Talk:First flying machine

message: This article is from a reorg/rewrite/split from an earlier version of Early flying machines.  See Talk:Early flying machines.  --A D Monroe III 02:04, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split from "Early flying machines" 

message: This article has no specifics, yet. Starting my listing the claims to first flying machines by name is flame bait. I first wanted to establish the ground rules (mostly, that there is no single answer). This is now done.
Now, the sections on specific disputed claims from other articles can be moved and added to this article at the end, so all the different claims can be contrasted and listed together, with a fair NPOV.  See Alberto Santos-Dumont, Sir George Cayley, Clement Ader, Otto Lilienthal, Wright brothers, Louis Blériot and everyone else's local heroes. 
Please, step right in.  Go ahead.  Really.  Okay.  Yeah.  Uh, hello?  Anybody there?  Sigh.  
--A D Monroe III 03:45, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We have to find those who are in favour of those individuals :) --Fred chessplayer 10:56, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: You are of course correct. The reason why I made the mistake is because the article lacks concrete examples.  --Fred chessplayer 12:02, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add sections for specific claims? 

message: It has been a nice split of article. One thing that now strikes me -- and I didn't think of this until today unfortunately -- an even more appropriate title for this page might be "First flying machine controversy" , or "Flying machine controversy" which shows that this page tries to explain a controversy. --Fred chessplayer 11:03, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe.  As is, it works a little better for most links.  There are many other articles that cover disputed claims without any amendment to their title.  Again, I  eventually hope to cover all of the "first flying machines" in this article. --A D Monroe III 01:36, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The move 

message: Calling a spade a spade, I think this whole issue revolves around the Wright Brothers and attempts to discredit them that began when both were still alive. Clearly, theirs was not the first flying machine, broadly defined. The issue that raises temperatures, in my opinion, is whether they deserve credit as inventors of the first successful airplane. I believe the answer is yes. They took the pictures to prove it. They made over 100 flights in 1904-05. They dazzled the world with demonstrations in France and Washington in 1908. Claims and evidence for all other contenders pale in comparison. Ader may have lifted one or two wheels a few inches off the ground. Whitehead may or may not have flown; he certainly did not develop a successful airplane. Maxim proved a huge engine could propel a huge machine to liftoff speed. Herring put a compressed air engine on a hang glider (1898). The list goes on. None of these men deserves credit for inventing a successful, practical airplane. That credit goes to the Wright Brothers. A handful of Europeans and Curtiss in America were indeed flying by 1908, but the Europeans could barely make their craft turn, and Curtiss did it only because he successfully adapted wing-warping, a process the Wrights patented in 1906, based on their discoveries from 1900 to 1903. In the "marketing" category, the Wrights were only slightly better than inept. They didn't get worldwide recognition because they were good at marketing. They won fame in spite of their bumbling efforts to lock in a contract. They won fame because their airplane was the real thing, far advanced in its control features than anything anywhere else. That is why they deserve credit as successful airplane inventors. They didn't fly first; a bunch of other people and machines went aloft first: Lilienthal, Pilcher, Herring, Langley's model Aerodrome, to name a few. None of them did what the Wright Brothers did first: invent a successful airplane. 
DonFB  4.227.254.28 02:34, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem confused on marketing. Marketing is quite different from developing a business. While the Wright brothers may not have been good business people in selling their ideas (and in getting contracts) they were clearly good marketers. Or are you telling me successfully demonstrating your flight with "dazzling demonstrations" (as you call them) is anything but brilliant marketing? Marketing is about developing recognition and the way to do that is to get everyone talking about you which the Wright brothers clearly did with their "dazzling demonstrations". The fact of the matter is that the Wright brothers clearly marketed their flying machine much better then anyone else before them. Whether this was because their product worked a lot better then others or because they had the money/brains to do so or whatever is up for debate but anyone who ignores the fact is missing the point. Most other earlier inventors only made one or a few demonstrations and didn't attract much attention to their demonstrations where the Wright brothers made many demonstrations and attracted a LOT of attention. Nil Einne 11:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of the Scope 

