Talk:Clément Ader

message: The birth date is April 2, 1841 and not February 4! In French, 2/4/1841 means 2 avril 1841, we indicate first the day and after the month of the date! I am not a number 14:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birth date 

message: As drafted, the article gives the impression that Ader and the commission were frauds trying to steal the Wrights' success.  Is that correct?  It certainly does not sound very encyclopedic.  193.132.242.1 11:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article no longer reads that way at all... now it appears to claim that the Wrights were frauds in claiming to be the first to flight, and Ader beat them by a decade, which seems awfully biased given the scant evidence.  Most of the statements about Ader's flights came during court proceedings in which various corporate entities were trying to find prior art to invalidate the Wright patent on their flight control mechanism.  Thus, there was extreme financial pressure to exaggerate historical claims, which may be where some of that sentiment came from. (Incidentally, the Wrights patents were upheld against all challengers in all countries.) --Sam (talk) 14:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't seen the slightest shred of evidence to suggest that his machine ever originally flew. There are no reliable witness accounts, and no one filmed it flying. This isn't noted in the article, either. The article more or less states outright that Ader flew a powered craft before the Wright brothers, but this isn't supported by the evidence. The first flight of a powered craft actually witnessed by independent observers and recorded by film was the Wright brothers flight at Kittyhawk. We need to get this nonsense changed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.248.61.9 (talk) 17:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If I recall correctly, there was one demonstration of his aircraft for the French military. It briefly "hopped" off the ground a few feet, lost control, came back down, and sustained damage. The French military considered it a failed demonstration. The Wrights in later letters said that Ader's failure in front of the military made it harder for them to convince the French (who later turned out to be early Wright customers) that they had succeeded in flight. The Wrights never claimed to be the first to leave the ground at all, but they were the first to leave the ground in a craft that could sustain forward flight and have full 3-axis control. The Wright's work was, by far, the most advanced in the world at scientific airfoil camber measurements and differential angle-of-attack mechanisms to keep the plane coordinated. (Their only patent was on the control.) Everyone else (Ader, Whitehead, etc) were just trying to copy birds. (I saw the Avion III in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, and it is indeed an impressive machine, but it is not the ancestor of modern aircraft like the Wright Flyer is.) --Sam (talk) 11:47, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: I copied and condensed material from Clément Ader#Development of aircraft to Airplane#Early powered flights with this edit. User:HopsonRoad 02:25, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Material copied to Airplane