A Century of Flight: Who Flew First?

[Agathon]

Well it's been 100 years and I still can't get a decent meal on a plane or a date with a stewardess.

Anyway, today is supposed to be the centennial, but there is some debate as to whether the Wrights were first to accomplish powered controlled flight.

Thoughts?

[Chemical Ollie]

Orville was Wright

[Drake Tungsten]

Yet more disparaging of the Wrights. Where's Boris to deny that this type of bashing goes on?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Yet more disparaging of the Wrights. Where's Boris to deny that this type of bashing goes on?

He's busy furiously denying elsewhere.

[Winston]

J.C. Ellehammer of Denmark was the first in Europe to fly with an engine powered plane, in 1906.

Not that this has much to do with the question before us, but there we are.

[Agathon]

There's supposed to be a live re-enactment in front of the President this morning.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Yet more disparaging of the Wrights. Where's Boris to deny that this type of bashing goes on?

And here I was wondering when Cali would start crying about how someone daring to say that someone might have beat the Wrights to the punch is somehow "bashing" the Wrights.

But you cried first!

[Boris Godunov]

BTW, Pearse himself denied he beat the rights:

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Pearse/Pearse.html

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
BTW, Pearse himself denied he beat the rights:

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Pearse/Pearse.html

Pearse was a notorious nut and recluse. You'll see that the same page puts down the eyewitnesses as centering on an earlier time than he claimed.

No one will ever know. It's a moot point anyway. Several people managed short hops before the Wrights and it's not as if we could pick and choose one event and say that was the beginning of flight. It was a gradual development by many different people who should all share in the achievement.

The Wrights just had the best press.

[Agathon]

You know, only Bush could turn such an occasion into a chauvinistic rant.

[Boris Godunov]

I'd also like to point out for Cali that Pearse is also a dead white male.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
I'd also like to point out for Cali that Pearse is also a dead white male.

That he is.

[Boris Godunov]

So the legacy is safe, regardless.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
So the legacy is safe, regardless.

What's Cali got against DWM's? I mean he's having a bad week AFAICS.

[Boris Godunov]

Homework for you:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103776&highlight=Wrights