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? 6 Ramayana, Mahabharata 7 Gustave Whitehead 8 Title of article 9 MORE ON WHITEHEAD 10 Multiple pages 11 The controversy 12 Controlled flight at Kitty Hawk? 13 Truth 14 Flyer instability 15 Inaccurate quote; unsourced statement 16 Merge with "First flying machine"

[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)

{You had forgot the brasilien priest Batrolomeu de Gusmão, that flyed in the beginig of th18th centuty in a baloon made by himself} [sic]. (Comment in brackets about Bartolomeu de Gusmão made by:201.41.24.187 on main article. Removed from main article and added to talk page by: Dr.K. 22:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Ramayana, Mahabharata

Many ancient epics from India describes Early Flying machines. There's also a literature Vaimanika Shastra which is based on the Vedas. BalanceΩrestored ^Talk 08:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

this is covered in Vimana. added. dab (𒁳) 11:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gustave Whitehead

I added some relevant information about GW. Please discuss here before changing it. (Roger J.)

[edit] Title of article

Like others I question the title of this article. There are other wikipedia articles containing much better lists of "early flying machines". This article seems more suitable as an article about the invention of the aeroplane, heavier than air, manned, motorized, and controllable.

If any single person can be named as the inventor of the airplane it should probably be Whitehead. He designed, built and demonstrated his invention with public media and other witnesses present. His aeroplane was stable in the air, started and landed without external help and did not crash. He flew it several times (4 flights 14 August 1901).

The Wright brothers can maybe be credited for developing the first motorized, manned, controlled, and _practical_ airplane (1905-1915), for furthering the theoretical basis for the aeroplanes, and for developing the aviation industry in USA, but they can hardly be called the inventors of the airplane in the meaning people usually associate with the word inventor.

Suggested names for this article: Inventor of the airplane. Invention of the airplane. First airplane (Roger J.)

The entry for "Gagnon" 1902 is strange. I tried to look up Gagnon helicopter on the web, there is not a singular real source for this. All entries on the web point back to wikipedia.

So this entry should probably be deleted, unless somebody can show references for who Gagnon was and what he achieved. (Roger J.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.249.177.39 (talk) 08:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Reverted the insertion of weasel words like "reported" and "claimed". If you want to add such words you should add them to ALL entries. To just add them to the Whitehead entries shows some kind of bias. (Roger J.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.249.177.39 (talk) 13:56, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Reversion of my (alleged) "weasel words"

First, I suggest that the articles "List of Early Flying Machines" and "First Flying Machine" be merged under a new title, "Early Flying Machines" (dropping the words "List" and "First"). The problem I have with the Whitehead entries in the "List" article is that they state, unequivocally, in encyclopedic fashion, a particular achievement. So much controversy and doubt surround the Whitehead experiments that I think it is a disservice to readers and the encyclopedia itself for Wikipedia to state the Whitehead "accomplishment" as if it is an undisputed fact. In contrast, the Wright brothers flights of 1903 and the two years following are not disputed by aviation historians, although the type of flights ("assisted," "external help," etc.) are subject to dispute by some readers. Part of the problem is that the format of the article is designed for only a very brief description/explanation of each "accomplishment". Also, the wording of entries, as chosen by various editors, is problematic. For example, the Felix du Temple entry should include descriptive qualifications: "First powered manned fixed-wing flight; short distance with little or no control; took off from a downwardly inclined ramp." A number of other entries would benefit from such explanatory details. Adding such information would make the article a lot less streamlined, but would better serve the interests of encyclopedic accuracy. The Whitehead entries deserve similar qualification, because his "flights" are not universally accepted as true. Not every Whitehead affadavit says he flew 800 meters, for example; some of the witnesses say he just "hopped". The entry for his spectacular purported Long Island Sound flight offers no supporting attribution at all. Another possible approach to these problems is to change the heading at the top of the table from "Accomplishment" to "Claim or Accomplishment," with brief appropriate notations inside the more controversial entries. The Whitehead entries should be modified, but I'll wait to see some thoughts from other editors. DonFB (talk) 18:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

1: I agree that there are too many articles about the same thing. But it has no easy solution, I guess.

2: Whitehead entries. Most of the entries in that list have less support if you study the available literature. Have you really read everything available about Whitehead? And the arguments used against him?

One popular argument used is that Whitehead's wife never witnessed that she had seen him fly. How good is that argument in a world where the usually wife stays home and takes care of the home and the children? How stupid is that argument against Whitehead's flights? Have you studied and evaluated all the available documentation about Whitehead?

3: Some witnesses 14 August 1901 give different lengths of flights, and different times of the day. The answer is that he flew 4 times that day, the two longest flights were around 800m. If you really have studied the available documents you should know this already.

4 Long Island flights. Whitehead could not have risked lying in a public article because a bunch of people helped him pull Nr22 out of the water after each flight. He obviously had a good airplane already in 1901. With a 40hp motor (double the power of his Nr21 and stronger than most other pioneers) it is fully possible to do what he did over Long Island Sound.

"Claim or Accomplishment," Most entries are more or less believable. It is obviously up to the reader to decide what to believe and what not. The table form limits how much can be said about each event. In any case we should be very careful with valuating words like "allegedly, reported, claimed", etc.. There is more space in other articles about early airplanes.

