helped Dumont build his first successful Demoiselle, after designing the wings with Wilbur Wright's help and applying the Wright's USP #821,393 patent on a functioning 3-axis control system, Dumont's M19 finally flew on 13Feb1909, which was also Dumont's first experience at sustained/controlled flight. Soon after, the Clement-Bayard co. (FR) built 50 Demoiselle airframes (they had license to use the Wright's USP #821,393 and the Wright's Vert4 30hp engine).
@agodinho64 Part 4: What I can tell you, is that the first person to discover the baseline mathematics for airfoil design, resulting in predictable airfoil performance was Wilbur Wright in 1901/1902. Wilbur Wright DID NOT build his theoretical knowledge and understanding of airfoil design upon the work of others, but provided the empirical evidence proving his work, despite the errors of those before him (like Phillips, Lilienthal, Cayley, Montgomery, and many other engineer/scientists).
@agodinho64 Part 3: If you're willing to learn the truth about what actually occurred at the beginning, I suggest you start by going to "Flightglobal dotcom", click on the "archives" tab at the top of your screen and do a search for "Flight", then go to page 10/11 of the 2Jan1909 issue of the magazine called "Flight" and read through the "official" FAI records current through 15Dec1908. You'll note that the "official" first flight of a dynamic HTA was Clement Ader (FR), on 14Oct1897 for 300m.
@agodinho64 Part 2: As an engineer, I have dealt with only that which is quantifiable, from the theoretical to the empirical. What I find most interesting is how many of you, that have this irrational belief concerning Santos Dumont, tend to consistantly degrade the Wright brothers, I don't know if it is because you don't wish to have to defend your hero, and realize you can't, or its just that you hate Americans and all those from there. I don't know and frankly I don't care which.
@agodinho64 Part 1: I understand that each of us needs to have hero's, someone to look up to and admire, especially when it comes to something has historically significant as the invention of the practical airplane. As a retired British Aeronautical Engineer, I can tell you that I have watched for decades, as people argue about who was "first", with most Brazilians almost fanatical in their faith, believing Santos Dumont was not only the first to fly, but is the true "Father of Aviation"!
@agodinho64 Wilbur and Orville Wright each hated flying, as aviators, they were scientist-engineers, that were more challenged by their discoveries in airfoil design, propeller design, and proving that Wilbur's concept on "Inherent Instability", requiring an opposing force of the CoL on a lateral line of their lift surfaces was valid. Turns out it was. What dates the Wrights first flew, rather they used a catapult or had wheels or not, is all irrelevant to what they accomplished.
Santos-Dumont and the Wright brothers differ in one very important fact. The Wrights performed all their work in secret because in true American Fashion they were in it for the money and nothing else. Their first flight was witnessed by a half a dozen people and it was never publicized at the time. Santos-Dumont on the other hand, never patented anything, and preferred to distribute the prize money among his mechanics and workers.
@agodinho64 Also you're wrong on another point too, the Wrights didn't test their machine in "secret", but they did do it in "private", that was until 1904/1905. So many people were showing up out at Simms Station (Huffman-Prairie) to watch, they finally had to suspend their test flights. (105 flights with the Flyer II in 1904 and 52 flights with the Flyer III test units in 1905). Wilbur's 5Oct1905 flight of 24 miles in 38 minutes while flying circles over HP was witnessed by over 1,100 people.
@agodinho64 Between 1874 with Felix du Temple (FR) and 4July08 with Louis Bleriot (FR) the French had achieved virtually no progress in the science&engineering of aircraft design, as it relates to the development of the "practical" airplane. Between 1906 & 1908, the most successful aviators at the ACdeF were Delagrange, Farman, Esnault-Peterie, and Bleriot. Dumont was the least successful and by the end of 1907 gave up and went back to his No.16 Airship (LTA), all of which is a matter of record.
@agodinho64 Santos Dumont, despite his accomplishments with powered LTAs, was a non-starter with powered HTAs! There were many others with the Aero Club de France that were far more successful than he was with powered HTAs, though everyone with the ACdeF had also failed at achieving flight. The problem was no one in France, between 1874 and 1908 understood the complex nature of airfoil design, more importantly, they were designing their machines on the failed concept of "Inherent Stability".
@agodinho64 Dumont's flight record (actual) was nothing but a string of failures: his 14bis (designed and built by Voisin and Pelterie) was incapable of sustained or controlled flight, it never flew. Dumont's M15 (1st design from Dumont himself), was so poorly constructed, it fell apart the first time he tried to fly it in Feb1907. Dumont's 1907 M17 biplane & M18 monowing both lacked lift producing airfoils and a control system, they both failed. Dumont gave up and made no attempts during 1908.
@agodinho64 As a matter of interest, you might want to search the newly archived (on the web) photograph collection of the Wrights at the Wright State University over in America! Search for photos of Orville's flight trials for the German government, at Berlin in Jan1909. An estimated 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 came out to watch the world's first airplane (the same Flyer III "A" in the above video), but based on the photographs, I would judge that estimate of spectators is low.
@agodinho64 In Oct1908, Dr. M. Painleve (VP at the French Institute of Science) went down to LeMans to confer with Wilbur. Dr. Painleve requested a series of trials, all designed as flight performance tests. In one, Wilbur made a 270° (3/4 circle) that measured (by FAI officials) at 31m in diameter. Wilbur then climbed to 40m AGL, shut off his engine then in a soaring descend, executed a tight high bank figure-8, landing gently at a pre-designated spot in front of the FAI and Dr. Painleve.
@agodinho64 After Dr. Painleve presented his findings to the French Institute of Science, the institute nominated Wilbur Wright for the 1908 Nobel Peace prize for engineering, but Wilbur asked they remove his nomination. During the fall of 1908, Delagrange, Farman, and Bleriot spent several weeks at LeMans, working with Wilbur Wright on engineering details of airfoil design. Afterwards, Bleriot went back to Paris and with his good friend, Dumont, began work on Dumont's M19.
@agodinho64 After Bleriot met with Dumont, they took Dumont's M18 monowing (based on Bleriot's M4), redesigned the airfoil following Wilbur Wright's lift data tables (from their 1901-1902 Dayton lab tests) and Bleri
SANTOS DUMONT MAKED THE FIRST AIRPLANE. NOT WRIGHT BROTHERS
artur4467 2 weeks ago
i think that santos dumont from brazil made the first airplane. not wright brothers
artur4467 2 weeks ago
WELL!!!! I've seen a horse fly, I've seen a dragon fly, I HAVE EVEN SEEN A HOUSE FLY!!! But Lord 'ave mercy, I ain't never thunk I'd see a man fly!!!
MrMoneyclips 3 weeks ago
@MrMoneyclips wright lift first with a catapult. santos dumont majed the real first airplane. not wright brothers
artur4467 2 weeks ago
@artur4467 I achieved lift with my boner.
MrMoneyclips 1 week ago
the First Flight was SANTOS DUMONT all of Paris saw it only 12 people saw the wright brothers "Flying" that thing was a Jumping machine santos dummont took off flew around the eifel tower and landed!
alekzander2010 1 month ago
@alekzander2010 wright brother achieved lift first
MrMoneyclips 3 weeks ago
i am related to the wright brothers
claywright60 1 month ago
FAKE the world wasnt that blurry
ASDFUIL 1 month ago
This was a glider towed into the air by a cable attached to a weight dropped from a tower. The propellers and engine may have extended the glide, but it's unlikely as the props were not efficient and the motor was small and under powered.
wmacisaac 2 months ago
@wmacisaac YOU ARE WRONG MY FRIEND! The above video of Wilbur Wright at LeMans France, was taken in October of 1908, when he had been demonstrating the Wright's first production Flyer III "A" to the French and the world. The propeller the Wrights designed for their Flyer I in 1903, has been proven in tests at the NASA/AMES research center to have been 86% efficient at power-to-thrust ratio, modern computer designed (CAD) turboprop propellers are only 83%-86% efficient under ideal conditions.
