Re-Building the Wright Flyer 175
Isaac-Lew writes: "Several teams are trying to build a working replica of the first Wright Brothers' airplane." As the article says, "The catch is: Each team wants its plane to fly more or less as the Wrights' did." The only problem with that is that as Orville Wright put it, their plane was "exceedingly erratic," so the recreators have made some slight concessions to safety.
Answering the obvious question - why? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Answering the obvious question - why? (Score:2)
I can see a Nor'Easter blowing up the coast already....
Re:Answering the obvious question - why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to belabour the point - but why?
Sure, it was an important achievement, but what's the point? And why have more than one team? Bragging rights are all that seems to be on the line here. So, in the race to build the first, best replica, a number of teams are devoting a lot of time and resources to a project that will add nothing to the body of human knowledge and experience - regardless of the outcome.
So I will ask the obvious question again. Why? There is nothing wrong with marking the occasion, but this is way OTT.
Re:Answering the obvious question - why? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Answering the obvious question - why? (Score:2)
These guys are fanboys of the Wrights. They have the time and the money (or sponsorship) to do it. So f*cking what if it "will add nothing to the body of human knowledge and experience".
To put it in the words of Sir George Mallory (sp?): "Because it's there!"
Wussies! (Score:1)
Re:Wussies! (Score:1)
personally... (Score:2, Funny)
::evil laugh::
After his first flight, he refused to talk about it again
-- james
Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:5, Interesting)
By today's standards, the thing's unflyable - horrible control authority, CG all wrong, underpowered... Orville and Wilbur had to be talented in the first place to fly it. Of course, this is the basic device that we started from to derive "today's standards". I hope none of the replica teams crack up... there's enough aviation hysteria these days, without a "reenactment" generating more bad press.
Must be fun, inventing a whole science, and a set of industries.
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll believe they can get it to fly when I see it.
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:2, Informative)
He is recognized as th father of aviation in many countries, especially France and his native Brazil. (Where we have never heard of the Wright brothers. In fact, I wouldn't learn about them until I moved to the U.S. from Brazil.)
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:2)
How could they have used a *JEEP* in 1903? Jeeps weren't even *invented* until like 1941. Please put the crack pipe down.
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:4, Interesting)
One problem that all student pilots have is that they start overcontrolling the plane after about 10 hours. Most students are better at flying a modern (1960s?) airplane after 5 hours of instruction than at 10 hours. The reason is they try to compensate for every small dip. The planes dihedral will be doing the same adjsutments and the result is the plane goes the other way like any over controlled system. It can take another 10 hours to unlearn over controlling. I suspect that anyone with a 1/2 decent grasp of flying will over control the eary Wright flyers. Were the Wright brothers even controlling the plane or just along for the ride?
There is a nice landing strip near the Wright Brothers Memorial called First Flight. Just don't park there for more than 24 hours or a park ranger will give you a parking ticket.
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:2, Interesting)
By all accounts I've seen, it was a full-body experience.
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:1)
Why would they need a ChainGun?
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:2, Interesting)
In order to make the replica realistic, the materials, and construction method used were closely modelled on those available at the time, and the first flight took place from exactly the same spot that Pilcher had taken off a hundred years previously.
The subsequent accident was an exact replica of Pilchers', except that the pilot was rushed to hospital by ambulance, and consequently survived his injuries.
Re:Exceedingly Erratic == Unsafe (Score:2)
Ha! They'll be in for a surprise! (Score:2, Funny)
It says so in my 1962 Soviet Encyclopedia.
Re:Ha! They'll be in for a surprise! (Score:2)
Why are there "secrets"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I blame BattleBots and the USPTO and First Post! (Score:2)
Every design, new or old, has to be a stealth thing that emerges fully formed from the shop;
Everything has to be protected, numbered, and stamped "mine", new or not;
Anyone check to see if the teams are made up of denied FP'ers?
;-)
Warning!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Warning!! (Score:2)
Re:Warning!! (Score:1)
Which approach should be taken in this case (Score:3, Interesting)
a) Make it exactly as it was
b) Make it better
Usually I'd say that you should always make it exactly as it was, but in this case lives would be at stake if you followed that approach - So there's an argument for at least *some* improvement.