By the way, I will remove the Gagnon helicopter, I cannot find it even mentioned anywhere. And no technical details. (Roger J.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.249.177.39 (talk) 20:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MORE ON WHITEHEAD

When the encyclopedia states something as fact, without qualification, that "fact" must be supported by undisputed references or very widespread general acceptance of the statement. That is not the case with Whitehead. The controversy over his "flights" is well-established. It is wrong for the encyclopedia to ignore that reality. It is true that there's more evidence for Whitehead than for several of the other entries in the article. That, however, does not constitute proof of the Whitehead achievements. An editor's bias (and I certainly have my own) does not justify an assertion of "fact" when that "fact" remains open to question. For example, the FAI (Federation Aeronautique International) recognizes the Wright Brothers, not Whitehead, as having made the first controlled flight. Consider the way the article now reads. A few entries after Whitehead's, the reader sees that the Wright Brothers made the "first" controlled flight. What is the reader to make of this? Our job as editors is to fix obvious contradictions and discrepancies within an article. That job clearly is not done yet in this article. I want to see specific suggestions on how the contradiction can be resolved. DonFB (talk) 03:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

We could add your magical potion, "Controversial claim; not confirmed by aviation historians.", to all entries which are not backed up by old dictionaries and old encyklopedias. That would be most of the entries. Or let the reader decide for himself what to think about it. The Whitehead entries are well enough backed up by historical records. The real problem here is that hundreds of millions of people have been very strongly convinced that they already know who invented the airplane. Whitehead is the biggest threat to their patriotic conviction, so they try to invent new ways to belittle and deny Whitehead's achievements. Remove all decisions by the editors, like the idea that Wright Brs. were the sole inventors of the airplane. (Roger J.)

I think we're making progress on these issues in the article. I understand the point that many of the entries could be described as "unconfirmed". However, I don't think any of them are as controversial or significant as the Whitehead claims, which in my opinion therefore deserve special care in the wording. I don't think it's necessary to say "alleged" for Cayley. I have not read a huge amount about him, but what I have seen does not indicate any dispute or doubt about his accomplishment. I agree with some other changes you made to the article. For the Wright Brothers, official organizations and professional aviation historians support the statement of "first successful..."; therefore the phrase "what has been called" (by whom?) should be considered weasel-worded. The use of the word "first" in the Vuia entry is simply not accurate. The earlier Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk was self-propelled, as were the aircraft of Ader, Pearse, and Whitehead, if one chooses to accept any of those claims. I'll make changes to the article to reflect my comments here, but I'm open to further discussion. DonFB (talk) 17:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Instead of one entry for Wright Brs. I would like to see 2 or 3 entries. It is a table of events. There should be a Wright's 1903 entry for the 279m. uncontrolled. Another entry for Wilbur W. "Wilbur Wright, United States — October 5, 1905 Wilbur Wright pilots Wright Flyer III in a flight of 24 miles (39km) in 39 minutes, a world record that stood until 1908." The first flight fitted into the experimentor phase of the Wright Brs. They claimed that their 1903 flights were controlled. Considering the meagre result I cannot agree with that. The 1905 was a real airplane which could be controlled for 39km. I have no problem calling that a controlled flight.

Years before that Whitehead produced and flew stable machines which could start and land softly and safely. He was too poor to lead the continued development of aviation, it was taken over by others, but in 1901-1902 he was leading the race towards a practically useful airplane. The Wright brother's visited Whitehead at least twice before 1903 and milked him for information. They visited many other pioneers and got information before their first experiments. They were themselves very secretive, and several other flight pioneers accused the Wright Brs. of stealing other people's ideas and patenting them.

How many horsepowers are needed for a small airplane? Note that Whitehead could build more powerful motors than most other pioneers, and it shows in the achievements. For example The Jatho Biplane had a 10hp motor. The result, 70m hops, is what you can expect with a 10hp motor. If the Wright Brs. had published the horsepower of their different models we could compare their achievements with Whitehead. Note the close correlation between horsepower and achievements. For Whitehead the hp of the motors fit well with his achievements, it is technically reasonable. That supports the veracity of his flights from a technical point of view.

Quote: "statement of "first successful..."; therefore the phrase "what has been called" (by whom?) should be considered weasel-worded."

Hundreds of millions of people consider, and call, the 1903 Wright Brs the first successful powered, manned and controlled flight. So why do you ask "(by whom?)". Why do you question this, which has been the official truth at least for most americans for a hundred years? Would you like "What has been known in USA as the first successful, manned and motorized flight in history."? instead?