message: It seems a wee bit POV to me: who may be unaware of a 1.300 foot Wright Brothers flight without a catapult near Dayton in August 1904, to be the first to take off, fly, and land. The discussion is not about knowing or not this flight, but recognize it, since this flight was documented by the time -- if it really happened -- mostly by Wrights´ employees, and just made public months later. Tonyjeff 20:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the photograph of Dec 17, 1903 shows the airplane flying using an engine, not gliding. It has just taken off from the rail, on a flat surface, without a catapult. So Drinkwater's memory of the event 48 years later may be a little cloudy. Keep in mind that Drinkwater was not an eyewitness, so he may just have been mixed up. I invite you to look at the Wikipedia article on the Wright Brothers, which includes a photograph of Orville flying over Huffman Prairie near Dayton in 1904. The Wrights made dozens of flights there without a catapult from May to September 1904. Or read any of the biographies of the Wrights (see the article's Reference section), which include information about eyewitnesses to the flights at Huffman Prairie in 1904-05. Or visit the U.S. Library of Congress online  http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/p?pp/ils:@FILREQ(@FIELD(CALL(+W85+W86))@FIELD(COLLID+wri))::SortBy=CALL  (click Page 13 to begin) to see numerous photographs the Wright Brothers took of their flights at the Prairie in '04-'05. Elsewhere at the Library of Congress online, you can see and read images of the Wright Brothers' actual diaries and notebooks about their two years of flying at Huffman Prairie. Use this address     http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/wright:@field(CALL+@od1(Diaries+and+Notebooks))  (Click item 12)   The notebooks describe the flights and show the dates in Wilbur's handwriting. Perhaps, however, you believe the photographs, diaries and notebooks are fakes or hoaxes. If you do, then we have no basis for genuine discussion. Give Santos-Dumont his credit: he was brave, pioneering and determined. His Demoiselle was a beautiful airplane. But I advise you to remain rooted in the real world of photographs and evidence, which are abundant--and prove the Wrights flew in 1903, 1904 and 1905--and common sense, which is less common. 4.227.254.77 21:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

text: However, Faithful B. is not entirely faithful by failing to report the airplane was successfully flown briefly prior to December 17, as reported in an article about another mishap--http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:FH8I8F0PI-cJ:www.cnn.com/2003/US/South/11/26/flyer.crash.ap/index.html+replica+Wright+2003+successful&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3  4.227.254.0 21:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, so why do we always see skis at the bottom of Wrights' "flight machine" of that period? Isn'n it because it needed a "little push" to take flight, be it a catapult, a flat surface or his employees? The mottor most probably only supported the gliding process rather than sustained the whole apparel. And about the 1903-1905 flights, they had almost no witnesses, most of them really suspects; not even Drinkwater who, as you said, might just have been mixed up, was there. By the other hand, Santos-Dumont made his flight in front of a enourmous French audience, with an apparel, 14-bis, which took of the ground (normal, not "flat surface"), by its own ways. Demoiselle, by its turn, was not simply "a beatiful airplane", but an airplane much more sophisticated than any ever made by the Wrights. --Tonyjeff 21:20, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: None of the witnesses were "suspect". The Wrights gave a list of witnesses, which you may read at this web address --  http://home.dayton.lib.oh.us/archives/wbcollection/wbscrapbooks1/WBScr1Pag009a.jpg. You can argue about the Wright's skids and low engine power, but those arguments do not change the fact that the Wright brothers were flying airplanes for years before Santos made his first hop. I'm sure you don't seriously assert that circling flights, maintaining an altitude of 30 to 60 feet for more than half an hour, as the Wrights achieved in 1905, are motorized "gliding" flights. I have nothing negative to say about Santos-Dumont, but his best flights in the 14-bis—less than 30 seconds and less than 800 feet, with no turns and no circles—can hardly be considered more masterful or practical, or demonstrating an invention more capable, than the airplanes in which the Wright brothers flew, turned and circled more than 20 miles nonstop for more than a half-hour in 1905 and up to 5 minutes in 1904.    DonFB 04:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Santos-Dumont 

message: This page is not about the first flying machine- there were flying machines before the Wright brothers, both lighter than air and unmanned.
This page should really be under something like:
'First manned heavier than air flying machine'
We're an encyclopedia darnit! We're supposed to be accurate!WolfKeeper 14:44, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Move this page?

