Who invented the airplane?

[Quarto]

Eh, to claim Da Vinci invented the plane is silly. He did a lot of experiments in that area, but his experiments ended in utter failure - he was trying to build a flying machine powered by human muscle, and he was eventually forced to conclude that human muscle simply wasn't enough. It doesn't matter what he would have achieved had he been in possession of a sufficiently powerful engine - his flying machine wasn't designed to use such an engine.

 

[Ripper]

Besides, I invented the airplane, right after I invented the flux capacitor to invent a time machine to go back in time to invent the airplane. The Wright brothers copied my paper in third grade.

I invented electricity and fire, too.

 

[Delance]

Icarus invented the airplane.

EDIT: Actually, it would make more sense to say that Deadlus discovered flight.

 

[Frosty]

and he was eventually forced to conclude that human muscle simply wasn't enough.

Wrongly.

 

[Ein-7919]

Eh, to claim Da Vinci invented the plane is silly. He did a lot of experiments in that area, but his experiments ended in utter failure...(snip)

I never said he actually got one of his designs to fly...but the principle was there. I merely said that he had invented the precursors to what would later be called airplanes. To invent something is not the same thing as making a physical, working model of said thing. To invent something is to merely come up with schematics that are sound in principle and design and be the first one to design said item. Inventing and producing are 2 completely different things. As is the case with the steam engine. People thought that the steam engine was invented shortly prior to the industrial revolution (anyways, not prior to the 16th century). But really, the steam engine (or the precursor to the steam engine) was invented closer to 200BC. As I have stated (many times) there is a HUGE difference between the invention of a thing, and the practical production and application of said thing.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Concept and invention are two different things, though. You can't say someone 'invented' the airplane because they dreamed about a machine that could fly around - you have to have proof of concept.

 

[Ein-7919]

Concept and invention are two different things, though. You can't say someone 'invented' the airplane because they dreamed about a machine that could fly around - you have to have proof of concept.

Which he did. Design schematics are a far cry from a working model...but it is also far more than just "dream(ing) about a machine."

 

[GeeBot]

Except the schematics were for a machine which wouldn't work.

 

[Ein-7919]

Okay, time for me to lighten my apparent demeanor on this topic and quote some air force engineer that I heard somewhere (History channel I think):

"The F4 Phantom is proof that if you strap a big enough engine onto it, you can make a brick fly."

I suppose if you want to, you can make anything fly...even something from those early DaVinci schematics.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

you want one of Davinci's models to fly? build one, throw it in the cargo hold of a jet airliner, and pat yourself on the back- it's airbound.

Human muscle, though indirectly- was enough for space flight. Human muscle created the engine which powers the airplane.

 

[Frosty]

"The F4 Phantom is proof that if you strap a big enough engine onto it, you can make a brick fly."

That's sort of a funny thing to say, considering how ridiculously fast the Phantom happens to be.

 

[GeeBot]

By that reasoning, the inventor of the airplane was the same person who invented the first brick, all those thousands of years ago. By gum, we've been off not by centuries, but millenia! And wait... I bet if you can get a brick to fly, you can get a rock to fly. Surely, whoever invented the first rock has the prior claim. Now, who invented the first rock... hrm...

 

[Ein-7919]

Hey, thar's an idear: Get a big rock, strap it to a Soyuz rocket, get some passengers, and make the lowest-tech airborne passenger rock. Sure, it won't be controllable...but it'll fly.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I like how everything in Russia is named Soyuz.

 

[gryphon]

I believe the right of way goes to whoever patented said invention first.
Also, no one person can be credited with the invention of the airplane. Without Lillienthal, Da Vinci, without scores of physicists and aviation enthusiasts in decades gone by and their research on wing planes, shaoes, and forms noone could have made the first powered flight.

I believe that though the Wright Brothers conducted this powered flight, they did not invent the airplane. It was an inevitable combination of already known principles which would have been made somewhere else. They did however invent wing warping and the wind tunnel.