(Roger J.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.249.177.39 (talk) 08:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad to see the inclusion of in-text references or attributions on a few of the entries we're discussing. I'm changing the 1903 Wright Brothers entry to conform with this practice. I enjoy debating these issues, but in my early days here, I made the mistake of doing that in a very long-winded manner on a Discussion page. The Discussion pages are actually intended for comments directly related to improving articles, rather than general debates about subject matter. DonFB 18:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple pages

I think the table is better in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flight We could delete this article and leave only http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flight

But the ones who want to create "List of"-articles will create a new one. So maybe the best is to make both as good as possible. I have concentrated on the period 1899-1905, because the airplane was invented during that period, by whom is up to the readers to decide. We just give the reader's as much relevant facts as possible. We erase what is obviously wrong or impossible. We give them references so they can study each inventor in more detail. (Roger J.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.249.177.39 (talk) 21:35, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The controversy

I recommend reading these two pages which explain a lot: http://www.historynet.com/air_sea/aviation_history/3032816.html?page=4&c=y http://www.historynet.com/air_sea/aviation_history/3032816.html?page=5&c=y

Roger491127 08:57, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Excellent article; read it several months ago. One of the best I've seen. Two other very good articles are hereand here. DonFB 03:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, especially for the second link, describing the Wright brothers work in more detail. To me it is obvious that the Wright brothers did not produce a controllable plane until october 1905. They had to work hard to keep that plane under control. The front elevator was simply a bad technical choice. Only at the end of he 20th century front elevators returned, in the form of small wings ahead of the main wings, now controlled by very fast computers, on advanced fighter planes. These planes are uncontrollable if the computers fail.

I also got some indications of how many horsepowers they had available at different points in time. Quote from your second link:

"The new Flyer was a close cousin to the first. As before, the pilot lay prone in a cradle. By sliding it side to side, he could raise or lower the aircraft’s wings and simultaneously turn the craft’s rudder. The craft’s pitch was controlled by a front elevator the pilot activated with a handle. The 1904 airplane did have a more powerful engine, 16 rather than 13 horsepower, and, with altered gearing between engine and propellers, produced half again as much power as the 1903 one."

The correlation between hp and achievements are technically reasonable.

Note that Whitehead had built and used significantly more powerful motors in 1901 (20hp) and 1902 (40hp). And Whitehead's planes (Number 21 and 22) were stable in the air, he could take his hands off the controls and just stand there, enjoying the flight. To land he only aimed the plane towards a flat area on land or close to the shore over water and turned off the power. The plane landed softly on its wheels (or hull) all by itself. Roger491127 09:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

If I believed, as you do, claims like he could fly with "hands off the controls" ("look, ma, no hands!") I wouldn't bother to make the careful attribution and sourcing edits that I make. I simply don't accept such unproven claims uncritically. By the way, if you haven't, see this extremely interesting item,which is referenced in the Wright Brothers article. It actually could give some ammunition to anti-Wright commentators, but also nicely makes the case for controlled flight at Kitty Hawk. DonFB 18:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to this article, it is interesting and is published on the www.thewrightbrothers.org web site. The article mentions several times the undulating (moving up and down through the air) movement of the plane, which is to be expected with a front elevator. The pilot must constantly adjust the elevator to keep the plane in level flight. If the pilot is not strong and quick enough every tenth of a second of flight the plane will crash. Human brains are too slow to correct the angle immediately, that is the reason for the undulating flight pattern.

In contrast we can read this in The Bridgeport Herald, August 18, 1901: "He simply shifted his weight more to one side than the other. This careened the ship to one side. She turned her nose away from the clump of sprouts when within fifty yards of them and took her course around them as prettily as a yacht on the sea avoids a bar. The ability to control the air ship in this manner appeared to give Whitehead confidence, for he was seen to take time to look at the landscape about him. He looked back and waved his hand exclaiming, "I’ve got it at last.""

To me that sounds a lot like "Look ma, no hands!".

Note also that no problems were reported with landing his plane. He just aimed it at a suitable landing place, on ground or on the water, and turned off the motor. The plane landed itself softly. This also proves that his planes 21 and 22 were stable in the air.

Note that the Wrights also used their body weight to control the plane, even if they experimented with other methods too, just like Whitehead. Reference: Quoted from one of your links above. ""The new Flyer was a close cousin to the first. As before, the pilot lay prone in a cradle. By sliding it side to side, he could raise or lower the aircraft’s wings..." Roger491127 (talk) 12:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Controlled flight at Kitty Hawk?

I wouldn't call that 852ft ( 260m) flight "controlled". "Barely controlled" would be more correct. Wilbur Wright worked hard to minimize the undulations and keep the plane in the air, and he managed to do that for 59 seconds, while also sliding side to side to control the plane. Definitely not a "Look ma, no hands!" experience. Roger491127 (talk) 12:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, the 1903 Flyer was difficult to control, but the 4th flight showed it could be done. The Wrights did slide the wing-warping cradle side to side, but you should understand that produced control by means of aerodynamic ("aileron") effect on the wings, not by a shift of body weight to change the center of gravity. DonFB (talk) 15:39, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean that the sliding bed was attached with ropes to the ailerons? The ropes to the ailerons should have been attached to a steering stick or a steering wheel or whatever which would be a lot simpler to handle than by sliding sideways lying down. And the natural solution would, of course, be to connect the ropes from the ailerons sideways to the same stick that controlled the front elevator. Then the pilot can sit comfortably in a fixed chair and only move the steering stick.

If the ailerons really did work, why slide the body sideways at all? If these two methods of controlling roll were combined like you seem to suggest, how could anybody know which of the two mechanisms influenced the plane most? You say that moving the body sideways had no effect on the attitude of the plane. That is a scientifically and technically faulty reasoning because the movement of the body must have influenced the roll of the plane. (That is like when all passengers on a ship run over to one side, and the ship leans over in that direction, of course.)