message: I do not think the photograph of the Avion (AderAvion3(1897).jpg) actually depicts the Avion "in flight" as indicated by the tooltip popup caption. It is doubtful that any shutter speed or photographic emulsion of the day was fast enough to completely "stop" the motion of the propellers. No background landscape can be seen, but the Avion, if it flew at all, remained extremely close to the ground; thus, some terrain should be visible. It is even possible this image shows a model of the Avion. I performed a search and found the same image in a couple of different places, but no verification the image is of the craft "in flight". Following the Wikipedia mandate to "be bold", I am changing the popup caption to simply read: "Ader Avion 3". If there is evidence claiming the photo shows the Avion "in flight", I would certainly like to know about it. 4.227.250.50 03:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avion photograph 

message: I'm not sure which of the earlier entries is on this topic, rather than other moves.  So I'm making a new beginning.
Undisputed human flight began with the Montgolfier brothers.  Powered human flight is another matter - more exactly, self-powered flying machines, which a lighter-than-air baloon is not.
There needs to be some editing and exchange of material.  'Early flight' should include baloons, gliders and craft launched from catapults.  Some of the material in 'Early Flight' needs to be moved here.
The job is best done by someone who knows a lot about the subject, rather than someone guessing on the basis of what's here (as I'd have to do, if I tried it, and I am not going to try it.)
A major re-edit might be considered.  A 'frame' article on First Flight, referencing details on baloons, parachutes, gliders and self-powered flying machines.
--GwydionM 16:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging with 'Early Flight' 

message: This article lacks on a consensus and became what people think about the subject, greatly lacking on a consensus and most of time becoming a dispute bteween people from different nationalities. If we cant match a consensus this page should be marked as NPOV. Alvaroludolf 11:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you misunderstand the purpose of this article. I believe the purpose is to provide brief descriptions of early "Flying Machines" and what each machine may have accomplished. I do not believe this article is intended to establish a consensus about anything. The whole idea is to show the readers varying "claims" about Flying Machines without attempting to reach agreement about the claims. Perhaps you have never seen the "hidden" comment which is included with this article. The comment is visible when you look through the Editing Window. Here is what the Comment says:   DonFB 01:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You've got it backwards.  This article lacks a consensus because of NPOV, not in spite of it.  There is no consensus in the world at large, and it would violate both NPOV and NOR to try and establish one here.  --A D Monroe III 05:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Could you please specify here on the talk page actual senences from the article that you take issue with.  The NPOV dispute cannot be resolved on such vauge claims as these. Dalf | Talk 21:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: I don´t know why some people even discuss about the wright brothers myth. This is North American proud against world logic, it´s unstopable. Some centuries after the political and economical pressure of USA vanish we will be able to see the truth clearly in the news. But today a claim of flight without proof made by an american is worth thousands of documented and proofed claims made by an obscure brazillian of an obscure Brazil. People will even go further and use rethoric to "fix" history and keep the American Proudness Myth of being the inventors of the aircraft. They NEED it, and they are powerfull enought to get it. Any other dispute like this that, for one, involved two obscure inventors of two some african country would be resolved by giving the title to the one who was able to PROVE his claim, but when the claim involves an Roman (err... American) citizen, he doesnt need proofs.
An brazillian citizen.
What the hell are you saying? If you would read the articles you would know that the Wright brother flight was just the first documented and had witness. As such it is just the first known. So what is there to arguee? Uber555 09:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All the "reportedly" stuff in the alleged pre-Wright flights speak for themselves. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 22:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GIVE UP 

