All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
Nov. 15, 2016 - Skeptoid
18:02
Skeptoid #545: First in Flight

You always thought the Wright Brothers were the first to fly a plane? Well, it depends what country you're from. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|

Time Text
The First Powered Flight 00:07:24
When we ask who was first in flight, we assume all the usual qualifiers.
Powered flight, controlled flight, heavier-than-air, and so on.
It's enough specifics that we should be able to nail down who was first to meet them all.
And if you ask most of the world, they'll say Orville and Wilbur Wright.
But if you ask in other parts of the world, they'll say it was a Brazilian French man named Alberto Santos Dumont.
Can they both be right?
Today we're going to find out who was first in flight on Skeptoid.
A quick reminder for everyone, you're listening to Skeptoid, revealing the true science and true history behind urban legends every week since 2006.
With over a thousand episodes, we're celebrating 20 years of keeping it focused and keeping it brief.
And we couldn't have done it without your curiosity leading the way.
And now we're even offering a little bit more.
If you become a premium member, supporting the show with a monthly micropayment of as little as $5, you get more Skeptoid.
The premium version of the show is not only ad-free, it has extended content.
These episodes are a few minutes longer.
We get rid of the ads and we'll replace them with more Skeptoid.
The Extended Premium Show available now.
Come to Skeptoid.com and click Go Premium.
You're listening to Skeptoid.
I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.
First in Flight.
If you watched the opening ceremonies of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, you might have been surprised to see a celebration of the first manned flight in an aircraft.
And it wasn't the Wright brothers.
What's this, you might have said?
Flagrant pseudo-history?
Well, maybe and maybe not.
Historical firsts are not always cut and dried.
We saw this in stark detail back in episode 154 about who was the first to break the sound barrier.
Not only are some historical claims questionable, some goalposts are subject to interpretation.
Need a flight be powered to be called the first?
Need it be controlled?
Need it travel a certain distance, last a certain duration, crest a certain altitude?
All of these come into play when we try to learn who was the first to fly an airplane.
Many inventors were part of the saga toward the first flight, but we can only include a few here.
Those we'll discuss today have the strongest claims, and since there's no firm place where we can draw the line, I'm going to draw it at how many we can squeeze into a Skeptoid episode.
Gustave Whitehead and Richard Pierce are two I omitted because their claims are not considered reliable.
So without further ado, let us now delve into history's timeline and see what our characters were up to and when.
We'll pick it up in 1886 when Frenchman Climaud Ader drew up the design for a craft he called the Eor, part steampunk, part bat.
It didn't look like it would be much of a flyer, but when he took it for a spin on October 9th, 1890, it actually made a few short hops into the air when its lightweight steam engine, of Auder's own design, was at full throttle, a few meters at a time at most.
His contemporaries focused on the basics, building gliders.
The whole decade of the 1890s saw gliders refined worldwide to a high degree.
A pilot could launch from the top of a dune and glide perhaps 100 meters or more.
It seemed that soon someone was bound to take it to the next level.
And so someone did.
On May 6th, 1896, Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Langley launched an unpiloted drone from a spring catapult atop a houseboat on the Potomac River.
Aerodrome No. 5 flew for one kilometer powered by a one-cylinder steam engine before splashing down.
Six months later, on November 11th, Aerodrome No. 6 flew 1.5 kilometers.
Audair took note and was now ready with a third generation of his flying machine, which he called Avion 3.
It was a great, gorgeous, bat-winged machine straight out of H.G. Wells.
On October 14th, 1897, Avion 3 crashed and was severely damaged before it could get off the ground.
Auddair never tried again.
This left Langley as the leader in world aviation by default, and his successes, coupled with his considerable political connections, prompted the War Department to grant him $50,000 in 1898, and the Smithsonian added another $20,000 to continue his work.
On the 18th of August, a German inventor and public servant built a triplane that looked like a person seated between stacked dinner plates.
Carl Jato was his name.
He had no flight controls either, but he did manage to get about a meter off the ground and covered a distance of 18 meters in his odd-looking craft.
Finally, Langley was ready to try again with his well-financed and powerful new plane, the 50-horsepower Aerodrome A. On October 7th, he set it up on the catapult atop the houseboat again, piloted by his assistant, Charles Manley.