The body movements probably influenced the plane a lot more than the ailerons, why would otherwise the pilot have accepted such an uncomfortable position sliding back and forth sideways while also trying to control the front elevator? To me it sounds like they wanted to patent the aileron system, but they did not trust it very much, so they combined it with the well known and fully tested body movement method. Then they said that it was the ailerons they used to roll the plane and that the body sliding did not influence the attitude of the plane at all.

As a person with extensive technical and scientific education I am amazed at several faulty technical decisions the Wrights made. Did they see birds fly around with the tail attached in front of the beak and the body? Practically all other inventors in history put the tail behind the body of the plane, because that is its natural position, for example.

By the way, I found this too, about the stability of Whitehead's plane:

"Interestingly enough, the author (whether Beach or not) managed to pay Weisskopf some compliments; his praise of the inventor's engines has already been alluded to, and on the last page of the statement, he wrote: "I know that the airplane patented by him was inherently stable, laterally and longitudinally, and that it would always make a 'pancake' landing instead of a nose dive." It would seem that for Beach to know this, he must have watched more than one landing of Weisskopf's aircraft." (http://www.deepsky.com/~firstflight/Pages/article8.html)" (scroll down 40% and look in the right column) Roger491127 (talk) 16:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, Roger, you play to my enthusiasm and poor judgement at the same time. Really, Discussion pages are for specific comments about changing/improving an article, not general talk about subject matter. But I'm taking the bait anyway. Here, from the Wright brothers 1906 basic patent, is the reason for the forward elevator:

"Contrary to the usual custom, we place the horizontal rudder in front of the aeroplanes at a negative angle and employ no horizontal tail at all. By this arrangement we obtain a forward surface which is almost entirely free from pressure under ordinary conditions of flight, but which even if not moved at all from its original position becomes an efficient lifting-surface whenever the speed of the machine is accidentally reduced very much below the normal, and thus largely counteracts that backward travel of the center of pressure on the aeroplanes which has frequently been productive of serious injuries by causing the machine to turn downward and forward and strike the ground head-on."

The Wrights were far ahead of everyone else at the time, but you're judging them from a modern, technologically advanced perspective. Their reason for lying down should be well-known to you (it's in the Article): they did it to reduce drag. Their small weight shift in the warping cradle would hardly influence a 600-plus pound airplane with a 40-foot wingspan, nor enable them to fly reliably for more than a half hour, as they did in 1905. I understand you support the Whitehead story, but trying to contradict or dispute so many major aspects of the Wright brothers achievement seems silly. DonFB (talk) 18:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

1: "you play to my enthusiasm and poor judgement"... If you suffer from being overly enthusiastic and suffer from bad judgement, and think I am playing a game I don't understand why you get involved in these issues. You need a lifetime of scientific and technical education and experience and have a good judgement to get involved in serious discussions about the sources of the history of aviation. And I have those qualifications. I am only interested in presenting the truth, as well as possible. In controversial cases I think it is fair to present the different versions as well as possible and leave the final judgement to the reader.

2: it is impossible to discuss a wikipedia article without discussing the probability and veracity of the sources, you can see that on millions of wikipedia discussion pages. If the final and definitive truth was already known in all cases we could limit ourselves to only discuss how to format and present that truth as well as possible, but such a situation does not exist in the modern world of critical thinking where discussion and agreement is the best method to approach the "truth". (Philosophically there is no absolute truth anymore, absolute conviction belongs in a religious world. In the modern world there are only different degrees of probability.)

3: The text from the Wright brothers is mumbo-jumbo, ask any well qualified civil engineer or scientist. It shows their lack of education and experience theoretically just like their construction shows it practically. It took them two years of adjustments (and pilot training) to make it possible to fly 39km in 1905 in a similar construction as in 1903.

4: The Wrights were definitely not far ahead of everyone else at the time. Whitehead was 3-5 years ahead of the Wrights for many years, and scientifically and technically the Wrights lacked the education and experience Whitehead had. The Wrights milked Whitehead and other aviation pioneers for knowledge, but Whitehead knew that they had nothing to offer him except for money. Remember that the Wright brothers had inherited a large sum of money so they could work full time on learning and training, while Whitehead had to work hard 6 days a week to support himself and his family.

5: If they had had enough knowledge they would have known that a sitting person would not generate enough drag to significantly influence the airplane. Whitehead stood up in his plane and that did not hinder him from flying. Roger491127 (talk) 07:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Truth

Quoting you: "If the final and definitive truth was already known...." Ah, but your very lengthy and forceful posts here seem to indicate that you feel, indeed, that you are in possession of the "final and definitive truth" about Mr. Whitehead and the Wrights. On the other hand, I agree with your quote, "I think it is fair to present the different versions as well as possible and leave the final judgement to the reader." That is why it is so important to use great care, especially in such a controversial issue like "first flight," to attribute statements or information to sources, rather than flatly declare that something is true, or that something happened. Going back to our early conversation, this is why words like "reported" or "claimed" are not necessarily weasel words, but can be very important in presenting information while avoiding a statement of "fact," or "truth," or "certainty," and allow the reader to decide if the "claim" or the "report" is true. But frankly, you appear to be quite hostile toward these Wright brothers, which does raise a question of "good faith". I do not disparage Whitehead as you do to the Wrights. I merely maintain a healthy skepticism about his story, and I work to ensure the article does not try to impose a "truth" on the readers when the "truth" is subject to so much debate by outside experts and researchers. DonFB (talk) 08:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

1: my posts here are longer than yours because you pack a lot of arguments into one tight block of text, with no structure like point after point you want to put forward.