The question is - how far should they go in their improvements...
Make it better? (Score:2)
Re:Which approach should be taken in this case (Score:1)
"Everything will be authentic. "There is no purpose, in our opinion, to not be," he said"
They even contradict themselves. They tell us it will be authentic while making concessions that The Wright Brothers would not make.
Does not sound like it is authentic if they use better glue, materials, etc. I do not like to hear about re-creations going bad more then anything, but it seems a little outregous that people are spending so much time and money to test this plane to make it better. Why not just buy a cesna, save money, and fly that and say its a recreation of the first flight?
I guess I just do not see the thrill in watching people fly a plane that is supposed to be authentic when it really is not.
Re:Which approach should be taken in this case (Score:2)
Any reason it has to have a live pilot? How about a crash test dummy and some remote controls?
Or (even better) how about an onboard or offboard expert system? There's a nice limited set of variables to work on: height 0 - 3 metres, speed as fast as you can manage, go in a straight line. Seems like an ideal application.
Re:Which approach should be taken in this case (Score:2)
The reason for a materials change. (Score:3, Informative)
We bought it from a guy in Illinois, name Buford Gross, who had built it to fly, though he chickened out and sold it to a museum, rather than risk damaging it. He built it with a synthetic fiber (dacron, i think) covering instead of cotton, because the FAA wouldn't let him fly it otherwise.
I just checked with a member of the museum board (my dad), and he informs me that Buford had added the 1905 flyer control enhancement (steerable rudder) as well. I'd just assumed that was accurate. No wonder a 1903 flyer is almost uncontrollable!
If they had been French (Score:2)
Remind me of a movie [imdb.com]
Eole (Score:2, Interesting)
The blurb seems to say Eole was built between 1882 and 1889 and first flew in 1890, so if true that puts it slightly ahead of the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk Flyer, but it's not like it matters much, for what we care.
But the French were leaders by 1912 (Score:3, Interesting)
In that period, French pioneers like Alberto Santos-Dumont, Louis Blériot and the Duperdussin company were building monoplanes that used modern aerodynamic design. Indeed, the Duperdussin racer of 1912 had extremely sleek aerodynamics for its day thanks to the use of monocoque structural design.
In short, while the Wright brothers built the first successful heavier-than-air airplane, it was the French pioneers that laid the groundwork for designing the modern airplane.
The "Wright Aviation" effect (Score:1)
Hmm. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmm. (Score:1)
For $600, (donation to upkeep/rent/etc) they will strap you in the 2nd seat, taxi to one end of the run way, and fly to the other end, and taxi back.
It is 60% original, as the FCC will not allow a fully wooden aircraft to be certified.
They do fly it on rare occasions from their airport to the WPAFB ~30 miles north, and load it into a C-5 (or some other huge plane) for special shows. It was wild seeing this thing rock back and forth as I was driving I-675, seeing is believing!
Re: Your sig... (Score:2)
OK, I'll bite...Six feet, four inches? Or are these Troy inches? ;)
GTRacer
- must...sleep...now...
Were the Wrights first? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Were the Wrights first? (Score:3)
Re:Were the Wrights first? (Score:2)
The french (no reference, but I think it is true) had pwered flight for years before the wright brothers. The wright brothers however were able to maintain [semi]controlled flight for several hours, while the french made uncontrolled hops of up to 200 feet before crashing controllably.
Re:Were the Wrights first? (Score:5, Informative)
Santos Dumont was the first to accomplish a full flight. It took off alone and it landed. The wrights only got some seconds in the air, and this because they were thrown with the help of a machine
You may check that with any history teacher.
But why some people (eg. the americans) dont give him the credits is a whole other story.
Re:Were the Wrights first? (Score:2)
But after a magnificent dinner and a night bar hopping around Belo Horizonte, and meeting some great guys and some fine women, and having one of the best nights of my life, I was willing to concede them their spot in history. OK, so I sold out for alcohol and the company of women, but it was well worth it!
Re:Were the Wrights first? (Score:2)
Too many people fly into Rio and never leave the city- that's too bad, I found so much more driving around with my hosts and staying with their friends and families in towns outside Belo, Rio, and SP.