BearFlight 1 month ago
@wmacisaac As far as the "catapult" the Wrights used, it was nothing more than a "safety" device to shorten their take-off run with a 60' guide rail. The first time the Wrights used their catapult was on 4Sept1904 on their Flyer II test mule out at Huffman-Praire near Dayton, Ohio. During the last half of 1908, while Wilbur was demonstrating the world's first "practical" airplane in France, Wilbur only used the "cat" on 50% of his flights and always when he had a passenger aboard.
BearFlight 1 month ago
@wmacisaac What most people don't understand is that the Wright brothers were scientist/engineers NOT aviators and subsequently were (especially in Wilbur's case) quite afraid of flying. The ONLY Flyers that ever used the catapult were the Wright's personal demonstration models. They sold 62 Flyer "A" models in Germany, 15 in France, 6 in England, and 12 in the United States, do you know how many were sold with the catapult??? NONE! With the "B" variant (which had wheels) they sold 109!
BearFlight 1 month ago
@wmacisaac In 1909, when Orville Wright completed the delayed flight trials for the US Signal Corp (with the Military variant Flyer III "A") Orville used the catapult during the trials only, but the military added "tri-cycle" landing gear (wheels) to the machine they accepted delivery with (tagged USS Columbia). Future deliveries of the Flyer to the US military were "B" variants and they already had wheels.
BearFlight 1 month ago
Actually the first flight was made by Karl Jatho. And if you doubt it just go look it up.
lolfaces37 2 months ago
@lolfaces37 Karl Jatho was the 8th known power hop, the first was Felix du Temple of France in 1874, Moy/Shill (UK) 1875, Mozhaiski (RU) 1884, Ader (FR) 1890/1897, Herring (USA) 1898, Weiskopf (USA) 1901, Pearson (NZ) 1901-1903, THEN Karl Jatho (GR) 1903!
BearFlight 1 month ago
@BearFlight You did forget to include in your “power hop” list Texan Jacob Brodbeck (1865), Wilhelm Kress (1901), Burrell Cannon (1902) among others.
vlatu 1 month ago
@vlatu I didn't include them because there is no credible evidence they ever managed to get off the ground, especially Cannon, as that was a clear hoax.
BearFlight 1 month ago
@vlatu My point of listing those others anyway was only to point out that though a number of individuals did manage to get off the ground, it is all irrelevant to the invention of the airplane. HTAs are a very complex machine, requiring a cross-section of problems be overcome before successful sustained and controlled flight could be accomplished and the Wrights were the first to do that, as they not only wrote their findings down, they even patented some, so others could have success too.
BearFlight 1 month ago
only white people can achieve greatness like this.
ReturnOfJackDawson 2 months ago
I THINK THAT THE FIRST MAN TO MADE AN AIRPLANE, WAS SANTOS DUMONT BORN IN BRAZIL. WRIGHT BROTHERS MADE IT TOO
artur4467 2 months ago
@artur4467 Santos Dumont had absolutely NOTHING to do with the development of the airplane. Dumont was instrumental in the progress of LTAs (light-than-air dirigibles), but everyone needs to learn about the history of HTA (heavier-than-air) machines. Dumont was simply the most famous failure in aircraft attempts with the ACdeF. Dumont's first "official" flight of an airplane, as we know them today, was on 13Feb1909 and it was with a machine that was originally designed by Louis Bleriot.
BearFlight 2 months ago
@artur4467 Dumont had 2 power hops in late 1906 (the 14bis designed/built for him by G. Voisin and R. E.Pelterie), but in 1907, after 4 tries 4 failures, with 4 different machines, Dumont gave up HTA attempts until 1909. The heroes of aviation in France (1907-1908) was L. Delagrange, L. Bleriot, H. Farman, R.E.Pelterie, T. Viua, and a couple of others. On 31Dec1908, Dumont's total time in air was 59sec, which was 20sec less than Orville Wright in a single flight of a glider from 5 years earlier.
BearFlight 2 months ago
Weird. The sound is broken.
k97cross 2 months ago
@k97cross Not really that weird, in 1908 there was only silent film, sound film was still a few years away.
BearFlight 2 months ago
@BearFlight I was being jocular.
k97cross 2 months ago
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Forget about the Wright's "Flyers" or Dumont's 14-Bis: - The first CONTROLLED airplane was "The Demoiselle", invented by Santos Dumont. That's really matter !!!!
marcoses28 2 months ago
If anyone is curious, the first known successful flight of a man carrying HTA (heavier-than-air) flying machine was the Frenchman Felix de Temple in 1874, after his steam powered machine slid down a rail, but the first to take-off under their own power, from level ground, was Clement Ader on 9Oct1890 (another Frenchman). None of these flights were either sustained or contolled. 16 years later, Henri Farman made the first circle flight seen in Europe (13Jan1908), but his flight was unsustainable.
BearFlight 2 months ago
I'm a student of history, not history as others want you to believe, which usually is just to fulfill some self-serving or overt nationalism, but history has it truly unfolded. I know that everyone, depending on which country you happen to be from, continue to claim this person or that person was the first to fly. Did the Wrights think they were first? Not hardly and when Wilbur Wright was asked, after his first flight at LeMans, he said any flights they made before 8Aug1908 were irrelevant.
BearFlight 2 months ago
@jotathenoble Part 6: In addition to the awards of acheivement the Wrights received, they were also presented with 15 honorary doctrates between them, including engineering doctrates from the University of Munich (Germany), the University of Paris, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale and Harvard Universities (over in America), the University of London, Wilbur Wright personally received the French Academy of Science Honorary Doctrate for his engineering acheivement of world merit.
BearFlight 2 months ago
@jotathenoble Part 5: Up until 8Aug1908, a large number of individuals had managed to get off the ground in a powered machine, but NO ONE anywhere in the world had demonstrated the ability to fly, once they were up. Yes, a number of individuals with the ACdeF (Delagrange, Bleriot, Esnault-Pelterie, Farman, and Vivan) had demonstrated some impressive power hops (Dumont failed so badly throughout 1907, he gave up and went back to his dirigibles during 1908), but no one until the Wrights could fly.
BearFlight 2 months ago
@jotathenoble Part 4: Are you aware of the awards Wilbur and Orville received? By the end of 1909, the Wrights had received over 35 awards, not for flying, but for their technological achievement. Of the awards, was included The Aero Club de France Gold Medal of achievement, the French Legion of Honour, the US Congressional Medal of Honor, the French Academy of Sciences Gold Medal, the British Science of Honor gold medal, etc. etc. Wilbur was even nominated for a Nobel in science/engineering!
BearFlight 2 months ago
@jotathenoble Part 3: You should also know that the Wrights didn't like flying, this was especially so with Wilbur and as soon as he was able to train other people to fly, as he did after they opened the world's first flight training center in Pau, France, Wilbur stopped flying himself and left that up to others. Wilbur was an engineer-scientist, not an aviator. Wilbur's little wind tunnel balance scale, for accurately measuring CoL/CoD, is one of the greatest inventions in human history.