2: I would like to insert my comments into your text, right after the point you made, like we do in emails and newsgroups, but that would make the discussion page unreadable. So I choose to take one point after the other, quoting your first point, replying to it, quoting the next point, replying to it, etc.. numbering them and putting a blank line between the points.

3: "Ah, but your very lengthy and forceful posts here seem to indicate that you feel, indeed, that you are in possession of the "final and definitive truth" about Mr. Whitehead and the Wrights" I have already explained my longer entries. If you experience them as "forceful" I must have done something right. I don't even believe in a "final and definitive truth", I am well aware of the fact that we can only judge probabilities against each other. But the texts about Whitehead make sense. The amount and quality of the documentation sounds probable enough to convince me that it is highly probable that Whitehead flew a motorized airplane years before the Wright brothers.

The quality of the anti-Whitehead arguments are much lower and in many cases outright silly, illogical or obvious lies.

4 "why words like "reported" or "claimed" are not necessarily weasel words".., You are welcome to insert words like "claimed", "alledgedly", etc.. into EVERY sentence on EVERY page of wikipedia, but I don't accept very tendentious insertion of such words in only a few places, about certain people and not about others, reinforcing old myths and lies and denigrating anything which does not fit the strong beliefs in some parts of the world.

5 "hostile toward these Wright brothers"... Before I started studying the early pioneers of aviation I had no special views about the Wright brothers. I believed like most people that they were the inventors of the airplane. But after studying all available documentation I have lost a lot of respect for both the Wright brothers and the Smithsonian institution. But I have no use for feelings like hostility in my mind.

6 "Whitehead ...... his story.." Whitehead seldom claimed anything himself, so we must judge him from what others have written about him, in newspaper articles and the affidavits witnesses signed and sworn is the truth as far as they knew. The anti-Whitehead people love to say things like "Whitehead claimed", "Whitehead alledgely" or, like you, "Whitehead ...... his story..", as if the whole story about Whitehead came from a single article written by him or somebody else and no other documentation existed. The truth is that most of what we know about Whitehead comes from hundreds of sources, who have told their stories independently of each other.

By the way, sorry for my not so perfect english. I live in Sweden and learned english in school. I am only thankful when people correct my linguistic mistakes in wikipedia articles. It has actually happened several times that somebody has corrected my spelling and grammar mistakes in wikipedia articles, without changing the content. Roger491127 (talk) 20:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I have genuinely enjoyed our discussion here, but I think it's probably time we desist for a while and not consume too much more Wikipedia disk space. I hope we can work collaboratively and cordially on these articles in the future. Incidentally, your English is many orders of magnitude better than my Swedish. DonFB (talk) 21:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flyer instability

Quote from http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-48686.html "Replicas and computer models show that the Flyer was unstable, especially in pitch, and that when modern pilots have a go at flying it in the sim they usually manage about one second before they lose control. If you read Wibur's account of the flying that day, especially the last, fourth flight, it would appear that the airplane had neutral stability in roll, since when the Flyer was upset in a gust, he applied opposite control via wing warping but it had no effect and he lost control, scraping a wing and nosing in, damaging the 'front rudder'. Luckily, he was only a few feet above the ground and his groundspeed was less than 20 mph so that he was not hurt. An argument could be made that the Flyer was not flyable except by the Wrights, and therefore their success could not be replicated, until the next model was flown, on its second attempt, 18 months later."Roger491127 (talk) 12:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't fully appreciate your latest changes to the Whitehead entries. Inserting a reference link in the table to one of the most anti-Whitehead articles on the web is not fair. I replaced it with links to the main Whitehead article where a lot of references can be found. Note that multiple flights, and landings, the same day is a strong indication that the plane landed on both water and ground without damages. On the other hand I agree with other changes you made, like striking the word Good from "Good evidences ...) is okay, I just copied a sentence from the article about that pioneer without changing it. I added data to many entries without scrutinizing each sentence for questionable formulations. I still think Wilbur's "hard landing" was a crash. Without the very low speed in ref. to the ground and the very low altitude the damages to both the plane and the pilot would have been very serious when a sudden nose-dive brought it down. If the 1899 flight of Whitehead is ignored because it ended in a crash instead of a controlled landing, which is okay with me, then the "hard landing" (AKA crash), and damage to the plane should disqualify that Wright flight too. A successful flight should include a controlled landing without damages. Roger491127 (talk) 08:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The facts about the Dec. 14 "flight" are correct, but don't belong in this entry which is growing excessively long, as are some others. I respect your right to believe the 4th flight of Dec. 17 was a crash, but your opinion does not belong in a Wikipedia article. (I commend to you again the photograph of the airplane after the 4th flight, to be seen at U.S.Library of Congress online.) The internet article at thewrightbrothers.org to which I previously referred you offers a very interesting discussion of the qualifications for a "successful" flight, and the issue of damage. DonFB (talk) 19:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