Re:Typical... (Score:1)
Also, I think most of the crap about the moon landings never happened is mostly generated by loony Americans - AFAIK it's not a foreign conspiracy.
The really strange thing is - who gives a flying fuck ? Does it make you feel proud that various things were invented by Americans ?
"I'm proud to be an American, one of things I'm proud about is that it was an American who invented the plane."
"I've got green eyes, I'm proud to have green eyes, the inventor of the microwave oven also had green eyes."
I just don't see the point.
Re:pride and green eyes (Score:2)
it is the values of freedom and independence they are proud of, that's fine. The shorthand version allows people to lose the distinction between American interests and the values these supposedly represent.
I still think there's something a bit weird in the way people are "Proud to be XXX" whether XXX is white, black, American, French, British or martian.
It's a bit like saying some celebrity was awfully brave for dying of cancer. As far as I can tell he didn't have any choice.
Pride is dangerous (it's number 1 of 7 on the deadly sins chart). Being proud of stuff which is purely an accident of birth is also pointless.
First flight (Score:2, Interesting)
Fair go, its true.
I thought kiwis were flightless (Score:2)
Re:First flight (Score:1)
authenticity of parts and methods (Score:2)
I'm not using any names because I'm not sure that I'm allowed. I'm just one of the IT guys...
Hrmmmm... (Score:1)
Re:Hrmmmm... (Score:1)
Seems that they have forgotten one thing.... (Score:2)
The fact is, that the Wright flyer only flew 12 seconds on that first flight, and I'm sure it didn't do it very quickly, or very high up. I highly doubt that a crash in the flyer would really do that much damage to the pilot. After all, the Wrights themselves seemed to come out of the final crash that first day with no ill effects. I doubt they even had protective pads on!
So if their goal is to crecreate the plane and recreate that first flight--I think folks are fretting just a bit too much about "safety" issues. These guys need to grow some cohones....
Re:Seems that they have forgotten one thing.... (Score:5, Funny)
Err...surely it did it in twelve seconds?
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Seems that they have forgotten one thing.... (Score:2)
"I'm sure they didn't fly very fast" may have been better.
Re:Seems that they have forgotten one thing.... (Score:2)
Has to be authentic. Which means dangerous. (Score:2, Insightful)
I couldn't disagree more. If you're not going to try to duplicate the entire effort, including the not insubstantial risks involved with the dawn of any new era, what is the point? You might as well build an "Almost Scale" RC model and fly it around. It would serve exactly the same purpose with no risk. I'm not saying that all possible safety precautions shouldn't be taken (external to the airplane itself), but build it to origional spec, then decide to fly it or not.
I guess my point here is that I make the concious decision to get on my old BMW motorcycle every morning. I know it's dangerous, but it's also exciting and a throwback to a time, not so long ago, that we took risks in the name of advancement and the simple thrill of being alive. Recreating the Wright Flyer to modern standards is just a symptom of our overly cautious, airbag equipped, warning label on the coffie times.
Of course this will be modded down, my target audiance sits in a cube all day and considers a walk in the park an outing.
Wrong Way Round (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder whether turning it round counts as a "consession to safety"....
Nick...
Re:Wrong Way Round (Score:2)
Wimps! (Score:1)
> have made some slight concessions to safety.
Are there any real men out there? I mean, what's that stuff with "slight concessions to safety"?
If those guys had the guts, they'd fly the darned thing with nothing but their pyjamas on and for the real daring, there's always the option to use Win XP as a flight controller (which should just get them that "exceedingly erratic" behaviour)!
C. M. Burns
Re:Wimps! (Score:1)
When people grow up, generation after generation, in a world where they must get two dozen permission slips to perform this or that experiment, it does have an effect on the number of innovations. Remove the profit motive, and you're really in a world of hurt.
Hard to keep all rational... (Score:2)
There must be something that's a little bit special about this. When I read that one of these efforts is taking place just a few miles down the road from me (in Glen Ellyn, IL), I got excited. So did my kids.
It seems like such an audacious thing to do: and it's audacious times four.
Makes what all those boys were doing around the turn of the 20th century seem that much more amazing. Hats off to all.
