Re: solution to the world's energy needs

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Sun, 12 Sep 1999, brian whatcott wrote:

> At 10:58 9/12/99 -0700, Bill Beaty wrote:
> > ...
> > If the Wright Brothers had encountered too big a barrier, and if all
> > lesser inventors had an even smaller chance of bringing Powered Flight
> > into the world, then "flying machines" might even now be in the same
> > situation.
>
>
> Given that my appetite for nit-picking is legion, I need to note that
> the proposition that the Wrights (who are of course personal heroes of
> mine) invented the first 'flying machines' or 'powered flying machines'
> or 'powered heavier-than-air flying machines' is an American tradition
> of the same kind as 'Lindberg was first to fly the Atlantic'.


I was under the impression that the Wrights' accomplishment was mostly to
penetrate and shatter the wall of prejudice by flying in circles at a
Paris "crackpot flying-machine" convention, and thereby trigger a
worldwide phase change regarding the "impossibility" of heavier-than-air
flying machines.

Other inventors had worked up to the point of flying for many yards in
straight-line flight.  The Wrights waltzed in with a fully developed,
fully controllable flying machine which set Europe "ablaze".

If the Wrights hadn't done this, would others have done it?  From what
I've seen of that history, and from what I know about human nature, I
cannot say yes.  Without the Wrights, there's a very good chance that
experimentation would have fizzled out.

Without the Wrights, none of the boxkite-wingwarp inventions of others
would have existed, since the Wrights' early glider patent made all of the
other "flying machine crackpots" sit up and take notice.  The rest of the
flying-machine crackpots might have continued to purse steam-driven
ornithopters, or whatever was the hot crackpot topic before boxkite
gliders took over.  With enough failures & wasted money involved,
serious contenders might leave the arena, and only the crackpottiest
crackpots would be left to continue the struggle.


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William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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