In the Whitehead 1902 entry I removed the word "Claimed" at the beginning, which you inserted, and replaced it with a more precise description of the support for the probability of the event a few lines below. Note also that the table is preceeded by reservations for the veracity of the entries, so adding words like "claimed" inside the table is unnecessary. Roger491127 (talk) 08:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The "Claim" wording at the top of the table does not eliminate the need to distinguish for readers which entry is a claim and which is established historical fact or generally accepted by outside sources. See also the Wikipedia Policy, "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources." DonFB (talk) 18:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the single word Claim with a more detailed explanation of the veracity of the event. I did not just delete it. The Whitehead "claim" is not so exceptional considering all the evidence available, and the amount of evidence which has been gathered by now makes the claim highly probable. The Whitehead issue has gone from unknown to unlikely to possible to highly probable during the last 20 years. That's why Discovery channel obviously thought that it was time to make a short program about Whitehead, and they have shown it hundreds of times, at least here in Europe. Considering all the available evidence, we will probably soon see a movie about Whitehead. That is the last step in establishing new "truths" in big parts of the world where people cannot read and cannot think clearly.

Have you really studied all the available documents and compared the quality of pro- and anti-Whitehead arguments? It doesn't sound like that.

I wonder the same thing about you, and also regarding the Wright brothers. However, don't answer. Our job is not to compare our reading lists; our job is to Cite, Verify and use NPOV according to Wikipedia Rules and Guidelines. DonFB (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I have asked you before if you think it is a good argument to say that "the most important witness is probably Whitehead's wife, and she never saw any of her husband's flights". What is your reply to that? Do you think that is a good argument?Roger491127 (talk) 18:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe not the strongest argument, but I haven't used it. I just pay attention to Wikipedia Rules and Guidelines on Citing Sources, Verifiability, and NPOV. DonFB (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The Wright's argument that Whitehead's plane was so badly designed that it could never fly. What do you think about that argument, considering that more than one replica has shown that the construction is both flying well and is very stable in the air? Even his at that time enemy mr Beach said that Whitehead's plane was inherently stable in the air, and always made a pancake landing instead of a nosedive. Roger491127 (talk) 18:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Good work by the modern builders, and the flights are significant, but they don't prove that Whitehead flew 100 years ago. DonFB (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

"Historic Records - all airplanes could be considered "unusual" in those years; need not offer a personal opinion about this one in particular." I have not authored that block of text, I copied it from the wikipedia page about the inventor in question. I try to find a suitable amount of text most relevant to shortly describe the achievement of the inventor in question. That word is not an important part of that block of text. I have added explanations to many entries in that table, concentrating mostly on the important entries, usually by searching through the wikipedia article about that person. In some cases that was not enough so I searched the web for better documentation. That was a lot of work and I did not have the time to get involved in very unimportant choices of words like "unusual" or not. I don't even understand why you take up such a very minor issue. Roger491127 (talk) 18:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The issue is significant, but not for historical reasons. The issue is signifcant, because it illustrates that an editor should be very cautious when copying text from a source, and must always read and evaluate it carefully, no matter where it comes from, even Wikipedia. As editors, we must be much more than mere "copying machines". DonFB (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Wrong name of magazine. Yes, I made a mistake, but why talk to me about it? If you know better just correct the name, so you have something useful to do too. As you can see from all explanations I have added to this table you should realize I'm a busy man, have no time for discussions about practically unexisting issues. Fix unimportant issues yourself, and use the discussion page for really important discussions about central issues.

I didn't invite you to discuss it, Rog; I invited you to fix it. I was such a busy man when I noticed it, I didn't have time to research it--until later. DonFB (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I added a relevant piece of text from the wikipedia entry on Flyer and it contained the expression "minor crash", if that is what you are talking about, and I did not change it according to your taste. I wanted you to know that other authors of wikipedia uses the word crash about the Flyer "landings" and you can translate it to your own terminology if you like. But the main reason for including that piece of text was the other information in it.

I think some events are more important than others and therefor some events should be more extensively described than unimportant entries and take more place. The Wrights and Whitehead entries are the most important ones. I think the table starts to look a lot better now, after I have explained unimportant entries with very short texts, and explained more important entries in more detail in longer texts. You have been very helpful too, and I don't change your contributions except for the most important ones which we discuss and try to find solutions which we can agree about. Roger491127 (talk) 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the table is better now too; it gives more information, and has been largely cleaned of many items of unseemly pov. DonFB (talk) 01:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Note in the history page that several people have changed this article on Dec 10, without participating in the discussion page.