Go and see the (almost) real thing.. (Score:2, Informative)
Better option for aviation history... (Score:1)
The Air Force Museum [af.mil] at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton OH. Those of you who are pretty quick will note that Dayton is where the Wright Brothers made their airplane, and the museum is located at the old location of Wright Field, named after the brothers. (The base itself is a combination of Wright and Patterson Fields - thus the name "Wright-Patterson". Wow!)
There is a full-scale replica of the Wright 1909 Military Flyer [af.mil].
Cheers,
Brian
Wright Brothers? Give Me A Break (Score:2)
http://www.somerset.zynet.co.uk/attract/char_mu
So there.
Re:Wright Brothers? Give Me A Break (Score:2)
Re:Wright Brothers? Give Me A Break (Score:3, Insightful)
And if it doesn't work... (Score:1)
Flying old aeroplanes - Rhinebeck Aerodrome (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not enough of a student of history to remember most of the things they flew, but some of them were OLD. One of the newer things was a Sopwith Camel - as in Snoopy, the WWI flying Ace. Some of the planes took off at one end of the runway, flew the length at about 20 ft altitude, and landed at the other end. One really old plain had not conventional control surfaces - it worked by warping the wing surfaces.
The Sopwith Camel was interesting in that (apparently like other planes of its time) it had no throttle. But it did have a new innovation. The engine had nine cylinders, but four could be shut off. To get the same effect as throttling, the pilot ran on nine, five, or no cylinders. It was interesting to hear, when flying.
This isn't news (Score:1)
Clone Mr. Wright (Score:1)
Semi-Working Display at Museum (Score:2, Informative)
There replica was fully functional (minus the ability to fly). Basically, it had all the wiring hooked up to control the pitch, roll and yaw of the plane. To adjust the pitch, you pulled a lever in from of the pilot. To adjust the roll and yaw, you push the pilot's hips in a direction. To reduce the amount of controls, they had the roll and yaw hooked up to a single control.
While there I learned some pretty neat stuff that I had never realized. In order to get off the ground they needed a really light engine, but at the time engines weighed about 500lbs. So they hired a machinest to build them an aluminum engine (the first ever built). It weighed about 150 lbs and was a perfect counter-balance to whomever was flying the plane (engine on one side, pilot on the other).
The best part of there design was the safety devices they added. All they had was a wood bar in front of the pilot that he could grab onto in case of a crash.
Re:Semi-Working Display at Museum (Score:1)
> pilot that he could grab onto in case of a
> crash.
I'm sorry, Mr. Wright. You just don't meet current FAA, NTSB, OSHA, and a dozen and a half, squared, other standards. You are disallowed from attempting this. Oh, and you might hit a bird, which might be an endangered species, so you are also prevented, even if you fix all the other issues.
Re:Semi-Working Display at Museum (Score:2)
Except that they used two engines, counter-rotating to negate gyro effects, and the pilot was between them.
A bit of history (Score:2, Insightful)
To those of you asking why anyone would spend their time building a replica of an old airplane or glider, I say this: Designing aircraft is not all engineering and science. There's an art to it and a few people truly find joy in it.
Re:A bit of history (Score:2)
It seems that the *art* of building such a plane had been lost and they needed an 'old timer' to come back and show them how it was done.
If nothing else building replicas of older craft, ( of all kinds), can give a greater understanding of history than you can derive from a book.
At it's best such activities may actually teach you things about history that had been, or were in danger of, being completely lost. Some of these things may, shock of shocks, still be important to know now, and perfectly applicable to entirely modern problems.
KFG
Scrapheap Challenge (Score:2)
One of the teams built something using a couple of old wings off a crashed plane, an aluminium ladder and some bits of expanded polystyrene (and sh*tloads of gaffa tape). The astounding thing is that they actually managed to get a few seconds flight from it using a tow launch system!
My point (if I have one) is that it seems a little boring if everything gets over analysed before the first test flight. Of course it makes sense to make the machines moderately safe - correct the obvious glitches, build with higher tolerances etc etc. But don't forget that part of the Wright Brothers' pioneering spirit was a "suck it and see" mentality. They must have been both excited and scared on the first test flight. The pilot for the Scrapheap Challenge project *definitely* had the same spirit and it made his flights extremely exciting!
