Claims to the first airplane flight
It is popularly held in Brazil that their native citizen Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first successful aviator, discounting the Wright brothers' claim because their Flyer took off from a rail, and in later flights would sometimes employ a catapult.
In 1874 Félix du Temple built a steam-powered aeroplane which took off from a ramp with a sailor on board and remained airborne for a short distance.
[2][3] Ten years later in 1884 the Russian Alexander Mozhaysky achieved similar success, launching his craft from a ramp and remaining airborne for 30 m (98 ft).
[2] Clément Ader's Éole of 1890 was a bat-winged tractor monoplane which achieved a brief, uncontrolled hop, becoming the first heavier-than-air machine in history to take off from level ground under its own power.
The brothers began to gain recognition in Britain, where Colonel John Edward Capper was taking charge of Army aeronautical work.
[2] In the United States, the Smithsonian Institution, and primarily its then-Secretary Charles Walcott, refused to give credit to the Wright Brothers for the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft.
Orville, the surviving Wright brother, began a long and bitter public relations battle to force it to recognize their claim to primacy, his disgust reaching such a peak that in 1928 he sent the historic Flyer for display in the British Science Museum in London.
[2] Ader's claim for the Avion III was refuted four years later in 1910, when the French Ministry for War finally published its report on his work.
[22] Whitehead's claims were not taken seriously until two journalists, Stella Randolph and Harvey Phillips, wrote an article in a 1935 edition of Popular Aviation journal.
Harvard University economics professor John B. Crane responded with a rebuttal, published in National Aeronautic Magazine in December 1936.
The book criticised the Smithsonian Institution for its contracted obligation to credit only the 1903 Wright Flyer for the first powered controlled flight, claiming that it created a conflict of interest and had been kept secret.
[citation needed] On March 8, 2013, the aviation annual Jane's All the World's Aircraft published an editorial by Paul Jackson endorsing the Whitehead claim.
[29] Responding to the renewed controversy, Tom Crouch, a senior curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, formally acknowledged the Wright contract, saying that it had never been a secret.
[12] He also stated; I can only hope that, should persuasive evidence for a prior flight be presented, my colleagues and I would have the courage and the honesty to admit the new evidence and risk the loss of the Wright Flyer.Scientific American published a rebuttal of the Whitehead claims written by its senior copy editor Daniel C. Schlenoff, who asserted, regarding the Bridgeport Herald report, that "The consensus on the article is that it was an interesting work of fiction.
During this period, and in due course supported by the United States War Department, he conducted aeronautical experiments, culminating in his manned Aerodrome A.
[2] Some ten years later in 1914 Glenn Curtiss modified the Aerodrome and flew it a few hundred feet, as part of his attempt to fight a patent owned by the Wright brothers, and as an effort by the Smithsonian to rescue Langley's aeronautical reputation.
Fred Howard, extensively documenting the controversy, wrote: "It was a lie pure and simple, but it bore the imprimatur of the venerable Smithsonian and over the years would find its way into magazines, history books, and encyclopedias, much to the annoyance of those familiar with the facts.
[10] On December 17, 1903, a few miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright brothers launched their aeroplane from a dolly running along a short rail, which was laid on level ground.
The Flyer moved forward under its own engine power and was not assisted by catapult, a device the brothers did use during flight tests in the next two years and at public demonstrations in the U.S. and Europe in 1908–1909.
Pioneers such as Octave Chanute and the British Army officer Lt. Col. John Capper were among those who believed the Wrights' public and private statements about their flights.
[5] By 1907 the Wrights' claims were accepted widely enough for them to be in negotiations with Britain, France and Germany as well as their own government, and early in 1908 they concluded contracts with both the US War Department and a French syndicate.
Subsequent flights of both brothers that year went on to astonish the world and their early claims gained almost universal public recognition as legitimate.
[5] Subsequent criticisms of the Wrights have included accusations of secrecy before coming to Europe in 1908, the use of a catapult-assisted launch,[37] and such a lack of aerodynamic stability as to make the machine almost unflyable.
Following the Curtiss experiments with the Langley Aerodrome in 1914, surviving Wright brother Orville began a long and bitter campaign against the Smithsonian to gain recognition.
A clause in the contract required the Smithsonian to claim primacy for the Wrights, at risk of losing their newly acquired prize exhibit.
[citation needed] The lateral control system comprised ailerons mounted between the wings and attached to a harness worn by the pilot, who was intended to correct any rolling movement by leaning in the opposite direction.
[40] In 1894 Hiram Maxim tested a flying machine running on a track and held down by safety rails because it lacked adequate flight control.
[1] John Hall, of Springfield, Massachusetts was credited, alongside Whitehead, with flights prior to the Wrights by Crane in his 1947 Air Affairs magazine article.
[41][42] Biographer Geoffrey Rodliffe wrote, "no responsible researcher has ever claimed that he achieved fully controlled flight before the Wright brothers, or indeed at any time".
[49] Romanian sources give him credit as first to take off and fly using his machine's "own self provided energy" and no "external support"—references to not using a rail or catapult, as the Wright brothers had done.
