Talk:List of early flying machines

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Contents 1 Title? 2 Proposed rewrite as "First Flying Machine" 3 Change to "List of early flying machines"? 4 Introduction 5 Balloons?

[edit] Title?

I don't think this article is well-named. It doesn't discuss early flying machines themselves, but rather discusses the problems of calling any one of them the "first" flying machine. I think this should actually be titled "first flying machine", and have redirects for "flying machine" and "early flying machine". A D Monroe III 22:49, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The thing that strikes me is that "Early Flying Machine" is in large parts a lengthy debate about what a Flying Machine is. Then comes an article similar to Aviation history. Aviation history is a much better page, and the debate is too detailed for a historical sketch. There is after all a page called Aircraft too. How about merging the pages? Fred chessplayer 22:13, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Rereading, it still seems the only mention of the definition of a flying machine is to weigh the claims of being the first. As you say, an article called "Early Flying Machines" should be part of Aviation history. However, I think the subject of this is actually "First Flying Machine". To counter Wikipedia's systemic bias, it's good to have an article pointing out that a great number of people outside of the US are quite sure that the Wright Brothers weren't first, although they don't agree who was. Unless someone objects, over the next few days, I'm going to copyedit it to focus it a little more to that title, and then move it. -- A D Monroe III 13:11, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed rewrite as "First Flying Machine"

See Early flying machines/temp.

I've changed the focus of this article to "First flying machine", and in the process rewrote it considerably. Opinions, anyone?

-- A D Monroe III 01:59, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi! I see you are interested in this, as am I.

In the article you linked to, you don't have a single source. Where do you get your information from?

Secondly, it is recommended to write "is not" instead of "isn't" on articles.

--Fred chessplayer 09:14, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Originally, I only got interested because the title seemed un-Wikipedic to me.

My sources are the same as the external links, especially the ones I added. I'll change the section title from "External links" to "References". However, another source was the original form of the article; it's still there, even though heavily edited. That article didn't have sources, and I haven't fixed that. That would take some work. As the article states, most official sources are chauvinist POV.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the recommendation of avoiding contractions as too informal. That's a little outdated, isn't it? (Sorry, that should be "outdated, is not it?") To me, it makes the negation seem over-emphasized. However, that's my POV, so I'll change them.

These are relatively minor comments. If there isn't any more significant comments in the next few days, I'll go ahead with my proposed replace and redirect of this article.

-- A D Monroe III 18:45, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Everytime i try to post my IE crashes... crap. ok third attempt now...

The original author is User:Greyengine5, nothing to do there, OK. Not your job to find HIS sources.

I'm not telling you to avoid contractions -- it is from wikipedia Manual of Style.

Go ahead and replace it. --Fred chessplayer 03:07, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Change to "List of early flying machines"?

I've split this article. See first flying machine. I was going to just replace, as suggested above, but after working on this, the list seems like a good separate article.

However, according to Wikipedia policy, lists of things in articles have the name "List of Xs", not "Xs".

I'll wait a few days for comments before I rename (move) this article.

--A D Monroe III 14:22, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

it looks much better now --Fred chessplayer 10:54, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

You have to excuse my poor Swedish understanding of the English language. Since the introdution was too difficult for me, I've rephrased it in a way I hope presents the same information in a shape that is understandable for me and others like me. --Fred chessplayer 10:54, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Balloons?

Shouldn't balloons be included, too? 193.171.121.30 09:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The first truly dirigible, powered flying machine was surely Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's LZ1. Admittedly, a 70 year old retired cavalry officer is hardly the gung-ho image of the pioneer aviator. Gordon Vigurs 18:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)