BearFlight 2 months ago
@ricksk81993 After Wilbur Wright's extraordinary success in France during the last half of 1908, Dumont did bring out his year-old M18 mono-wing and after Louis Bleriot and Wilbur Wright (indirectly) assisted Dumont at fixing its lack of lift producing airfoils and lack of a control system, Dumont finally flew for the first time on 13Feb1909 out at Issy. Now called the "Demosielle" for the first time, Dumont's M19 could fly for short distances under some control, but it was basically just a toy.
BearFlight 2 months ago
if i had a wish i would go back in time and kill both of them :) peace and love
SagradaMascarita 2 months ago
Não se pode mudar a historia, santo dumont foi o primeiro homen a criar um avião.
gfbtricolor 2 months ago
Shut up about santos. It was Richard pearse in waitohi new zealand that flew on march 1902 then and engine powerd flight on march 1903 . Do ur research
MrMrEvin 2 months ago
@MrMrEvin I should point out that Richard Pearse's flights, were with a machine that in fact lacked any of the technology for a successful and working aircraft and though there is no doubt he did accomplish the flights you mentioned, he didn't tell anyone until 1935 during a newspaper interview.
BearFlight 2 months ago
scew these guys! thats not sustained flight. Curtiss made the first official public powered flight in 1908 with the june bug using one of his own engine designs. also curtiss became the father of naval aviation in 1911 when he flew from land to land in water and vise versa. First amphibion. first seaplane. in US
wristp1n 3 months ago
@LazlosPlane OMFG, really? obviously you know nothing about aviation, Santos Dumont was the first one to fly an engine airplane with its own impulse in 12 november 1906, the 14-Bis, which won the french airclub contest and reconigzed as the first one to fly an engined boosted airplane , NOT WRIGHT BROTHERS, they were the first ones to fly an NON ENGINE airplane, boosted by a take-off ramp, really, i dont see no airplanes nowadays taking off in a ramp, sorry, SANTOS WINS! FATHER OF AVIATION!
ricksk81993 4 months ago
@ricksk81993 There is debate about the practicality of Santos' plane. Obviously the man was a genius.
LazlosPlane 3 months ago
@ricksk81993 The first to fly (according to the FAI "official" records) was Frenchman Clement Ader on 14Oct1897 for 300m. Santos Dumont, flying a Type du Wright biplane (designed&built by Voisin/Esnault-Pelterie) was on 13Nov1906 and was "only" the first "observed" by the newly formed FAI. The FAI lists the first "unassisted powered flight from level ground, demonstrating sustained and controlled flight" was Orville Wright on 17Dec1903. First to exceed 100m was Wilbur Wright 17Dec1903 (259m)
BearFlight 2 months ago
@ricksk81993 The FAI and ACdeF archives records "officially" state that Dumont's first observed "sustained & controlled" powered flight occurred on 13Feb1909. During 1907, Santos Dumont is only mentioned for his continous string of failures and after his first/last (21Nov1907) attempt with his M18 (his first mono-wing copied from Louis Bleriot's typeIII), Dumont retired from any further attempts until 1909. Farman, Bleriot, Delagrange, & Pelterie were the only success stories in 1907.
BearFlight 2 months ago
I can fly.
*Puts 10 pounds of TNT under me*
You never said I had to live.
needle444 4 months ago 3
The watermark destroys the footage, too bad.
gman100 4 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
This is a nice glider!!! Check to following video to see the real first plane in action /watch?v=ro5wkljLn7k
denelbh 4 months ago
Comment removed
denelbh 4 months ago
Amazing how much change so little time can do.
4thCaballero 4 months ago
The only evidence that the Wright brothers have their first flight, is a telegraphic message, and at the time were 6 people of witnesses.
The brazilian Santos Dummont flew in the presence of hundreds of people in France, his achievement was filmed, so he has the strongest proof.
Santos Dumont was recognized by the International Federation of Aeronautic, and Aero Club of France, as the first man to flight in a airplane.
Dumont a brazilian... Gagarin a russian... no americans involved.
braziliandoc08 5 months ago
@braziliandoc08 What about Armstrong? But you probably believe that was fake.
Lkjhgf5482 5 months ago
@braziliandoc08 Don't hate the player, hate the game.
H4I2I2EE 5 months ago
did noone ever mentioned that your footnote in the background all along the footage is disturbing for clear glance ?
arik1951 6 months ago
@waguinhoplay So many PRETENDERS to the crown. Santos flew a dirigible, a balloon. Nobody cares. You know how many people throughout history have done that? Please. Besides, In the early eleventh century, for instance, a monk named Eilmer flew more than 600 feet.
Santos? NOT.
LazlosPlane 6 months ago
@LazlosPlane It was a plane, with an ENGINE, something that those brothers wright didn't made, you americans think that you guys are da best, but not even half of the time, Santos Dumont, a BRAZILIAN, made and used his plane on FRANCE, a actual plane.
Dumont? Yes.
jotathenoble 3 months ago
@jotathenoble Part 1: You and everyone needs to take a lesson in how to study and understand history. The Wright brothers were not the first to get off the ground with a powered flying machine, even they knew that. What the Wrights did was develop the original technology for a successful flying machine, from Wilbur's original idea of an instrument to accurately measure an airfoil's performance to their original concept of "inherent instability" and the their patented 3-axis control system.
BearFlight 2 months ago
@jotathenoble Part 2: It took the Wrights 6 years and 7 test machines to prove their basic technology worked and they started demonstrating their technology with their Flyer III "A" in 1908. The Wright's Flyer III "A" was merely the platform with which they demonstrated their technology, nothing more. Rather you had an idea for a biplane, a mono-wing, or a tri-wing, it was all irrelevant, if you wanted to fly, as we today know flying, you had to incorporate the Wright's technology, end of story.
BearFlight 2 months ago
This is obviously NOT their "FIRST FLIGHT." Please change the title.
LazlosPlane 6 months ago 9
@LazlosPlane santos dumont from brazil maked the first real airplane. not wright brothers. they used just a catapult. dumont flew without external aid
artur4467 2 weeks ago
What's with the annoying watermark?
ledzeppelin4892000 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO I do feel sorry that you've been lied to all your life about Santos Dumont, but the truth is he had absolutely NOTHING to do with the developement of the airplane. Because of the internet, it is now easy to find archives that tell the truth of history better than ever. Of all the early aviators attached to the ACdeF, Dumont was least successful. In fact we now know his first time at actually flying didn't occur until 13Feb1909 and then only because of Bleriot and Wilbur Wright.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO When Wilbur first took off out at LeMans on 8Aug1908, with the machine in the above video, it was the first time anyone in Europe had seen an airplane fly! Everyone that was witness that day, was stunned into silence, especially the aviator leaders of the Aero Club de France, like Delagrange, Bleriot, and Archdeacon. Georges Besancon quote: " Not one of the former detractors of the Wrights dare question, today, the previous experiments of the men who were truly the first to fly...."
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Even with the success of their 1902 glider, it would still be another 3 years and 3 additional test machines before they would have the world's first practical "airplane". They built their 1st "production" Flyer in the spring of 1907 and it arrived at a French dock (La Havre) on 8July1907. In 1908, Wilbur took it out of its shipping crate and you can see that actual machine in the video above, the World's 1st "practical" aircraft capable of sustained and controlled flight.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO After first testing their 1902 glider down at KH, using tethered spring scales, an inclinometer, and an anemometer, they found that their full size glider produced 97% of predicted lift, so now they could get back to working on Wilbur's idea of "control" and it was only after 5 weeks of testing they finally developed the world's first HTA with a 3-axis system to control "yaw", "roll", and "pitch". Every successful airplane since uses the same system they developed at KH.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Lilienthal, using data from Cayley and Smeathon, used a swinging arm assembly to measure lift. Then he applied the formula of "Pressure=SV²kCL" where "k" is Smeathon's Coefficient of Pressure factor of 0.0054. The Wrights field testing their 1900&1901 glider showed they were all "wrong" and their work was useless for determining lift, so Wilbur developed a new formula of sinθ1=SV²kCL/(SV²kCD)+(SV²k) where he corrected Smeathon's "k" factor to a more accurate 0.0033.