Unfortunately, at launch, part of the plane caught on the catapult mechanism and it was dumped unceremoniously into the river.
Yato pulled on his goggles again, this time having removed one of his plane's wings, making it nominally a biplane, if visually still a stack of dinner plates.
In November of 1903, he flew for 60 meters, achieving an altitude of 3 meters.
But he still had no flight controls, and he wrote that his motor was simply too weak to go any faster or higher.
And it was Langley's turn again on December 8th.
Manley revved the engine, Langley pulled the control to fire the catapult, and disaster struck again.
The plane was pulled apart by the catapult action, again dumping Manley and the wreck into the river.
Manley announced his retirement from Langley's program.
Meanwhile, two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, had been spending a lot of time at some sand dunes south of their camp in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, designing, flying, and perfecting gliders.
Six days after Manley's second swim, on December 14th, the brothers set up their first powered plane, dubbed the Flyer, on a rail.
It had skids instead of wheels, so to take off, it rode on a dolly along a rail.
With Wilbur lying at the controls, the flyer took off and flew 34 meters.
Manley's Failed Attempts 00:02:16
But it landed a bit hard, damaging the front elevator, which they called a rudder.
They elected not to count this flight as the rail was sloped downhill.
The next day, Wilbur telegrammed their father about the 112-foot flight.
Misjudgment at start reduced flight 112.
Power and control ample.
Rudder only injured.
Success assured.
Keep quiet.
In a world that can feel overwhelming, spreading thoughtful, evidence-based content is one of the best ways to make a positive impact.
Ask your local public radio station to air the Skeptoid Files, a 30-minute radio-friendly version of Skeptoid that pairs two related episodes promoting real science, true history, and critical thinking.
And in these challenging times for public media, we're offering these broadcasts for free to radio stations, available on the PRX Exchange or directly from Skeptoid Media.
It's an easy ask.
Just send a quick message to your station's programming director.
By helping to bring the Skeptoid files to the airwaves, you'll help promote the essential skills we all need to tell fact from fiction.
Just go to your local station's website, find the programming director's email address, or just their general email address.
You can even use the telephone.
I know that might sound crazy.
It's an old legacy device that allows real-time voice communication.
I know that's weird, but hey, it's an option.
The world can feel chaotic, but you're not powerless.
When you promote critical thinking, you can help your community tell fact from fiction.
And that's how we shape a better future.
In uncertain times, spreading good ideas can make you feel helpful, not helpless.
Let's stand up for reason, truth, and understanding together.
Get them to air the Skeptoid files from Skeptoid Media, available on the PRX Exchange, and they'll know what that is.
Three days later, on the 17th, they'd fixed the elevator and had a good strong wind of 21 miles per hour.
Wright Brothers Prove It 00:06:05
They put their launching rail on flat ground, pointed into the wind, and this time made four flights.
The brothers took turns, Orville then Wilbur.
Each flight was longer than the last, and all went perfectly.
A number of friends and assistants witnessed and took excellent photographs.
The last flight of the day rose to an altitude of about three meters and covered 260 meters.
Wilbur attempted no turns, but had excellent control and kept the flyer straight and level.
This time, the telegram said, Success.
Four flights Thursday morning, all against 21-mile wind.
Started from level with engine power alone.
Average speed through air, 31 miles.
Longest, 57 seconds.
Inform press.
Home Christmas.
Orville Wright, 5.25 p.m.
Unfortunately, while carrying the flyer back to its shed, a gust caught it and it got away from the men and cartwheeled and was severely damaged.
Rather than repair it, the brothers elected to build an improved replacement.
The original Wright Flyer never flew again.
The Flyer II was brought out for a press demonstration on May 24th, 1904, but this time they elected not to travel all the way to the coast from Ohio and instead set up at Huffman Prairie Flying Field in Dayton.
The winds there were slack without much of a headwind to take off into, so they built a catapult.
It was a wooden tower inside of which a weight dropped, pulling a rope which launched the Flyer 2 along its rail.
Like the original Flyer, this plane had no wheels either.
The brothers made many flights over the next few months, with their best on November 9th, when the Flyer 2 made two five-minute flights in circles.
Most used the catapult, but on windier days it was unnecessary.
The next year in 1905, their Flyer 3 made its maiden flight, and by October 5th, it proved it could fly as long as its pilot wanted to.