Also to whoever said the Wright flyer neede tailwind - THINK ABOUT IT!!! Why do You think aircraft carriers fly INTO the wind?! Headwind increases the airspeed over the wing. Tailwind makes air flow slower, even backwards and that takes away lift altogether. The Wright flyer required wind, headwind.

 

[Delance]

I believe the right of way goes to whoever patented said invention first.

Well, I don't think that's really fair. Santos Dummont was an idealist, so he choose not to patent any of his inventions. He felt knowledge was supposed to be free for the benefit of mankind, and it would not be fair that he was punished for that. Weather or not this is wise it's an entirely different discussion.

Also, as previously stated, if you want to take a purely formal approach to the situation, he would be the inventor, because he was the first to make a public flight that met all the established requirements. I'm not arguing that this purely formal view is the only right one, anyway. Just keeping things in perspective.

I don’t find this a simple issue like I used to, but the lack of recognition of Santos Dummont is bothering, considering how important he was in the early years of aviation. It's hard to pick one single inventor and rule out all others, since there were so many at a very short period of time, working isolated from one another.

 

[GeeBot]

See, this is why I don't like debating the invention of the airplane; it's one of those arguments where people end up just repeating themselves over and over again, in an attempt to convince other equally convinced people. The fact that folks can't even agree on how to objectively measure what they're talking about (in this case, how do you decide who invented the airplane first) is just a recipe for endless debate, IMHO.

 

[Delance]

Well, I hope this helps. It's a nice link for an article on Wired.

Ask anyone in Brazil who invented the airplane and they will say Alberto Santos-Dumont, a 5-foot-4-inch bon vivant who was as known for his aerial prowess as he was for his dandyish dress and high society life in Belle Epoque Paris.

As Paul Hoffman recounts in his Santos-Dumont biography Wings of Madness, the eccentric Brazilian was the first and only person to own a personal flying machine that could take him just about anywhere he wanted to go.

"He would keep his dirigible tied to a gas lamp post in front of his Paris apartment at the Champs-Elysees and every night he would fly to Maxim's for dinner. During the day he'd fly to go shopping, he'd fly to visit friends," Hoffman said.

An idealist who believed flight was spiritually soothing, Santos-Dumont financed his lavish lifestyle and aerial experiments in Paris with the inheritance his coffee-farming father had advanced him as a young man. Always impeccably dressed, he regularly took a gourmet lunch with him on his ballooning expeditions.

Read more here.

 

[t.c.cgi]

I wonder why on Earth he didn't do his work in Brazil. Hmmm...

 

[Ein-7919]

Hmm...cool article. I remember this History channel program on a few days ago where there was a competition to see if somebody could actually re-create the Wright Flyer and make it fly. There were 3 incarnations that were shown. One was as close to an exact replica as could be possible (same materials, same building techniques, same hp for the engine). Another used modern and lightweight material, a stronger engine, and modern manufacturing techniques. The third was kind of in between these 2 extremes. Basically, in the end, after the flights were all said and done, none of the Wright Flyers actually flew. The determining cause of this lack of flight was the weather. The wind was not blowing fast enough. During the first Wright Flight, the wind was holding steady at 22-27 mph. During the Wright Flyer challenge, the wind held between 11-16 mph.

It should also be noted that the plane that the Wright bros. used was not called the Kitty Hawk. Kitty Hawk was where they had their 'historic' first flight. The plane is actually called the "Wright Flyer".

Sidenote: For you Brazilians out there...this might irk you a bit. But if you go to www.wrightflyer.org, hop on down to the page "1903 Wright Flyer stats" and scroll all the way down, there is a little section called "First Airplanes to fly". Nowhere is Brazil mentioned. Instead, they have 1906: France.

EDIT: Hehe, I guess the devil's in the details. Just went hunting through that article. A Brazilian in France. So I guess it is technically correct. Oh well.