message: And what about the myth of Icarus? He, too supposedly took to the sky with wings, only to get too close to the sun, which caused his wings to melt and him to fall to earth. (Yeah, right - at high altitudes the air is even colder than at low altitudes, but don't let facts get in the way of a good story...) 204.52.215.107 23:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Greek mythology]]

message: Shouldn't this be included in the article? It is significant in that it re-affirms that the Wright Brother's aircraft was capable of controlled flight, as well as re-affirming that their 1903 flights weren't merely "glides", as some claim.98.16.80.99 07:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wilber Wrights 1905 24 mile, 39 minute flight? 

message: Feel free to mention a few here on the Discussion page. DonFB (talk) 03:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re: many, many other organizations 

message: Roger, your entry is definitely closer to an unbiased view.  However, it seems to imply that the Wright's landings amounted to crash landings in 1903.  Compared to those who came before them, such as Ader (all of whose landings resulted in total destruction of the aircraft), their 
:The Wrights would have crashed and died too if they had not taken such safety precautions: The strong headwind, flying very low over a soft material to land in. Expressions like "every flight that day ended in a bumpy and unintentional landing" come from the brothers themselves, if I understand it correctly. The last flight of Wilbur 1903 ended in a nosedive "landing" which damaged the front elevator system. Roger491127 (talk) 17:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No doubt that the Wrights knew the limitations of their craft better than anyone before them.  They also had more control of their craft, though, than anyone before them (according to all existing evidence).  A strong headwind, though, is completely irrelevant to the claim of sustained flight, but it did make launch easier over a shorter launch area (just like aircraft do to this day).  (A headwind shortens the takeoff roll, but doesn't affect the plane at all when in flight-- it only affects the plane's path over the ground.)  No craft before them have any contemporaneous evidence that they could affect all of roll, yaw, pitch, and power through mechanisms built into the craft. --Sam (talk) 02:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I think the story about the heavy re-design in 1905 is needed to explain why the Wright brothers suddenly could fly a lot longer, and said that they finally had built a plane which was reliable, safe and practical, the bucking and veering which had hampered earlier Flyer's had disappeared, etc... Roger491127 (talk) 17:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Sam's question

message: I just reverted the article to immediately before the contributions last month of , who added a large amount of new prose which includes inline numbering ([5], [6] etc) which strongly suggests that it's a copy/paste job, probably from a copyrighted source. There's a lot of stuff in the history if not all which should be reintroduced, but I thought it was better to start back at the point which isn't at risk of plagiarism. BigBlueFish (talk) 21:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyvio? 

message: Why do we accept a big chunk of original research like this section which takes up half the page?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger491127 (talk • contribs) 17:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree, "Scopre of the claim" has no references and therefore should be deleted. 61.95.65.186 (talk) 06:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Scope of the entire claim

message: I think Gabriel Voisin and his flying machines/gliders also deserve some space on this page.  If anything, his article could use some people clicking on it, and hopefully cleaning it up a bit.Eccomi (talk) 23:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Gabriel Voisin

message: The Technical details of defining flight section contains the popular equal transit-time fallacy. When fixed, please remove this page from the List_of_works_with_the_equal_transit-time_fallacy.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.113.195.114 (talk) 11:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accuracy of airfoil description 

message: I´m wondering why Bartolomeu de Gusmão did not appear in this article/list ?--Renzo Grosso (talk) 00:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd never heard of Gusmão.  I added a note in the pre-1900 section about him. --Sam (talk) 15:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bartolomeu de Gusmão 

message: I have removed information from this article drawn from or sourced from the paper "The First Attempts of Flight, Automatic Machines, Submarines and Rocket Technology in Turkish History" by Arslan Terzioglu. This source is unreliable, as discussed on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Rocket_Technology_in_Turkish_history. Dialectric (talk) 15:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of Unreliable Source 

