What the Wright Brothers did for us.

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The Freres Wright did not invent the first heavier than air powered airplane. They invented the first heavier than air powered flying machine that could be controlled. Samual Langley, funded with 50,000 U.S. dollars appropriated by Congress produced an airplane that flew powered by an internal combustion motor for a few hundred feet before crashing into the the Patomic River.

What the Wrights did was invent the equivalent of an aerleron (they used a warped wing) that enabled the plane to turn and bank while keeping the nose level. They broke away from the boat in the pond model of control, i.e. attempting a turn in a level plane by just rudder control. To accomplish their feat they did the following:

1. They developed a wind tunnel with which they corrected Lileanthal's lift tables and determined the best shape for optimizing lift/drag.

2. They developed from scratch an internal combustion engine with a good horsepower/weight ratio that could lift their flier and keep it in flight for considerable lengths of time.

3. They did it with their own money earned from their bicycle shop and factory. The Wright's expended $1200 dollars and succeeded in 1903 while Samuel Langley spent $50,000 of taxpayer money and failed miserably after three or four attempts.

The main contribution was the equivalent of the aerleron. All subsequent developments in heavier than air flight followed from that breakthrough. And they did it WITHOUT the government.

They didn't need no steeeeenking government.

ruveyn

Oh yeah, the guy that took a short trip off the top of a houseboat... The Wrights wrote into the model displayed in the Smithsonian, that if Langely was ever given credit for being the 'first', then all Wright materials would be withdrawn from the museum.

Well, at least the guy got an airfield named after him... The original trip by the Wright airplaine was less distance than the wingspan of a 747...