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Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles has an excellent video on this topic. The Wrights did in fact invent the airplane first and provided extensive detailed docume

Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles has an excellent video on this topic. The Wrights did in fact invent the airplane first and provided extensive detailed documentation showing their work. Alberto Santos-Dumont was working with extremely primitive propellers, basically canoe paddles, that couldn't get the job done. He and others recreating his designs later used Wright-designed propellers to get his designs into the air. The Wrights being the first is further evidenced by them being the first to both discover and solve the adverse yaw effect, without doing this controlled flight is impossible. Alberto Santos-Dumont's designs had not accounted for this, showing that he hadn't flown. Some argue that the Wright's flights don't count because they used a "rail" (long piece of wood acting as a runway, because runways did not then exist) or used a catapult. Both of these arguments are bullshit, the catapult argument in particular because their first flights at Kitty Hawk didn't use a catapult.

db48x 2y ago
And they only used a wooden rail the first year at Kitty Hawk, when they only had a glider. They had decided to tackle the problem of control first and propulsion later. The glider took off by sliding downhill on a rail, while the Flyer they built the next year took off under its own power on level ground. Not only that, but they were the first to realize that the tables of lift published by whatshisname the French guy were bogus. They built a wind tunnel so that they could make their own measurements of lift and drag. Weirdly, the wind tunnel had been invented ~50 years earlier! Apparently most of the Europeans who were playing with gliders that whole time didn’t even know about wind tunnels or they might have thought to put two and two together.
shaky-carrousel 2y ago
It seems like the propellers worked fine. > On 23 October, Santos-Dumont presented himself at Bagatelle with the Oiseau de Proie II, a modification of the original model. The plane had been varnished to reduce the porosity of the fabric and increase lift. The rear wheel had been removed. In the morning he limited himself to manoeuvring the aircraft across the field, until the propeller shaft broke. It was repaired in the afternoon, and the plane was moved into position for an official attempt. An expectant crowd was present. At 4:45 pm, Santos-Dumont started the engine.[107] The plane lifted off and flew for 60 metres,[26]: 18 without taking advantage of headwinds, ramps, catapults, slopes, or other devices. The flight had taken place solely by the aircraft's own means, and Europeans at the time believed it was the first such achievement.
- Tuna-Fish 2y ago
  That is with a wright propeller, almost 3 years after the first powered flight of the wright flyer.
  - shaky-carrousel 2y ago
    So, the Europeans at the time believed it was the first such achievement, but Dumont somehow was able to get hold of some propellers nobody in Europe heard about? Seems a bit far-fetched. As I said in another comment, the Wright Brothers were pretty secretive about their works and it wasn't until 1908 that people in Europe knew about them.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  This is the sort of propeller he was trying to use before getting the Wright design. It doesn't work: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdfERIq6zodDQ9JWFRKpWzSSt3kAB6axkH9br-LdVjR7cvwmPdYnR00bBH3FhZ8vIhraJTffA0xY5W7pQ2efERwOeMQpJakYRON5n3sH5cX-XQrSianZm641ywNosLLDT59m4xumPb3tOT/s1600/582d+Santos-Dumont+14+bis+replica.jpg https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj... https://tegustanlosaviones.blogspot.com/2019/02/14-bis.html https://tegustanlosaviones.blogspot.com/2019/02/14-bis.html
  - shaky-carrousel 2y ago
    How he could've got the Wright design when nobody in Europe have heard about the Wright experiments by the time Dumont flew his plane? Truth is, the Wright Brothers were pretty secretive about their works and it wasn't until 1908 that people in Europe knew about them. Also, by this photo, that propeller seems to be working: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santos_-_Nov12_1906.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santos_-_Nov12_1906.jpg

db48x 2y ago

And they only used a wooden rail the first year at Kitty Hawk, when they only had a glider. They had decided to tackle the problem of control first and propulsion later. The glider took off by sliding downhill on a rail, while the Flyer they built the next year took off under its own power on level ground. Not only that, but they were the first to realize that the tables of lift published by whatshisname the French guy were bogus. They built a wind tunnel so that they could make their own measurements of lift and drag. Weirdly, the wind tunnel had been invented ~50 years earlier! Apparently most of the Europeans who were playing with gliders that whole time didn’t even know about wind tunnels or they might have thought to put two and two together.

shaky-carrousel 2y ago

It seems like the propellers worked fine. > On 23 October, Santos-Dumont presented himself at Bagatelle with the Oiseau de Proie II, a modification of the original model. The plane had been varnished to reduce the porosity of the fabric and increase lift. The rear wheel had been removed. In the morning he limited himself to manoeuvring the aircraft across the field, until the propeller shaft broke. It was repaired in the afternoon, and the plane was moved into position for an official attempt. An expectant crowd was present. At 4:45 pm, Santos-Dumont started the engine.[107] The plane lifted off and flew for 60 metres,[26]: 18 without taking advantage of headwinds, ramps, catapults, slopes, or other devices. The flight had taken place solely by the aircraft's own means, and Europeans at the time believed it was the first such achievement.

Tuna-Fish 2y ago
That is with a wright propeller, almost 3 years after the first powered flight of the wright flyer.
- shaky-carrousel 2y ago
  So, the Europeans at the time believed it was the first such achievement, but Dumont somehow was able to get hold of some propellers nobody in Europe heard about? Seems a bit far-fetched. As I said in another comment, the Wright Brothers were pretty secretive about their works and it wasn't until 1908 that people in Europe knew about them.
lupusreal 2y ago
This is the sort of propeller he was trying to use before getting the Wright design. It doesn't work: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdfERIq6zodDQ9JWFRKpWzSSt3kAB6axkH9br-LdVjR7cvwmPdYnR00bBH3FhZ8vIhraJTffA0xY5W7pQ2efERwOeMQpJakYRON5n3sH5cX-XQrSianZm641ywNosLLDT59m4xumPb3tOT/s1600/582d+Santos-Dumont+14+bis+replica.jpg https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj... https://tegustanlosaviones.blogspot.com/2019/02/14-bis.html https://tegustanlosaviones.blogspot.com/2019/02/14-bis.html
- shaky-carrousel 2y ago
  How he could've got the Wright design when nobody in Europe have heard about the Wright experiments by the time Dumont flew his plane? Truth is, the Wright Brothers were pretty secretive about their works and it wasn't until 1908 that people in Europe knew about them. Also, by this photo, that propeller seems to be working: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santos_-_Nov12_1906.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santos_-_Nov12_1906.jpg