

Where Was Modern Flight Invented? Connecticut Believes It Holds the Answer - dnetesn
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/nyregion/where-was-modern-flight-invented-connecticut-believes-it-holds-the-answer.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&assetType=nyt_now

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goodcanadian
This is the first I've heard of the claim, so I went to read the wikipedia
article on Gustave Whitehead. Most of the information about the claim lead me
to believe it is possible/plausible, but the evidence is far from solid.

Then I came to the line:

"Whitehead also built gliders until about 1906 and was photographed flying
them."

And indeed, the photos are in the article. So, if he did indeed make powered
flights, where are the photos of that? It would be one thing if he was super
secretive and only ever claimed one powered flight. However, several flights
are claimed, and there are no photos of any. My suspicion is that he tried,
but was never very successful.

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Someone1234
The first manned flights were likely in 1783. No, that isn't a typo.

The debate between 1901 and 1903 (Whitehead Vs. Wright) is really
uninteresting in the grand scheme of overall aviation history, and long before
1901 even members of the public could take a hot air balloon ride (and they
were already being used in wars).

All that really happened in the early 1900s is that the weight-power ratio of
engines got such that it was just waiting for someone to exploit that
advancement. That's the reason why people didn't do it before 1901, not
because nobody had invented the concept of a fixed wing aircraft (they had,
with gliders) but because engines were simply too heavy for their power output
to carry both themselves and a passenger.

PS - Yes, Whitehead/Wright deserve credit, they often had to tweak engines,
optimise the design, optimise the propeller, and so on. Just saying that
broader technology advancements played a large role which is often ignored.

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WalterBright
The Wrights didn't "tweak engines", they hired a machinist to build their own
engine from scratch, being unable to find an existing one with the requisite
power to weight ratio.

The Wrights also had a propeller design that was 90% efficient, compared with
the flat design (used on the Langley machine) that was 50% efficient. This was
also crucial, because it had the effect of nearly halving the required power.

Power, weight, and efficiency are all critical. There's no way to tell if
Whitehead's design would have flown from a replica based on a photo, because
those 3 factors cannot be derived from a photo.

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PeterWhittaker
The Wrights also did considerable wind tunnel research on air foils until they
got the right shape of wing. The exhibit at the Smithsonian taught me a lot,
of which I remember only vague bits. It went something like this.

In the 19th C, some airflow work led to a constant, having a value of N; the
Wrights used that constant for years, and their craft would not fly.

Eventually, having made every adjustment they could think to make, they began
to question some of the expert work upon which they relied.

In the end, they built their own wind tunnel, ran many of the classic 19th C.
experiments, and discovered that errors had been made, and that the constant
in question had an actual value of 2N (might even have been 10N, it's late,
I'm lazy and on my way to bed).

Important work. They were extremely methodical....

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WalterBright
Quite right. Consider also the design of the wings of the Wright Flyer. This
was a design deduced from principles. The Whitehead design is copied from
birds, indicating a lack of understanding how wings worked. Look at the size
of Whitehead's wings. They're just too small, compared with that of the Flyer.
The Wrights calculated the necessary wing size, and it was barely enough.

Do you believe those small and inefficiently shaped Whitehead wings would fly
with the likely engine power he had? I don't. The replicas probably had far
more powerful engines - you can make anything fly given enough power.

Maybe Whitehead's machine did fly - down a sufficiently steep hillside. I
don't think that counts as flying under its own power, though.

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WalterBright
The bit about making flying replicas is not solid evidence. There's very
little evidence for the control system, the propeller design, and the engine,
all of which are crucial. The replicas guessed at a lot with the help of
aviation engineers who know all about how to make it work.

On the other hand, the Wright Flyer still exists, and exacting replicas have
been made and flown, and their flight characteristics match the descriptions
of the Wright's flights.

The rest of the evidence for Whitehead requires a lot of generous giving of
benefit of the doubt as well.

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cc438
The fact that this remained controversial due to a lack of evidence for over a
century speaks to how limited the world's communication networks were at the
time. It took a century to uncover evidence in the form of first page reports,
a form of communication that we'd all believe would spread the message far and
wide, yet Whitehead's accomplishments were relegated to obscurity almost as
soon as they were reported.

I remember reading about these claims a few years ago and the only evidence at
that time was the back page report in a newspaper that most Wright supporters
denigrated as a satirical source akin to today's "The Onion". I was ready to
hop in the comments section ready to decry the article only to find that the
digitization of archives had completely changed the body of evidence
supporting Whitehead's claim.

To be fair, the Wright brothers have their place as the first successful
aviators as they were able to iterate and expand on their Wright Flyer's
design to produce an unbroken lineage of aircraft leading to the modern day.
Whitehead's design flew first but it was ultimately a dead end aside from his
powerplant. I think there's an equal place in history for creators of the
first practical, foundational, or modern design in a given category. Invention
doesn't happen in a vacuum and researching the best combination of fundamental
concepts and applying them as the Wright brothers did is equally revolutionary
in my opinion

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WalterBright
> The fact that this remained controversial

It's still controversial. For example, the photograph. If I was Whitehead, I'd
take care to preserve the photo, making copies of it, etc. But that photo is
the only one not preserved. The only evidence is that massively blurred
smudge, which has to be very charitably interpreted as being a flying
airplane.

Even if it is, I would suspect Whitehead would have flown it as he flew
gliders - launching off the top of a hill and gliding down. That isn't really
powered flight.

Nobody can prove Whitehead didn't fly, but extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence, and that is simply lacking for Whitehead's flight. I
also find it odd that he did not challenge the Wright's patents for wing
warping, etc., if he did it first.

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nvivo
There is a fact that part of the world doesn't believe the Wright Brothers
invented it in the first place.

In Brazil, Santos Dumont holds this title. French people also seem to give
credit to him. Other countries also have their preferences and their own
history.

To me, it seems there were so many people trying it that none of them really
did it alone. If the title should go to the closest we have to an airplane
today, Santos Dumont beats the Wright Brothers. But I'm Brazilian, so I'm
biased. Not that I really care about the title...