BearFlight 6 months ago
tipico americano falando que o brasileiro mentiu, mentiu, mentiu, mentiu, mentiu, mentiu, mentiu, mentiu, mentiu, mentiu,.....
Depois vem aquela parte,.... Os irmãos Wright bateram os recordes de tempo de vôo, velocidade, distância,...
Santos Dumont doou seu dinheiro para crianças pobres, irmãos Wright fizeram mais projetos de aviões mais rapidos....
JoaoBatist4 7 months ago
Santos Dumont is best !
JoaoBatist4 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 12: According to the FAI and ACdeF records, Dumont's total flight time in powered HTAs, when he retired from all aviation in 1910, was 1h 35m. Wilbur logged a total of 3h 27m on one single day (31Dec1908). On 31Dec1908 Wilbur Wright also logged his 100 hour of total flight time in HTAs, on that same day, Dumont's "total" logged time to that date was only 59 sec. At the Reims air race in 1909, Dumont failed to qualify his M22 due to it being too slow and his lack of experience.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@BearFlight thanks a bunch, man! i am so sick of these guys trying to take away credit from others. why they should be jealous of someone that lived that long ago is beyond me. the wright brothers perfected control. w/out that, all the other idiots are meaningless cuz they never could make it truly work.
ajlee35 7 months ago
@ajlee35 Yeah, I agree. Dumont did some extraordinary things with powered dirigibles, but to give him credit for anything involving the airplane is ludicrous and frankly a slap to the face of those who really did develop the first airplanes. Its particular shameful against those who lost their lives, like Ferber, Rolls, Delagrange, Lilienthal, and Philcer, just to name a few. The really interesting thing is that what the Wrights did is absolute, its physics & math you cannot argue with, period.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@BearFlight here here.....they may not have been the first to attempt flight but they were the first to truly master it....and THEY are the reason we are where we are today.....I say they so strongly because even though it was Wilbur who took the first flight both of them worked together to make it happen....would they be amazed at where aviation has gone today
sailorearth2007 7 months ago
@sailorearth2007 True, they did master flight. However, they did not invent the airplane. Americans make an exaggerated claim about them being the "inventors" of the airplane, which, with due reason, upsets quite a few people abroad.
WAYTOPLUTO 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO In the fall of 1901, Wilbur Wright developed an ingenius device (a balance scale) that could directly measure the CoL and CoD of an airfoil in a wind tunnel accurately. From Wilbur's balance scale, he developed an entirely new math formula and corrected the errors of Lilienthal, Phillips, and Smeathon. With their 1902 glider at KH, the measured lift from their engineered wings was live measured to produced 97% of prediction. From Wil's work, modern aeronautical engineering was born
BearFlight 6 months ago
@BearFlight I'm not sure what you mean by this statement. Have you ever heard of the 14 Biz?
WAYTOPLUTO 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Yes I have and it never flew, besides the 14bis that Dumont powered jumped across the ground on 13Nov1906 wasn't designed by him, it was designed and built by his co-members, Gabriel Voisin and Robert Esnault-Pelterie, from the Aero Club de France. In a Jan1907 issue of the Le Matin newspaper (Paris) Dumont falsely claimed he had designed the 14bis, so 3 days later, Voisin/Pelterie were interviewed in the same newspaper and called Dumont out for lying. From then on he was on his own.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO In Feb1907, Dumont showed up with his model 15 biplane, the first actually designed by Dumont himself and it was a complete and total failure. Like the Voisin-Pelterie 14bis, it was a biplane that also lacked lift producing airfoils, a propeller, and a control system. Dumont's M15 was so poorly designed and constructed, it simply fell apart when he attempted to taxi to takeoff. Dumont's M15 had flat plywood wings glued together, extremely poor in concept, it could never have flown.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO In April1907, Dumont once again pulled out the Voisin-Pelterie 14bis, but after 2 days of attempts, he could do no better than bounce across the field at Bagatelle and the Paris newspapers were pretty hard on him. It was Delagrange, Bleriot, Pelterie, Farman and whole string of others that were finally starting to show some improvement. According to the ACdeF and FAI official records, Dumont did hop 220m in 1906, but Clement Ader (FR) had power hopped 300m in 1897, 9 yrs earlier.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO The longest hop in 1907 was Henri Farman for 771m on 26Oct1907. Dumont made his last attempts in Nov1907 with his M17 biplane and his M18monoplane, but they were both failures, though he did manage to power his M17 biplane for 203m on 17Nov1907. Dumont gave up at this point, as the Paris newspapers were being a bit hard on him, so he went back to his No.16 airship (his last dirigible) and Dumont had no recorded attempts in 1908.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO All you Dumonters need to do is take some time and do an actual study of who did what and when. Then all you need to do is then gain a basic understanding how an airplane works. Ernest Archdeacon, the Pres of the ACdeF in 1906, learned from Chanute that the Wrights had made several circling flights exceeding 30km in late 1905. This was confirmed by members of the ACdeF that Wilbur had in fact flown for 38minutes on 5Oct1905 covering a distance of 39km.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO What was confusing to the ACdeF membership, was the Wrights never flew to set records or be first (they knew they weren't, as they were fully aware of Ader and Maxim's flights in the 1890s). The Wrights were only about the testing of their machine to test, evaluate, and improve their machine's performance for the purpose of selling it. Wilbur's flight on 5Oct'05 was simply to test its endurance for the US Signal Corps minimum single tank range of 120 miles (193km).
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Because so many people were beginning to show up at Huffman-Prairie in 1905, to watch the Wrights fly their airplane, the Wrights had to hanger their machine out of sight until they were issued their patents, which happened on 22May1906. When Wilbur flew 39km on 5Oct1905, there were over 1,100 witnessess to that flight and there are dozens of photographs taken of Wilbur on that day, of the hundreds of witnessess, and dozens of newspaper accounts to confirm it.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO The Wright brothers broke through the barriers of science and engineering of what it would require to actually fly and control a heavier than air flying machine. It was Wilbur that actually first conceived of the concept of "Inherent Instability" in 1899 and from that he felt that lateral control would be the answer. The problem was they had assumed that Lilienthal/Cayley had discovered how an airfoil produced predictable lift, but by field testing their 1900&1901 they had a problem.
