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A newly discovered photo is fueling a controversial theory that a German immigrant in Connecticut was really "first in flight"—not the Wright brothers. An amateur historian found a photo in Germany that some say shows the real first plane flight, by one Gustave Whitehead.
Several flew before the Wrights, but the Wrights perfected controlled flight, which is evidenced in the fact that they were able to continue flying while this Connecticut German disappeared into obscurity.
Flying a heavier than air plane down hill is one thing. Getting it back to where it took off quite another. The Wrights did a lot of gliding to learn how to control their aircraft, and make an airplane that could be contolled, before they tried one with an engine. The Wrights were also early masters of self promotion and patents.
Somewhere in the early stages of my marriage my wife told me Santos-Dumont was the first to fly, not the Wright Brothers. I never heard of him until that day. It's all about documentation, credibility, rules of the game and witnesses, I guess.
The French have a good argument that an early French aviator, Bleriot (sp), actually has a better claim to controlled flight since his plane took off under its own power, flew, then landed. The Wrights were using a catapult to launch their plane...so it wasnt 100% aircraft powered flight due to that capatult assist.
The Wrights did figure the basics of aircraft control, though. However they never sucessfully commercialized their invention, and they were bypassed by technology fairly quickly.
Santos Dumont was the first to take the balloon concept (which was also a French invention) and apply control to that (essentially developing the first zeppelin or dirigible), but this is a different kind of flight than the Wrights were trying for.
The story of flight is probably better thought of as something that was going to happen sooner or later, since a lot of people were working on flight at the same time, getting the science and technology down....It was a big international effort, so perhaps breakthroughs started happening at differnt places around the world at the same time.
Naturally us Texans can make two claims to top y'all.
Check out Jacob Brodbeck (1865 (or '68).
and also the Reverend Cannon's Ezekiel Airship (1902).
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