I changed the entry for Wright brothers 1903. Considering the historical importance of this flight it is necessary to describe how well the controls worked, or not. How the Smithsonian could accept this as the first "controlled" and "sustained" flight is difficult to understand, considering the lack of both pitch and roll control and the lack of a controlled landing without damage to the plane. This entry says a lot about the scientific and technical integrity of the Smithsonian and FAI. The Wright brothers themselves viewed their 1905 39km flight as their first really controlled flight. Note that the quote from the Flyer III article quoted in the 1905 entry below saying "The bucking and veering that had hampered Flyers I & II were gone. The minor crashes the Wrights had experienced disappeared. The flights with the redesigned Flyer III started lasting over 20 minutes. Thus Flyer III became a practicable, as well as dependable aircraft, flying solidly for a consistent duration and bringing its pilot back to the starting point safely and landing without damage to itself." (Quoted from Wright_Flyer_III) ("bucking and veering" means barely controllable pitch and roll)

Quote from http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-48686.html "Replicas and computer models show that the Flyer was unstable, especially in pitch, and that when modern pilots have a go at flying it in the sim they usually manage about one second before they lose control. If you read Wibur's account of the flying that day, especially the last, fourth flight, it would appear that the airplane had neutral stability in roll, since when the Flyer was upset in a gust, he applied opposite control via wing warping but it had no effect and he lost control, scraping a wing and nosing in, damaging the 'front rudder'.

If you want to mention what "aviation historians" thought about it you should qualify that statement more correctly, like: Some aviation historians, especially in USA, also accepted the 1903 flight as the first controlled, manned and powered flight in world history.

Roger491127 (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inaccurate quote; unsourced statement

I changed and removed some of your edits to the Wright brothers entry for 1903. You said you were quoting the Wright Flyer article and included this phrase as part of the quotation:

"ended in an unintended nose-dive into the sand"

I do not see that phrase anywhere in the Wright Flyer article. Did you "accidentally" add it? If you were copying and pasting the quotation, it is difficult to understand how that additional phrase could suddenly appear by itself when you pasted it. Did you deliberately decide to pretend it was part of the quotation, which would raise questions about your "good faith"? You also included the following text in the entry:

Just before this "landing" the plane veered off sideways. Wilbur tried to use the wing warping controls to steer in the other direction but the wing warping controls did not work, so the end of one wing scratched the sand.

What is the source of this statement? Can you specify the page of an authoritative book or publication or website with URL? DonFB (talk) 18:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Here is another source which supports the described behavior or the plane: "In "Wilbur and Orville," (1998 edition) on pages 87-88, biographer Fred Howard writes: "Instead of righting itself in response to the wingwarping control, the machine would start sliding sideways with frightening rapidity toward the low wing. Its tip would strike the ground, and the machine would swing about the grounded wingtip."

I repeat, for the third time: Quote from http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-48686.html "Replicas and computer models show that the Flyer was unstable, especially in pitch, and that when modern pilots have a go at flying it in the sim they usually manage about one second before they lose control. If you read Wilbur's account of the flying that day, especially the last, fourth flight, it would appear that the airplane had neutral stability in roll, since when the Flyer was upset in a gust, he applied opposite control via wing warping but it had no effect and he lost control, scraping a wing and nosing in, damaging the 'front rudder'. Roger491127 (talk) 19:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Footnote 5 from the Wikipedia Verifiability Policy page:

Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Where a news organization publishes the opinions of a professional but claims no responsibility for the opinions, the writer of the cited piece should be attributed (e.g. "Jane Smith has suggested..."). Posts left by readers may never be used as sources.

My italics.DonFB (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I again removed your unsourced text about the 4th flight. See my post immediately above about blogs as sources. DonFB (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Have YOU read Wilbur's account of the flying that day, and can you deny that quote from Wilbur? Note that the quote fits well with what the Wright brothers published in 1905. "The bucking and veering that had hampered Flyers I & II were gone. The minor crashes the Wrights had experienced disappeared. The flights with the redesigned Flyer III started lasting over 20 minutes. Thus Flyer III became a practicable, as well as dependable aircraft, flying solidly for a consistent duration and bringing its pilot back to the starting point safely and landing without damage to itself." (Quoted from Wright_Flyer_III) ("bucking and veering" means barely controllable pitch and roll) What we actually should do now is check up Wilbur's account of that day, so we can find out what is true, but I guess neither of us has the resources needed for that, so we can only judge the probability of the quote. Note that the article Wright_Flyer_III mentions "bucking and veering". So it is already accepted that the roll control did not work. So the quote I used doesn't actually change anything. It just makes it easier for the reader to understand the situation. Roger491127 (talk) 20:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You need reliable, verifiable sources for text you put in a Wikipedia article, Roger. "Judging" the "probability of the quote" is no substitute, and Wikipedia is not a blog. DonFB (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't from a blog, it came from a discussion forum for aviation experts, mainly retired pilots, many with an interest for aviation history. New Pearse data comes from http://www.billzilla.org/pearce.htm Roger491127 (talk) 20:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You should put the source in a footnote or a link in the Article; that's where it belongs. If you don't, someone may challenge and remove the text—this is a controversial subject. Also, the POV "even more amazingly" and the POV exclamation point (!) do not belong in the article to emphasize the Encyclopedia's enthusiasm, unless they're included "in quotations!" to show a statement by a cited source. You're not a newbie, but I strongly recommend you read Wikpedia's Help pages and the Verifiability Policy for more guidance on how to write and edit articles.DonFB (talk) 01:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no purpose to all this. This page is a list of flying machines, NOT a forum to promote POVs. The Wright's flights can be listed, but not qualified here. --A D Monroe III (talk) 01:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