BearFlight 6 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 11: You'll find that after Dumont failed with his M17 biplane and his M18 mono-plane remake of his buddy's (Louis Bleriot) mono-wing from several months earlier, Dumont simply gave up and went back to his last dirigible (No. 16 airship) and didn't try flying HTAs between Nov1907 and Jan1909.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 10: If you go the 2Jan1909 issue of the British magazine called "Flight", the official FAI records are listed there on pages 10/11. Archives of this magazine can be found at "Flightglobal dotcom", from their homepage, click on the "archives" tab and then do a search for "Flight". After Dumont lied about his 14bis in Le Matin, he then designed his M15 (so poorly constructed it fell apart on its first attempt to take off) and M17 & M18, but they failed too, so he quit HTAs after.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 9: The Wrights were not about flying to set records, in fact if you read through their personal letters, particularly those letters between Wilbur and Octave Chanute, you'll discover that Wilbur didn't like flying at all, he was an scientist/engineer and he would much rather have just stayed at home working in his shop. The Wrights didn't make their money selling airplanes, they made their fortune selling the licensing of their technology, so others could fly and set records.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 7: According to the FAI (the only organization in the world that officially records flight records) states that the first official powered flight was the French aviator Clement Ader on 14Oct1897 (for 300m). The first sustained/controlled powered HTA flight was Orville Wright on 17Dec1903. Until 31Dec1908, the longest controlled power flight of an HTA was Wilbur Wright on 5Oct1905 for 39.4 km. Wilbur broke that "official" record on 31Dec1908 when he flew 119 km.
BearFlight 7 months ago
Watch this video for the real inventor of the airplane: watch?v=aSF-Gs_w0eQ
WAYTOPLUTO 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO ALL of the early aviator experimenters believed the concept was that through "Inherent Stability" they would eventually have success, but they were all wrong. Wilbur Wright (in 1899) believed the opposite was true, as he believed that only through "Inherent Instability" could you be successful with a powered HTA. Wilbur also realized that Inherent Instability would require an aggressive method of control.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 3: When Wilbur measured the actual lift produced by his full size 1900 and 1901 gliders and their actual lift was only 30% of what Lilienthal's lift tables said they should be, he questioned all the science data of those before him, including Lilienthal, Smeathon, Phillips, and Cayley. With their wind tunnel and Wilbur's balance scale, they tested over 200 different airfoil shapes and found that Lilienthal's formula of Pressure=SV²kCL was wrong, as was Smeathon's CoP factor.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 4: Wilbur reformulated Lilienthal's math, from "Pressure=SV²kCL" to "sinθ1=SV²kCL/(SV²kCD)+(SV²k) " and he corrected the CoP value of "k" from Smeathon's 0.0054 to a more accurate 0.0033 factor. After months of testing different airfoils (over 200), they settled on the two best performing shapes and their 1902 glider performed magnificantly. Dumont's best power hop with his 14bis lasted 21.5 seconds, and he had an engine, Orv flew their 1902 glider for 79 secs with no power.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 5: After the Wrights worked through the lift problem, during the winter of 1901/1902, they then turned back to Wilbur's original idea on "control" and after 3 months of testing with their 1902 glider, they finally ended with the world's first 3-axis control system on a machine designed on the concept of "Inherent Instability", adding an engine to a redesigned machine in 1903, with new airfoils for the extra weight, was simply redundant and wasn't particularly difficult.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 6: The Wrights spent 1904-1905 developing their machine further, until they had the world's first "practical" flying machine, with their '05 Flyer III. Then they locked it up and waited until they secured their initial patent for their control system and US Patent #821,393 was issued on 22May,1906. Every successful aircraft since requires the technology in that patent. Even the American Space Shuttle uses the technology in that patent to successfuly fly in the atomsphere.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Part 8: Santos Dumont set no records, official or otherwise, with any of his powered HTAs. His first machine, called the 14bis, was designed and built by G. Voisin and R. E. Pelterie, as Dumont had no understanding whatsoever of HTA design, his entire experience had only been with LTAs, which he was very good at. After Dumont lied to the Le Matin newspaper, claiming he had designed the 14bis, Voisin & Pelterie told him he was on his own. Dumont's 1st flight wasn't until 13Feb1909.
BearFlight 7 months ago
santos dumont é o inventor do avião... o 14bis
thormentamaioral 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 12: Probably the most interesting and proof of the superiority of the Wright's work was when Wilbur demonstrated the Flyer III "A" (the exact machine in the above video) for Dr. M. Painleve in Oct1908. Dr. M. Painleve was VP of the French Institute of Science in Paris. Wilbur started with a 270° circle, with diameter measured by the FAI at 31m across, then he climbed to 80-90m altitude, shutoff the engine and glided through a tight figure eight and landed on a pre-determined spot.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 11: Though the Wrights started their 1908 demonstrations for the singular purpose of marketing their machines (the European manufacturers of the Wright Flyer were arranged by Hart O. Berg, representing the CR Flint Company of New York), it would be the licensing of their patented technology that would be the Wright's actual business. Farman was the first to purchase a user license and he immediately applied it to his Voisin-Farman III biplane by way of applying internal ailerons.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 10: After that 21Nov1907 crash, Dumont stopped his HTA attempts (until 1909) and returned to his last dirigible (No.16 airship) design. Dumont did not have any HTA flight attempts in 1908. On the other hand, Farman, Delagrange, Bleriot, and REP did continue to try, but they, all of Europe, and then the whole world was stunned into a frenzy when Wilbur Wright took off at an auto race track, just outside of LeMans, and demonstrated the world's first "practical" production airplane.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 9: On 21Nov1907, Dumont made is final attempt at flight with his first monowing design (M18) and though he did manage a very short 145m hop, his second attempt was a good example of the failings of the French ACdeF members. After about 40-50m, his engine quit and because his machine lacked lift producing airfoils, his machine (M18) immediately quit flying and slammed into the ground, nearly destroying itself, but fortunately Dumont lucked out and only received minor injuries.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 8: Throughout 1907, the Paris newspapers Le Matin, Le Journal, and the New York Herald Paris edition covered the distance records being set by the French flyers from the Aero Club. There is no mention of Dumont throughout that year, except to point out his inability to duplicate his short flights from 1906. Delagrange was most often frontpage news because he was French and though Farman was with the ACdeF, he was actually English, he had just moved to Paris to join the Aero Club.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 7: The real bit of history that has been distorted by many, especially those of you from Brazil, is just exactly what it was the Wrights did. By reading through the newspapers, particularly in Paris during those years, Dumont didn't excite or reveal the French passion for flight, it was Delagrange, Farman, Pelterie, and Bleriot who did that. Problem was their machines didn't work very well and they could only attempt flight on the most calm of days as any wind at all was dangerous.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@BearFlight Exciting the French public or not is irrelevant. What is important is that Santos Dumont's airplane took off on its own power (and had a motor). The Wrigt brothers' airplane was not an airplane but a glider.
WAYTOPLUTO 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO Actually, that is why Dumont and the other French aviators (Bleriot, Pelterie, Delagrange, Viula, Farman, and Ferber) failed so consistantly and its interesting to note a letter between Wilbur Wright and Octave Chanute dated 18Nov1906: "Whether Mr Santos finds a motor an aid or an encombrance in his attack upon the real problems of flight, only the future can tell." Wilbur was right, Dumont's first flight wasn't until 13Feb1909, having an engine covered up the real problems he had.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO The Wrights started out as all successful investigators of flight from that era, first with a glider, so that the actual problems relating to lift and control could be addressed first of all, adding an engine only offered the difference of extending your flight time (gliders are powered by gravity). Creating lift and having control is "EXACTLY" the same for a glider as it is for a powered HTA, there is no difference my friend, you all need to get over it about Santos Dumont.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO By the way, just so you know, the FAI "OFFICIALLY" states that the French aviator Clement Ader was first to take-off under his own power, from level ground, with his steam powered and wheeled "Aloe" on 14Oct1897 and he flew for 300m (80m further than Dumont did 9 years later), the FAI also lists that Wilbur Wright flew for 39,428m on 5Oct1905, so you just have to get past the lies you've been told by your government.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@BearFlight I think you are the one that needs to get past the lies spread by your system that tries to claim everything for yourselves. It is the same educational system that claims that the US "bought" the southwest from the Mexico. Imperialism sucks!!
