Yeah, alright – but what was number two?

This is always a difficult subject. I beleive Santos Dumonts ’14bis’ canard biplane flew in France in 1906.The Wrights were almost totally ignored until they came in France in 1907(?). Before that it was widely excepted in Europe that nobody had flown.
Of course in the US the Wrights had not sought publicity at all. Samual Langley had claimed the first flight. He was the head of the Smithosonian museum. A replica of his ‘aerodrome’ was displayed before WW2 as the first aircraft in the Smithsonian. Hence the Wright flyer was lent to the Science Museum until afte the war.

Lets hope we have a big celebration here in Farnborough in October 2008 for the first flight in Britian!!!!

I agree with Steve when he says that we can’t know for sure what was achieved by the pioneers and so therefore aren’t best placed to judge,but having read the article about Pearse in Aeroplane I feel it’s important to get things right in his case.
The important thing about Pearse is that HE HIMSELF denied that he had made any successful flights.During the latter years of his life he wrote to many people and even to national and international newspapers stating that he had NOT successfully flown.The claims of his ‘success’ have been made by seemingly fanatical Pearse enthusiasts since his death,and not by the man himself.
The Pearse thing has really got out of control in recent years-there are even school books in NZ now which state Pearse as the first to achieve powered flight.This kinda thing has to be stamped out before it gains any more credibility.Quite why the Pearse myth has taken off nobody seems to know,although it’s perhaps down to him being half caste (Scottish-born father,Maori mother) and so therefore a ‘perfect’ New Zealander.

What about Monty Python? Were’nt they off and flying in the circus by then? I think they put up Eric Idle first as he was the lightest and (in their opinion) most expendable….

Mark

I think that the reason we toast the Wrights rather than any of their possible predecessors is that the Wrights continued to improve their design until they had fully controllable aircraft with sustained flight.

It seems everyone else just had experiments and no further production.

In all honesty, there is now nobody alive who can confirm or deny any of these claims. So surely rather than worrying about who was first, we should all just be eternally grateful to all of them for what they’ve given us…?

I would be very interested to find out who else flew in those very early years though. I’m currently doing a bit of local research, and recently discovered that the first aeroplane to fly in Cambridgeshire was in 1910, off Portholme Meadow in Huntingdon, which was also intended to be an air racing course. I wonder whether passengers on the commuter trains that run right next to it today ever give that any thought?

There was a series of articles in Aeroplane recently about the pretenders to the title.
I seem to recall Pearce in particular was pretty thorougly debunked.

According to this he denies it though

BBC News story

This will stir up the forum

Check out this info on New Zealander Richard Pearce.

http://www.canterburyfare.co.nz/invention/invention-first-flight.htm

After many disappointments and crashes, he was soon achieving powered takeoff flights of up to 50 metres. His first successful flight on 31 march 1903 predates the Wright Brothers flight by over eight months. 😮 (Apparently…..)

Well surely the wright brothers got first, second, third and fourth flight! 😀
Don’t know about 5,6,7,8,9 or 10 though!

Hmm, i am sure there is someone on this forum who is at least a 100 years old that might be able to tell us?

Any takers?;)