Wilbur stayed aloft for 38 minutes, flying 40 kilometers until his fuel ran out.
This is when the French began to take notice.
A week after Wilbur's flight, the International Aeronautical Foundation, FAI, was founded in Paris, intended to be the governing body of the sport of flying.
The FAI also offered prizes for aviation milestones, milestones which, oddly, had already been obliterated by the Wright brothers.
For example, flights of 25 meters and 100 meters, while the Wrights had flown 40 kilometers only a week before.
The prizes required that the flight meet seven criteria.
One, the flight should be done before an official organization qualified to ratify it.
Two, the flight should be done in calm weather and over a plain ground and properly documented.
Three, the machine should be able to take off from a designated area by its own means with a man on board.
Four, the machine should carry on board the necessary source of energy.
Five, the machine should fly in a straight line.
Six, the machine should make a change of direction, turn and circle.
And seven, the machine should return to the starting point.
Obviously, none of the Wrights flights could satisfy the first criterion because the FAI, being the only official organization, had not yet existed.
The Wrights were also excluded on the second and third criteria, that of a calm day and using its own means, since the Wrights either flew into headwinds or used the catapult.
They had demonstrated taking off on skids alone without the catapult.
It was just that the catapult provided a smoother, quicker launch.
Enter Alberto Santos Dumo, born in Brazil, but a longtime resident of France.
He'd had success building airships and now turned to aircraft, inspired by the Wright's success and hungry for the FAI prizes.
By August of 1906, he'd begun ground taxiing tests of his Cator's B, Box Kite Aircraft, or 14 BIS.
The pilot, who stood in an airship basket, had a limited amount of control by leaning side to side.
On September 9th, Santos Dumo got off the ground, traveling about 7 meters for a large cheering crowd.
By October 23rd, he made a 60-meter flight and claimed the first of the FAI prizes, despite Yato and the Wrights both having already done that much.
He added ailerons hoping for more control, and on November 12th, made the Cator's B's longest flight at 220 meters.
Like all the Cator's B's flights, it took off upwind, as did the Wrights.
As there was really no other way to get off the ground, even today, all planes take off upwind.
Nevertheless, the FAI was satisfied that powered controlled flight had finally been achieved and awarded the 100-meter prize to Santos Dumo.
Critics have noted that the Cator's B never met either of the FAI's final two criteria, turning and circling, and returning to the starting point.
The Cator's B was never capable of controlled turns, certainly not a circle, and it returned to its starting point only once it was back down on the ground.
Some WAGs have noted that some French sporting bodies tend to apply rules selectively to favor Europeans over Americans, but I will leave that to you to debate on your own.
It was three years after the Wright brothers, was a much shorter flight, and had little meaningful control, but it is still considered by much of the world to be the first successful flight due to its recognition by the FAI.
Defining First In Flight 00:02:12
The question of who was first comes down to how you choose to measure it.
It's clear that the rights were flying far better and much earlier than Santos Dumont achieved and even before the FAI and its criteria existed.
But what's not clear is whether that's how you choose to make the call.
As in all subjective comparisons, science is not always the determining factor.
Let me come to you.
Skeptoid has lots of fun live shows for our general audiences, for your skeptic club, your university class, even business-oriented classes for your company.
They're lots of fun.
You can come to skeptoid.com and click on live shows, or just email me at brian at skeptoid.com and let's work something out.
I'd love to come to your neighborhood.
You're listening to Skeptoid, a listener-supported program.
I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.
Hello, everyone.
This is Adrienne Hill from Skookum Studios in Calgary, Canada, the land of maple syrup and mousse.
And I'm here to ask you to consider becoming a premium member of Skeptoid for as little as $5 per month.
And that's only the cost of a couple of Tim Horton's double doubles.
And that's Canadian for coffee with double cream and sugar.
Why support Skeptoid?
If you are like me and don't like ads, but like extended versions of each episode, Premium is for you.
If you want to support a worthwhile nonprofit that combats pseudoscience, promotes critical thinking, and provides free access to teachers to use the podcast in the classroom via the Teacher's Toolkit, then sign up today.
Remember that skepticism is the best medicine.
Next to giggling, of course.
Until next time, this is Adrienne Hill.
From PRX
Export Selection