WAYTOPLUTO 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO If you would take the time to learn how an aircraft works, you would realize just how many years advanced the Wrights were with their machines compared to anyone else and if you would spend some time reading through all of the newspapers (French papers), magazines, documents, and Aero Club minutes of that time, you would learn that Dumont wasn't much of a factor at all, when it came to powered HTA flight. For a few days there was some excitement in 1906, but that didn't last long.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@BearFlight Public excitement about something does not translate into a true invention. The issue is what is an airplane. Without a motor, the Wrights' machine was a glider.
WAYTOPLUTO 7 months ago
@BearFlight It is hard to keep historical lies in the age of the internet, isn't it? Santos Dumont has been hidden in history for too long. It will be hard to do it from now on.
WAYTOPLUTO 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO I'm a retired British Aeronautical Engineer, not American. You state the lies about the Wrights, but what you don't understand is that the Wrights developed the original method of accurately measuring an airfoil's CoL, CoD, AR, Camber, Camber to Cordline Ratio. Then Wilbur developed the correct formulas so that the data collected from his wind tunnel balance scale set, into useable numbers which could be tanslated into a full size airfoil with predictable performance.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@WAYTOPLUTO About the Wright's 1902 glider you mentioned, you should realize that Dumont's best powered flight, before 13Feb1909, was for 220m on 13Nov1906 and it lasted 21.5 seconds. In October of 1903, Orville was playing around with their 1902 glider at KH, while they were waiting for their new drive shafts for the Flyer I, and he flew their glider for 355m and his flight lasted 79 seconds, not bad considering he had no engine???
BearFlight 7 months ago
@BearFlight Bif It was a big deal but still not a plane.
WAYTOPLUTO 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 6: As far as the Wright brothers, when they happened to have first flown is all irrelevant. If they happened to have first flown their Flyer I on 17Dec1903 or not, doesn't mean anything, at least to what they did for the world in the end. Then in 1904 and 1905, they continued to perform extensive R&D on their base engineering, with the Flyer II and Flyer III test units, until they built their first production/marketable machine in 1907. Which they didn't reveal until 8Aug1908.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 5: Throughout 1907 and into the first half of 1908, those members of the Aero Club of France that were successful at getting off the ground, were Farman, Delagrange (who was also the 1907 President of the ACdeF), Bleriot, Esnault-Pelterie, Vuila, De Pischoff, De La Vaulx, Gastambide-Mengin, Moore-Brabazon, and to a lesser degree, Vaniman. It wasn't until 13Feb1909 before Dumont was able to exceed Ader's (of France) 14Oct1897 hop of 300m.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 4: As far as Dumont, he did manage a couple of short unsustained and uncontrolled power hops in 1906, but in 1907 his M15 biplane was so poorly designed and constructed, it simply fell apart around him the first time he tried to take off in Feb. In April1907, Dumont pulled his 14bis back out, but after 2 days of trying, he could do no better than bounce across the ground. In Nov1907, Dumont tried with his M17 biplane and M18 monowing and they both failed so he gave up.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 3: During a 3 or 4 month period (1901-1902) the Wrights tested, in their wind tunnel, hundreds of airfoil shapes with different camber & aspect ratios. They spent hours and hours, testing different shapes and those that showed promise, they re-set their gauges through 40 different AoA and from their mountains of engineering test data they designed full size airfoils that when tested, produced a CoL/CoD within 97% of their prediction, that was an astonishing engineering acheivement.
BearFlight 7 months ago
Santos Dumont is the Father of Aviation.The first real fly with public wittness.Dumont never have to use a catapult to take off.The brothers never took off without a spoon.The true is hard.Besides everything was in secret.The funny part it is Alberto Santos Dumont is recognized all over the world as a Father of Aviation.14BIS was the first fly. You guys can believe in whatever lies do you want.Your Country is nameless bcause North America is a Continent name. Everybody over the world joke about.
zmangmz 8 months ago
@zmangmz Sorry, but Santos Dumont was not the first to get an HTA off the ground, Felix du Temple of France was in 1874. Officially (FAI), the first was Clement Ader on 14Oct1897, the first to get off the ground with a machine capable of sustained/controlled flight (FAI) was Orville Wright 17Dec1903. First to fly a circle, Wilbur Wright 20Sept1904. First to exceed 10 kilometers, Wilbur Wright 5Oct1905 (he went 38km or 24m with 1,100 witnesses).
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Are you aware that the Wright brothers were presented a gold medal by the Aero Club of France (the same club Dumont belonged to) in 1909 with the following inscription: "Presented to Wilbur and Orville Wright for outstanding achievement in the development of the world's first airplane".
Can you tell all of us which was the first flyable airplane actually designed by Dumont and when did he first fly it? hint: (it wasn't until 13Feb1909 before Dumont flew for the first time).
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Dumont DID NOT design the 14bis, Gabriel Voisin and Robert Esnault-Pelterie did. Source: L'Aerophile magazine 1908/1909 and Le Matin & Le Petite Journal January 1909. There's film and photographs available showing why the Voisin-Pelterie designed 14bis was incapable of flight and could never had flown.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz The first airplane designed by Dumont capable of sustained and controlled flight was his model 19 Demoiselle (it was capable of flight only because Dumont's friend, Louis Bleriot, added airfoils that Wilbur Wright helped him with and Bleriot wired Dumont's little machine with the Wright's wing warping for lateral control) and officially Dumont flew it for the first time on 13Feb1909. Dumont did enter his Demoiselle in the Aug1909 airraces at Reims, but it was too slow to compete.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Need to correct you on something else too, the world DOES NOT think Santos Dumont was the father of aviation. If you happen to be Brazilian, you may have been lied to about him and may have this abstracted idea about Dumont, but the rest of the world knows the truth. The first to "officially" get off the ground was the French flyer (also listed as the father of French aviation) Clement Ader on 14Oct1897 when he powered hopped for 300m. (Federation Aeronautical Internationale records)
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz A good place for you to learn the truth is by going to the website "Flightglobal dotcom". Click on the "Archives" tab at the top at their homepage, then do a search for "Flight", which was a British aviation magazine from that time period. In the 2Jan1909 issue, go to pages 10/11 and there is the "OFFICIAL" FAI record listing of all record flights and all recorded attempts by all those in Europe up through 15Dec1908. You're going to find that Dumont was at best a failure at HTA flight.
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Also of interest is that over in America, the Wright State University (holder of many of the Wright brother photographs, especially those photos taken of their astonishing series of performance demonstration flights in 1908/1909) and you might want to take a gander at the photos from Wilbur's first demo flights in Italy in 1909 where 500,000 people attended or Orville at Berlin, where he set a altitude record of 300m AGL while 1,500,000 German spectators wildly cheered him on!
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 1: The most compelling evidence, about the invention of the airplane, is that most laypersons like yourself, don't realize that designing and developing an HTA that is capable of sustained/controlled flight was far more complex than any of the early pioneers had assumed. Even the Wrights fell into the false success of their first two gliders (1900-1901), the difference with them was even though their first gliders worked, their measured numbers were wrong and they questioned them!
BearFlight 7 months ago
@zmangmz Part 2: In the short period of about 45 months, the Wrights revolutionized the aviation world on powered flight. In October of 1901, Wilbur developed a method to "accurately" measure the performance of an airfoil, with his set of balance scales used in a wind tunnel. Wilbur then had to develop a math formula that would convert the measured data into something useful. Wilbur's original formula: sinθ1=SV²kCL/(SV²kCD)+(SV²k) is want did it and is why their machines flew as predicted.