Wrights, Dumont or Ader? (Score:1)
Unstable. (Score:3, Informative)
What Orville Wright calls erratic, is what we nowadays call "inherently unstable". You want to fly something that is inherently stable.
There are a couple of ways to make a plane stable. Put a tail on it at the back (or move it back further if you already have one), or you can bend the wings backwards.
Those are changes that people "see" from a distance, and people will say: "But that's not the plane that the Wrights flew in 1908! It's different."
Oh, and you could change the profile of the wings, but then you have to have a plane that is almost stable to begin with, because this effect is so small. If carefully designed, you can build a "wing-only" plane (which was thought impossible because most wings are inherently unstable), like the helios (which as a matter of fact has its center of gravity well below the wing, one more trick to make a plane stable!).
There are advantages to building an unstable aircraft. For the Wrights that was: "Oops never thought of that". Currently the excuse is that you can use computers to make the thing stable, and then you don't have to have the inefficient things like a "tail" on the plane...
Roger.
What about the group from Maine? (Score:1)
There is an article summary here titled: THE WRIGHT STUFF (second one down). Unfortunately, you have to pay to read the whole article. http://nl9.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_a
Big Deal. Whitehead was first anyway. (Score:2)
Gustave Whitehead (Weiskopf) likely preceeded the Wrights, his planes have been rebuilt, and successfully flown as proof of concept.
http://www.deepsky.com/~firstflight/Pages/resea
Whitehead worked in Fairfield / Bridgeport Connecticut, but he had no pictures or movies like the Wrights had.
There is plenty of evidence - in the form of printed reports and eyewitness accounts - that Whitehead achieved powered flight before the Wrights. There is however, a good reason why this claim isn't pursued on any official level - in the agreement that was drawn up to finally bring the battered Wright Flyer to the Smithsonian in 1948 you'll find this clause:
"Neither the Smithsonian Institution or its successors, nor any museum or other agency, bureau or facilities administered for the United States of America by the Smithsonian Institution or its successors shall publish or permit to be displayed a statement or label in connection with or in respect of any aircraft model or design of earlier date than the Wright Airplane of 1903, claiming in effect that such aircraft was capable of carrying a man under its own power in controlled flight."
In other words, say we weren't first, and we take our bat and ball and go home.
If you were SI, you wouldn't touch Whitehead with a ten foot spar - why gamble on a re-creation when you have an original?
OK - a battered original - darn thing BLEW OVER like a kite and wrecked while they were all busy whooping it up after the first three flights, went thru a mud flood, and generally sat around gathering dust for thirty plus years...
Appropos today, a few more things everyone 'knows' and aren't really true - the cherry tree, silver dollar and wooden teeth yarns...
http://www.mountvernon.org/books/myths.asp
Enjoy
Re:Big Deal. Whitehead was first anyway. (Score:2)
The Wright Flyer is not.
The agreement attached to the Wright Flyer has nothing to do with Whitehead, although it may have some effect any claims to be made in his behalf. For Decades the Smithsonian gave the honor of being first to fly to its own director, Langely. Langley's "plane" had no control surfaces, was launched off of a high platform, and "flew" from the top of the tower into the Potomac, killing its pilot.
It was acrimony over this that made Wilbur refuse to give the Wright Flyer to the museum until they recognized the Wrights flew before Langely.
Indeed, Langley's plane didn't so much as fly as *plummet.*
KFG
The catch (Score:2)
Dangerous, but what the heck? (Score:3, Insightful)
As an aside, bear in mind that Scrapheap Challenge (the original UK name and format for Junkyard Wars) has already seen teams build and fly:
Yes, that's right. If you haven't seen it, some poor mad fool got in a canard nosed "glider" that had been bodged up in day, and reached about 20mph and 15 feet before releasing the tow line. The "glider" went in a direction that could charitably be described as "not quite a plummet". He walked away. Then did it again, only faster. And again, reaching about 30mph. This is pretty much comparable with the speeds and energies in the Wright brother's creation.
