debor008

Aviation history, as presented today, is chock full of liars, thieves, mountebanks, and four-flushers. Aviation pioneers, who in their day were known to be brilliant, such as Gustave Whitehead and John J. Montgomery, are accused of faking flights. One of our greatest pioneers, Glenn Curtiss, is said to have deliberately cheated on a test for the Smithsonian to prove an early pioneer plane was capable of flight when it really wasn't. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Now, if stories, such as these, are questioned by serious researchers, there are those, who seem to have an inordinate interest in preserving the status quo, who accuse them of conspiracy theories, lies, or idiocy. A concerted effort is made to marginalize those who have opposing opinions, much as when this aviation history was originally written. Are these accusations true? Who is behind these stories? Maybe those most responsible are the two pioneers who come shining through today's "history" as the b...

One More Chapter on the Wrights Invented What? "After having for twenty years capitalized upon this as your own work I do not see how you can give a correct account of this without bringing yourselves into open censure" - -Dr. George Spratt to Orville Wright, 1922, on the development of the Wright flyer. Dr. Spratt as an Inventor A control wing aircraft built in 1939 by Dr. George Spratt's son, using the doctor's designs The concepts behind Spratt's amazing control wing invention were beyond Wilbur Wright's understanding, as clearly revealed in his letters to the doctor. Contrary to what we are taught, it was Spratt's ideas that the Wrights used to build their wind tunnel. Link here to great youtube videos of Spratt's control wing in flight and a few derivations of his invention. . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDtn6bXiroo   Dr. Spratt's Relationship with the Wrights An early friend of the Wright brothers, Dr. George Spratt wrote his last lette...

Was the Wrights' "original" research original? The aspect ratio of the wing “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” -Galileo Galilei  "There are no secrets." Glenn Hammond Curtiss Gull in flight. Credit NOAA Wilbur Wright became seriously interested in aeronautics after Otto Lilienthal, the great German aviation pioneer, lost control of his glider and died from the crash in 1896. Lilienthal's glider experiments had brought him just to the point, it's said, that he planned to attempt manned, powered flight. Otto Lilienthal in flight. Credit: National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution Apparently, Wilbur saw the opportunity to continue where Lilienthal left off. Accordingly, he stated his intention, when he wrote to the Smithsonian for information in 1899, to take the level of aviation at that point in time and "add his mite....

Smeaton's Coefficient : The Little Number with a Big Difference    “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants -- Isaac Newton "There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before."--Isaac Asimov  In 1896, with Alexander Graham Bell looking on, Samuel Pierpont Langley's steam powered ,  model "aerodrome" successfully flew 3/4 of a mile. Launched again, it flew once more, nearly as far as the first time. Quantico, Virginia, 1896. The successful flight of Professor Samuel Langley's unmanned model-- six years before the Wrights' claimed manned flight of 1903 " I was myself a witness of the memorable experiments made by Professor Langley on the 6th of May, 1896, with his large-sized model which had a spread of wing of about 14 feet. No one who witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a steam-engine flying with wings in the air , like a gr...

Wilbur Wright dies. Wilbur Wright died of typhoid on May 30, 1912. The world was stunned.  By the time of his death, it had been accepted by many over the world that the Wrights were the first to fly as they had claimed. But it was Wilbur who had made the only possible flight December 17, 1903, that was long enough to be considered "sustained"--852 feet. From a New York Times article  after Wilbur Wright's  death   Soon though, with Wilbur no longer alive, it's easy to see that his younger brother, Orville, stole his title of "first to fly." We can see that in the Sept.,1914, Boys' Life article , where Orville claimed that he was the one who had made the flight of 852 feet. However, he wouldn't have been able to stick to that story--even though it's still being published by Boys' Life. So probably with Orville's help, the unsustained "flight" of only 120 feet that Orville really made became accepted as the "first flight....