Hot air and gas balloons; and gliders had proven that flight was possible. The Wrights proved Lord Kelvin wrong by adapting a gasoline engine to be light enough and have enough power to sustain flight. Kelvin’s assumption was based on steam boilers and engines, which still haven’t sustained flight.
Their father was a Methodist bishop, who was very much against their experiments.
Did you know Geo. Washington was the first President to go up in an aircraft? The Montpelier brothers took him for a balloon ride. That always throws the kids in my history classes.
PoodleGroomerActually a few one-off steam aircraft were flown in US and UK in the 1930s. Not having any advantage over internal combustion power, no further experimentation occurred, other than a model using a spray can canister for the boiler in the 1970s.
There is a claim that Orville Wright made the first powered flight in 1903. This is not true. The Wright brothers – influenced by the non-powered gliders of Otto Lilienthal, who flew more than 300 m in 1894 – were the first to achieve the important conjunction of four criteria with their 260-m flight: it was manned, powered, heavier-than-air and (to some degree) controlled.
Earlier pioneers set records by meeting some of these criteria. In 1890 Clément Ader made the first manned, powered, heavier-than-air flight, of 50 m, in his bat-winged monoplane. Henri Giffard’s steam-powered airship covered 27 km on the first manned and powered flight, in 1852. (He went nearly 100 times as far as the Wright brothers did.) Balloonists Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François d’Arlandes were, in 1783, the first men to fly. And if they were as fashionably bewigged as the occasion demanded, their 9-km ride must also have been the first manned, powdered flight.
Finally, the Wrights needed headwinds or catapults to start their planes, so they were not fully self-powered. But Brazil’s Santos-Dumont was (1906, first official, fully self-powered, etc. airplane flight).
niaje over 8 years ago
i heard somewhere that the wright brothers did not invent the first manned airplane, aaaand…GO
mourdac Premium Member over 8 years ago
Wouldn’t that be a paper horse and carriage? A recent biography of them makes a strong case for them being the inventors.
PoodleGroomer over 8 years ago
Hot air and gas balloons; and gliders had proven that flight was possible. The Wrights proved Lord Kelvin wrong by adapting a gasoline engine to be light enough and have enough power to sustain flight. Kelvin’s assumption was based on steam boilers and engines, which still haven’t sustained flight.
Dani Rice over 8 years ago
Their father was a Methodist bishop, who was very much against their experiments.
Did you know Geo. Washington was the first President to go up in an aircraft? The Montpelier brothers took him for a balloon ride. That always throws the kids in my history classes.
hippogriff over 8 years ago
PoodleGroomerActually a few one-off steam aircraft were flown in US and UK in the 1930s. Not having any advantage over internal combustion power, no further experimentation occurred, other than a model using a spray can canister for the boiler in the 1970s.
Thomas & Tifffany Connolly over 8 years ago
Thus begins the skyfall!
bmonk over 8 years ago
There is a claim that Orville Wright made the first powered flight in 1903. This is not true. The Wright brothers – influenced by the non-powered gliders of Otto Lilienthal, who flew more than 300 m in 1894 – were the first to achieve the important conjunction of four criteria with their 260-m flight: it was manned, powered, heavier-than-air and (to some degree) controlled.
Earlier pioneers set records by meeting some of these criteria. In 1890 Clément Ader made the first manned, powered, heavier-than-air flight, of 50 m, in his bat-winged monoplane. Henri Giffard’s steam-powered airship covered 27 km on the first manned and powered flight, in 1852. (He went nearly 100 times as far as the Wright brothers did.) Balloonists Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François d’Arlandes were, in 1783, the first men to fly. And if they were as fashionably bewigged as the occasion demanded, their 9-km ride must also have been the first manned, powdered flight.
Finally, the Wrights needed headwinds or catapults to start their planes, so they were not fully self-powered. But Brazil’s Santos-Dumont was (1906, first official, fully self-powered, etc. airplane flight).