Wright Brothers not first???

[lowflier03]

The other thing the Wrights did early on was fly other people in their plane, in front of large crowds. Seems like a pretty easy way to prove you are legit instead of flying 1 plane 1 time and then telling your friend in a bar or whatever "oh yeah, well I built one of those 3 years ago and I swear it worked." Sadly in the age of wikipedia and Snopes it is almost easier to pass off frauds as truth.

 

[brownshoe]

The other thing the Wrights did early on was fly other people in their plane, in front of large crowds. Seems like a pretty easy way to prove you are legit instead of flying 1 plane 1 time and then telling your friend in a bar or whatever "oh yeah, well I built one of those 3 years ago and I swear it worked." Sadly in the age of wikipedia and Snopes it is almost easier to pass off frauds as truth.

You mean like Fred “Skeeterman” Barnes and Allen "Attila" Smith?

 

[JollyGood]

Funnily enough, just read about Whitehead in Boyne's Influence of Air Power Upon History. In that, he states Whitehead made claims about heavier than air flight using a plane with two engines with one for flight and other for ground propulsion. He discredits him and tosses him in with all the posers and others of the day who claimed to have beaten the boys from Dayton to the punch. Boyne continues to say that regardless of who got to it first, the Wright Bros were the real deal due to their repeated flights as others have been stating in this thread.

 

[SkywardET]

They had left the bicycle business and put all their money into the airplane business, their litigiousness and secrecy can be attributed to trying to make money out of their inventions which were often particular to their aircraft.

They didn't patent things particular to their aircraft, they patented controlled flight itself. The Wright Brothers may or may not have been first, but their use of intellectual property rights retarded the progress of the aviation industry. I don't really blame them for their using every effort to maximize their profit from their work, but I do think it is about as clear a case as exists that intellectual property is a dangerous concept.

 

[Jim123]

They didn't patent things particular to their aircraft, they patented controlled flight itself. The Wright Brothers may or may not have been first, but their use of intellectual property rights retarded the progress of the aviation industry. I don't really blame them for their using every effort to maximize their profit from their work, but I do think it is about as clear a case as exists that intellectual property is a dangerous concept.

Incidentally, their flight control patents (especially their battles with Glenn Curtiss over ailerons vs wing-warping) make good case studies in intellectual properly law.

 

[jmcquate]

The Smithsonian’s legal clauses around the language that they may use with regard to the Wrights having been the first to fly goes back to a blood feud between the Smithsonian and the Wrights, or more accurately Samuel Langley who was the head of the Smithsonian in 1903 and a well funded aviation pioneer. Langley would not recognize that a couple of bicycle repair guys from Dayton Ohio accomplished what he could not. As a result, the 1903 Flyer was displayed in London up until the 1930s or 40s. Only after the Smithsonian made nice did it get donated to the Smithsonian under strict legal conditions.

The Wrights weren’t the first to fly, but they were the first to control flight (yaw, pitch and roll).

 

[Flash]

.......The Wrights weren’t the first to fly, but they were the first to control flight (yaw, pitch and roll).

Eh? As in powered flight? From what I have seen there is no proof that anyone else did it before them.

 

[jmcquate]

Eh? As in powered flight? From what I have seen there is no proof that anyone else did it before them.

Sorry, powered controled flight. The game changer was wing warping.

 

[Dogpatch09]

This does not seem legit.