The remote plane was an interesting one. It actually flew, in a very nearly controlled fashion. OK, it was built with modern scrap, but it was scrap, and it was built in a day.
I'm kind of wondering why the people building the replica airplanes feel the need to have human pilots in them. Remote control or even an expert system might do nicely if safety is a concern.
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:1, Interesting)
From: Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2002
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:1, Interesting)
His first airplane was one named "14-bis", which many claim to have been the first plane.
Wright invented the airplane? Pearce? Adler? Well, the entire press was there to see Msr. Santos-Dumont fly. Paris was the capital of the world -- by then, the US were still not very "central".
Anybody can claim to have been the first. Who can tell if the incas couldn't fly and see Nazca drawings from up above?
(Personally, I'd hand the glory to Otto Lillienthal, who died experimenting with powerless planes.)
And, I can't remember any of Santos-Dumont's planes named "grasshopper". There was one, though, called "Dragonfly" -- the French use a much more delicate word which reminds of lightweightness (sp?).
-- NIH
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:1)
1908 February 8 - The U.S. War Department concludes a contract with the Wright Brothers for $25,000 to become the owner of one flying machine.
and 90 years later, the military still thow insane amounts of money at crazy inventions that look like they have no real applications.
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:1)
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:2)
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:2, Interesting)
But while we're at it, don't forget Jacob Ellehammer, the Danish flying pioneer. He also flew in 1906 but as his plane was tethered to a central pole his flight is usually not considered the first flight in Europe even though he flew before Santos Dumont did.
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:3, Funny)
I had the mental image of a rope winding it's way around a pole. to an ending fit for a cartoon.
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What reminds me.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wright Brothers did not fly first (Score:3, Insightful)
//rdj
Re:Wright Brothers did not fly first (Score:1)
No. In fact it wasn't. That's yet another myth propigated by the Smithsonian Institute of Lies.
Re:Wright Brothers did not fly first (Score:1)
Re:Wright Brothers did not fly first (Score:1)
technically, the first powered flight of a machine heavier than air was by Clement Ader's Eole, in 1890, as you can see here [flyingmachines.org].
however, Ader's planes lacked evolved flight controls (no tail, and thus very difficult to pilot), and the lack of power of the steam engine was another big issue.
First U.S. Ballon Flight: 1793 in Deptford, NJ (Score:2)
Well, if you want to get into those sort of technicalities, the first flight in the United States of a balloon-powered aircraft was done by French balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard on January 9, 1793. The location was Woodbury, NJ, which is now considered Deptford, NJ.
Its a bit hard not to know this fact since the town painted it on its water tower :)
Read about it here [celebratetoday.com].
Re:First U.S. Ballon Flight: 1793 in Deptford, NJ (Score:2)
Bah, forgot something: Flights have origins and destinations, don't they?
The flight of Jean Pierre Blanchard started at 6th Street & Walnut Street in Philadelphia, PA. Fifteen miles & 56 minutes later, he landed in was is now Deptford, NJ between the "R.C.A. Parts 8 Accessories Plant" and Big Timber Creek. Jean also carried a letter signed by President Washington in order to alleviate the fears of people seeing him land.
Source is here [gloucester.nj.us]. Searching google for "Deptford, NJ First flight" also works well.
Sorry dude, but... (Score:3)
...
Santos-Dumont continued to work on dirigibles, but finally achieved his dream of flying in a heavier-than-air craft in October of 1906, when his 14 Bis flew a distance of 60 meters at a height of 2 to 3 meters. As far as the world knew, it was the first airplane flight ever and Santos-Dumont became a hero to the world press. The stories about the Wright brothers flights at Kitty Hawk and later near Dayton, Ohio, were not believed even in the US at the time.
Eventually, after much controversy, the Americans and the world - even though it remains a sore spot for Brazilians, to whom Santos-Dumont is known as the Father of Aviation - accepted that they had indeed flown a heavier-than-air craft before Santos-Dumont. Where he beat them, though, was in his idea of adding the first ailerons to the extremities of the wings. Think of it: aileron is the French diminutive for aile, or wing. And, of course, he never used any contraption or catapult or wooden tracks to push the aircraft or to aid in taking off. So, maybe the Brazilians are right...