BearFlight 7 months ago
Santos Dumont e Wright Brothers foram heróis da humanidade. Graças aos seus esforços conquistamos os céus!
expert9414 8 months ago
Shit :) Santos dumont really better
captainjotaro 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 3A: .....science which is honoured by their great and historical achievements, and in themselves personally on account alike of their great genius and superb example of tireless devotion to the service of all mankind for their having establishing human flight and have now presented it to the world......"
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 2A: ...sense rival, British bodies established in connection with aviation. On Monday the little brothers, who have earned immortality for themselves by gaining a fame that will last to the uttermost reaches of history, will arrive on these shores for a brief visit of a two or three days, which is the longest they can spare.......and it is desirable, because it is meant to show these great American pioneers what a very lively interest is taken in the........
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 1A: Thought you might enjoy this from the May 1, 1909 issue of the British Aviation magazine "Flight". Headline reads: "WELCOME TO ENGLAND, WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT TO ARRIVE ON MONDAY". Article reads: "The honour and the pleasure of welcoming the Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright to these shores is going to be conferred sooner than we had dared to hope on those who, in taking an interest in human flight, have become members of the two leading, and not in any......
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part B: 3: American Wilbur Wright, for his discoveries in aerodynamics in 1901/1902. He founded modern Aeronautical Engineering and it was his developing the means to accurately measure and calculate the ratio between the CoL/CoD of an airfoil and their relationship to airfoil cord-line camber and aspect ratio, combined with his theory on "Inherent Instability", that established practical HTA flight. All aircraft since, fly on the Wright's scientific and engineering discoveries.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part A: In my opinion, the three greatest minds of the 20th century were: 1: German theoretical physicist and theoretical mathematician Dr. Albert Einstein, established original time-space theories with his publications of “The General Theory of Relativity” and “Special Theory of Relativity”. 2: Hungrian Dr Edward Teller for his work in nuclear theoretical physics, chemical reactionary physics and was the father of the theoretical science in fusion reaction.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 15: The reason that the "French Institute of Science" does not list Santos Dumont as either "an aviator" or "an engineer" is because Dumont's flights were sadly far less successful than many others during that time period and Dumont failed to contribute anything of value (scientific or engineering) to the cause and development of the airplane. Dumont's ONLY successful flights of an HTA was on the design or engineering basis of others (Voisin, Pelterie, Bleriot, and Wilbur W.).
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 14: From the French Institute of Science:
"Early French Aviators": Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Clément Ader, Roland Garros, Léon Delagrange, Robert Esnault-Peltérie, Henry Farman, Louis Blériot, Wilbur Wright, Captain F. Férber, Georges Guynemer, Hubert Latham, and Sophie Blanchard.
"Early French Aerospace Engineers:" Henry Farman, Louis Blériot, Léon Levavasseur, Claude Piel, Clément Ader, Guy Lebègue, Albert Tissandier, and Wilbur Wright.
Notice any name missing?
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 13: Want some more, try this: "Miracle at Kitty Hawk" by Fred C. Kelly (Kelly was a friend of Orville's and this book is a cronological reprint of just a very few letters sent, from and to, the Wright brothers between 1April1881 & 9Oct1946). If you would care to see them all (all the letters that is), then they are available over in America at the Manuscript Division of the US Library of Congress. Oh, just to warn you, there are about 30,000 individual papers in that file.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 12: If you decide No. 2 from my previous post is something you would like to try, then I can offer a whole lot of suggestions for you! Newspapers: Le Matin, Le Petite Journal, New York Herald Paris Edition. Magazines: L'Aerophile (offical mag of the Aero Club de France), Les Sports, Flight (official mag of the Aero Cub of Britain). Documents: Wilbur's "Some Aeronautical Experiments" (18Sept1901), USPatent #821,393, Section 3, lines 45-100 (claim14) is of particular interest.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 11: The way I see it, you have 1 of 3 choices here! 1; You can just believe me, which I suspect you won't. 2; You can become courious and spend some time searching through the mountains of available documents, period newspapers, magazines, scientific materal, film, photographs, and personal letters/journals of those that were there then, 3; You can continue to keep your head buried in the sand and believe the false propaganda you've been fed all your life! The choice is yours.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 10: The "military" version of the Flyer III "A", which Orville flew at the US Signal Corp trials in Sep08, was slightly different than the Flyer III "A" Wil is flying in the video above. The military Flyer III "A" had a 3" shorter cordline and a 6" narrower wingspan, to assure it would exceed the min 40 mph avg speed over a 2 mile oval course. It did, by 2 mph, which paid an additional $5,000US ($30,000 total). The 1st Flyer delivered to the USgov had tricycle gear by the way.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 9: The Flyer III "A" in the above video, was the Wright's "1st" production version of the Wright Flyer (it was built in April/May of 1907 and shipped to Le Havre, France the first week of July, 1907). The Wrights had incrementally worked through 7 test prototypes to get to the world's first "practical" flying machine you see above. The no 2 Flyer III "A", the military version, was flown by Orville, for specification match trials, at Ft Myer USA at the same time as the one above.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 8: In 1910, after Dumont had announced his retirement from all aviation activities, Wilbur Wright met with the management at LCGdeNA, in France, and personally asked that Dumont's name be removed from the lawsuit they had filed. Wilbur stated in a written formal request, to the LCGdeNA, that he had originally allowed Dumont to use their patent in 1909, for the purposes of experimentation. Dumont never attempted to counter the Wright's contract bids in Europe, so wasn't a threat.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 7: At the Rheims, FR airrace in Aug1909, several entrants (including Dumont) entered machines using unlicensed versions of the Wright's control system. Afterwards, all were named in a lawsuit filed in French court by the LCGdeNA. Dumont was named in that suit, for his gross violation of the Wright's patent with his M21. Because Dumont had illegally used the patent for financial gain, French law, at the tiime, stated he could have been jailed for his criminal behavior.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@BearFlight That's what patent laws are for, holding back progress.
luaudesigndf 8 months ago
@luaudesigndf Actually the Wright's USP #821,393 opened up the technology and immediately progress was made on all fronts, especially in France. The Wrights never stopped anyone from using their technology, in fact went to great lengths to make it available to everyone, all you had to do was pay their user's license fees, as most did, such as Bleriot, Fokker, Shorts, Farman, Voisin, and list goes on and on. There were some though that continued to defy the law, Curtiss, Paulham, Dumont, etc.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@BearFlight hey man thanks for the explanation... they did the right thing. Sad there's still patents that aren't even explored, just landing down as trigger to fill lolsuits...
luaudesigndf 8 months ago
@luaudesigndf I agree, there are many such examples throughout history, someone gets a patent, then does nothing with it, but won't let anyone else do anything either. The Wrights really didn't like flying, they wold have rather worked in the lab to continue their studies on the advancement of the technology. The Wrights made their fortune, not from selling airplanes, but from selling the license to use their technology for a modest fee, the more people who used it the better they liked it.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@luaudesigndf Often missed is that during the Wright's first live performance demonstration flights of their discoveries, using their Flyer "A", Wil and Orv were working on an automatic stabilization system, first flight tested at Kitty Hawk in 1911,which they applied for the patent in 1909 and received in 1912. They sold the patent rights of their system to Lawrence Sperry (son of Ambrose) and it become the world's first auto-pilot. Sperry combined it with their patented gyroscope technology.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@BearFlight Those are some interesting details, it seems you're well versed in this matter.