message: The following is clipped from the article (unformatted, broken English):
:*:The Netherlands. On june 27,1909 Charles, Count de Lambert, using his Wright Flyer did fly over The Netherlands from the heath at the Klappenberg near Etten-Leur.
Mavigogun (talk) 17:09, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unformatted Material 

message: I suggested we remove the whole section of original research, citation needed, and I was supported by another editor. Long time has gone without protests against this decision, 
so it seems correct to do so. This decision is also supported by the tags which were 
attached to the section. (Roger491127)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.249.177.244 (talk) 03:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed the section as suggested above 

message: This article has been merged with:- List of early flying machines and Early flight to form Early flying machines. Petebutt (talk) 19:04, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger 

message: This is unsubstantiated and refered to as an urban legend in the Talpade article. The authors are unable to decide if it flew, if it was lighter or heavier than air, or wether it utilized ancient Indian spaceship technology from the Rigveda. If this claim belongs here, then what doesn't?Romanianlies (talk) 02:56, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Shivkar Talpade

message: Should not the Article include something about how close the medieval pioneers came to sustained, piloted, heavier than air flight? The first of these pioneers, Firnas in the 9th century and Eilmer in the 11th, were heavier than air devices. If they had continued, it would have been a small step to affix rockets with slow-buring gunpowder (ie mixed with an inhibitor such as water; gunpowder was invented in the mid-9th century) to their craft thereby achieving powered, piloted, heavier-than-air flight. Clusters of such rockets could have been ignited one after the other by the pilot. Had they done this, they might have advanced the technology of powered heavier-than-air flight by almost a thousand years. Much is said about "sticking to historical facts" in contributing to these Articles. However I suggest that the wider and greater contexts against which these pioneers' inventions stood cannot be properly illuminated in the public's eyes if we are forbidden from speaking of them. (204.112.57.130 (talk) 22:41, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we don't do that. We describe what happened, not what might have happened. Binksternet (talk) 05:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed; and that is how it should remain. However as I outlined in my last sentence above, we do not fully illuminate the public in this way. Perhaps the discussion pages should be expanded beyond just suggestions for the improvement of the Article; that way the greater context can be gleaned here. (204.112.57.130 (talk) 21:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Turn the discussion page into your blog host or a general topic bulletin board? Doubt you'll have much positive reaction to either of those suggestions. Binksternet (talk) 02:20, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It wouldn't be my blog host; we need a third page just for Discussion. Generally on Wikipedia, the existing Discussion page is restricted to improving the Article, effectively censoring general discussion on the topic. (204.112.60.96 (talk) 17:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

text: It would be one thing to talk about how Cayley, Maxim or Lillienthal might have been "the first Wright brothers" instead, but going back to the early medieval period is ludicrous. The West didn't even have workable firearms at this time, certainly not reliable ignition for rockets. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:20, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be ludicrous to harken back to early medieval times -- if they hadn't achieved manned flight. But they did, didn't they. I said, that "had they continued" it would have been a small step to achieve rocket propulsion. China had all the neccessary technology, including rockets, in the 9th Century. It's  good to see Discussion like this --but my point is that we need a third page, to do it. (204.112.61.78 (talk) 00:09, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Earliest Heavier-Than-Air Pioneers So Close

message: The sentence "Historian Evan Koshtka described Talpade as the ‘first creator of an aircraft’." is presently in the section about Shivkar Bapuji Talpades purported unmanned aircraft. I did a Google search on "Evan Koshtka" to learn more about this historian, but apart from 421 results bringing up the exact same sentence as the one quoted above, no other mention is to be found. Abebooks can't find any books by an author named "Evan Koshtka", and neither could the search engine in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. So naturally I am beginning to wonder if this person does even exist. And even if this historian might be real, the lack of any evidence of this suggests that it would not be a very notable person, at least not enough to be used in this way as corroborating evidence of an already dubious account. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:33, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Since noone objected I have removed the quotation. --Saddhiyama (talk) 23:00, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evan Koshtka 

message: International system : distance symbols are : m (metre) or km (kilometre), and not "meter" or "meters".Plxd (talk) 08:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Units