DonFB did not complain about POV, he complained about the lack of a correctly formatted footnote and an exclamation mark which he thinks is wrong somehow. I have never made footnotes before and I was afraid to make a mess out of the other footnotes and their numbers. DonFB is welcome to add a correctly formatted footnote and fix the exclamation mark problem if he likes. I gave a link to the reference in the discussion page. By the way, DonFB, why don't you add hundreds of footnotes everywhere on the page, most of the entries don't even have a single footnote. New Pearse data comes from http://www.billzilla.org/pearce.htm Roger491127 (talk) 03:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

And what is wrong with adding some info about each entry of any importance? DonFB has agreed with me that this is a good idea. A list with only airplane names would not give the reader much information. When they read this page as it was before you started deleting big chunks of relevant and important information they can follow the historical development of aviation and understand what different events are about. This page about various pioneers, vehicles and what was achieved at different moments in the history was the best and most readable of all pages which are treating the same subject. Roger491127 (talk) 03:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Now I have checked your changes and I see how much valuable and relevant information you two have deleted. I even found the exclamation mark which made you so upset. Ok, it is time to give up and change sides. Let's clean up this table, I'll help you. I just want to make sure I understood you two correctly. You want all unsourced entries without footnotes deleted? That leaves only two entries in the table. Yuan Huangtou and Abbas Ibn Firnas. OK? Roger491127 (talk) 04:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Monroe, suddenly you show up and delete important information about the Flyer series without even discussing it on this page. If you are really concerned about Reducing verbiage you should start with your own very long text you have added to at least one page about aviation history, in fact you copied a page, renamed it and added your own long and pretty useless text containing a lot of questionable stuff.

Imagine what would happen if more people follow your example and create their own versions of already existing pages. How should we name them? Monroe's page about aviation history. Eddie's page about aviation history, Bob's page about aviation history, etc.. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_flying_machine , with half of the page filled with your "verbiage" which has been ignored for a long time, nobody reads it, nobody bothers to change it, while the rest of the page is developed. Do the right thing and delete your verbiage before we have to start discussing it, point out all questionable points in it, mark it as original work, where are the references? It is all your private views and ideas. Roger491127 (talk) 22:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The text Monroe deleted is necessary because it describes the technical problems which the Wright brothers had with Flyer I, II and III until they finally found a solution which made Flyer III into a reliable machine. It explains why it took 2 years from the "first successful, sustained, controlled, manned and powered flight (according to the Smithsonian) until they succeded in solving the problems and could fly substantial distances. The sources are the wikipedia articles about the Wright brothers and the articles about the Flyer series, especially http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer_III. Roger491127 (talk) 23:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with "First flying machine"

It's been proposed that this page be merged into First flying machine. Please comment on the possible merge there. --A D Monroe III (talk) 00:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't support a merge, it would take a lot of work, and Imagine the amount of discussion which would be needed for a merge. The tabled list mainly created by me and DonFB lately is in a very good shape right now, and easy to read. The table format is not beautiful, but it is effective for organizing stuff clearly. The most important events get more space than less important events. It should not be changed. The title corresponds well with the content. It covers all kinds of early flying machines, as it should according to its title.

I suggest that the "First Flying Machine" (or whatever you want to call it) is cleaned up and that it concentrates on the first heavier than air motorized airplanes, which fits its title. Maybe even change its title to "Early airplanes" which is even more precise. Remove the last half, the Monroe text, and remove a few entries in the beginning which are clearly not about motorized flight. The rest is fairly okay and describes the development of the motorized airplane. Incomplete but beautiful.

Those changes are pretty easy to do, and then we have two articles which handle two different subjects (even if a part of the early flying machines article also describes the first motorized flights, I don't see that as a problem, the invention of the motorized airplane is interesting for a lot of people and two articles covering that controversial era is good). The two articles should have links to each other so no matter which the reader finds first he can easily find the other too.

A really interested reader will read both articles if he is interested in motorized flight, and he can follow the links to the inventors he is most interested in and find more information.

A third article, Aviation_history, is less organized. For example it has two sections titled Lighter than air, but no heavier than air section. But it contains a lot of information. I see it as a scrapheap where I can find stuff not mentioned anywhere else. It has facts about the first helicopter and the first seaplane which we can include in the tabled article. Aviation_history should be better organised and revised and it needs a lot more work. It covers a larger subject so it will hopefully get better in the future. The beginning of that article can have a short treatment of really early flight plus a link to Early flying machines and the "first airplanes" article for more information, and continue from where those articles end.

The three articles will have clearly defined subjects and complete each other.

1 Early airplanes, covers a short but intensive era of development. Approximately 1895 - 1915

2 Early flying machines covers the development from the stone age up to 1920 or so.

3 Aviation_history covers the whole subject of aviation, but it can refer to the other two articles for those special eras. It can concentrate on modern times, from around 1910 or so. with reasonable overlaps between the three articles, of course.

A fourth article I just discovered, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_flight should be deleted and people looking for it should be redirected to Early flying machines. Roger491127 (talk) 07:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I just learned to make standard references. Roger491127 (talk) 22:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations! Better late than never, eh? To make them look even cleaner, use brackets. For example: <ref>[http://somewebsite.org TITLE of Article or Website]</ref>. The brackets surround the web address and the title. Put a space between the actual web address and the Title. DonFB (talk) 22:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)