luaudesigndf 8 months ago
@luaudesigndf If you interested, there are two things I can suggest. First, go to the website "Flightglobal dotcom", click on the "archive" tab at the top of Flightglobal's home page. From there do a "search" for "Flight". "Flight" is a magazine published by the Aero Club of the United Kingdom and they (Flight Global) have archived every weekly issue of "Flight" starting with the 2Jan, 1909 issue. Its really interesting to read through each issue.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@luaudesigndf The second place to go, is find a copy of the book; "Miracle at Kitty Hawk" by Fred C. Kelly. Fred Kelly was a personal friend of Orville Wright's and his book is a timeline collection of the key letters to and from the Wrights and others between 1881 and 1946. This collection of letters is focused during the time between 1900 and 1910, specifically. Over in America, in the Manuscript Division of their National Archives are ALL of the Wright papers, all 31,000 of them.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@BearFlight Thanks man, I'll take a look!
luaudesigndf 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 6: The French company, Clement-Bayard, offered 3 engine options for the M19 Demoiselle, one of which was the Wright's 1906 Vert4. The Wright's had licensed the Clement-Bayard Company as their European manufacturer of the 1906 Vert4 engine and the French LCGdeNA had licensed C-B to use the Wright's USP #821,393. After a year, C-B sold only 15 Demoiselles (2,500 francs each), so scraped the remaining 35 Demoiselle airframes and used the parts to build Voisin designed biplanes.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 5: In 1909, Bleriot helped Dumont build his first successful Demoiselle, after designing the wings with Wilbur Wright's help and applying the Wright's USP #821,393 patent on a functioning 3-axis control system, Dumont's M19 finally flew on 13Feb1909, which was also Dumont's first experience at sustained/controlled flight. Soon after, the Clement-Bayard co. (FR) built 50 Demoiselle airframes (they had license to use the Wright's USP #821,393 and the Wright's Vert4 30hp engine).
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 4: What I can tell you, is that the first person to discover the baseline mathematics for airfoil design, resulting in predictable airfoil performance was Wilbur Wright in 1901/1902. Wilbur Wright DID NOT build his theoretical knowledge and understanding of airfoil design upon the work of others, but provided the empirical evidence proving his work, despite the errors of those before him (like Phillips, Lilienthal, Cayley, Montgomery, and many other engineer/scientists).
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 3: If you're willing to learn the truth about what actually occurred at the beginning, I suggest you start by going to "Flightglobal dotcom", click on the "archives" tab at the top of your screen and do a search for "Flight", then go to page 10/11 of the 2Jan1909 issue of the magazine called "Flight" and read through the "official" FAI records current through 15Dec1908. You'll note that the "official" first flight of a dynamic HTA was Clement Ader (FR), on 14Oct1897 for 300m.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 2: As an engineer, I have dealt with only that which is quantifiable, from the theoretical to the empirical. What I find most interesting is how many of you, that have this irrational belief concerning Santos Dumont, tend to consistantly degrade the Wright brothers, I don't know if it is because you don't wish to have to defend your hero, and realize you can't, or its just that you hate Americans and all those from there. I don't know and frankly I don't care which.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Part 1: I understand that each of us needs to have hero's, someone to look up to and admire, especially when it comes to something has historically significant as the invention of the practical airplane. As a retired British Aeronautical Engineer, I can tell you that I have watched for decades, as people argue about who was "first", with most Brazilians almost fanatical in their faith, believing Santos Dumont was not only the first to fly, but is the true "Father of Aviation"!
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Wilbur and Orville Wright each hated flying, as aviators, they were scientist-engineers, that were more challenged by their discoveries in airfoil design, propeller design, and proving that Wilbur's concept on "Inherent Instability", requiring an opposing force of the CoL on a lateral line of their lift surfaces was valid. Turns out it was. What dates the Wrights first flew, rather they used a catapult or had wheels or not, is all irrelevant to what they accomplished.
BearFlight 8 months ago
Santos-Dumont and the Wright brothers differ in one very important fact. The Wrights performed all their work in secret because in true American Fashion they were in it for the money and nothing else. Their first flight was witnessed by a half a dozen people and it was never publicized at the time. Santos-Dumont on the other hand, never patented anything, and preferred to distribute the prize money among his mechanics and workers.
agodinho64 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Also you're wrong on another point too, the Wrights didn't test their machine in "secret", but they did do it in "private", that was until 1904/1905. So many people were showing up out at Simms Station (Huffman-Prairie) to watch, they finally had to suspend their test flights. (105 flights with the Flyer II in 1904 and 52 flights with the Flyer III test units in 1905). Wilbur's 5Oct1905 flight of 24 miles in 38 minutes while flying circles over HP was witnessed by over 1,100 people.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Between 1874 with Felix du Temple (FR) and 4July08 with Louis Bleriot (FR) the French had achieved virtually no progress in the science&engineering of aircraft design, as it relates to the development of the "practical" airplane. Between 1906 & 1908, the most successful aviators at the ACdeF were Delagrange, Farman, Esnault-Peterie, and Bleriot. Dumont was the least successful and by the end of 1907 gave up and went back to his No.16 Airship (LTA), all of which is a matter of record.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Santos Dumont, despite his accomplishments with powered LTAs, was a non-starter with powered HTAs! There were many others with the Aero Club de France that were far more successful than he was with powered HTAs, though everyone with the ACdeF had also failed at achieving flight. The problem was no one in France, between 1874 and 1908 understood the complex nature of airfoil design, more importantly, they were designing their machines on the failed concept of "Inherent Stability".
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 Dumont's flight record (actual) was nothing but a string of failures: his 14bis (designed and built by Voisin and Pelterie) was incapable of sustained or controlled flight, it never flew. Dumont's M15 (1st design from Dumont himself), was so poorly constructed, it fell apart the first time he tried to fly it in Feb1907. Dumont's 1907 M17 biplane & M18 monowing both lacked lift producing airfoils and a control system, they both failed. Dumont gave up and made no attempts during 1908.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 As a matter of interest, you might want to search the newly archived (on the web) photograph collection of the Wrights at the Wright State University over in America! Search for photos of Orville's flight trials for the German government, at Berlin in Jan1909. An estimated 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 came out to watch the world's first airplane (the same Flyer III "A" in the above video), but based on the photographs, I would judge that estimate of spectators is low.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 In Oct1908, Dr. M. Painleve (VP at the French Institute of Science) went down to LeMans to confer with Wilbur. Dr. Painleve requested a series of trials, all designed as flight performance tests. In one, Wilbur made a 270° (3/4 circle) that measured (by FAI officials) at 31m in diameter. Wilbur then climbed to 40m AGL, shut off his engine then in a soaring descend, executed a tight high bank figure-8, landing gently at a pre-designated spot in front of the FAI and Dr. Painleve.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 After Dr. Painleve presented his findings to the French Institute of Science, the institute nominated Wilbur Wright for the 1908 Nobel Peace prize for engineering, but Wilbur asked they remove his nomination. During the fall of 1908, Delagrange, Farman, and Bleriot spent several weeks at LeMans, working with Wilbur Wright on engineering details of airfoil design. Afterwards, Bleriot went back to Paris and with his good friend, Dumont, began work on Dumont's M19.
BearFlight 8 months ago
@agodinho64 After Bleriot met with Dumont, they took Dumont's M18 monowing (based on Bleriot's M4), redesigned the airfoil following Wilbur Wright's lift data tables (from their 1901-1902 Dayton lab tests) and Bleri