It's not hard to pick out the factors that enabled their success. Multiple breakthroughs were needed. What is hard is to find convincing proof that anyone beat them to it.
The amount of documentation provided by the Wrights makes denial of their claim to being the first tauntamout to Moon landing denialism. Even several years later and with the benifit of knowing of the Wright's innovations, Santos-Dumont was barely able to get off the ground for a few hundred meters while the Wrights were flying tens of kilometers.
But that's the point -- it's all about the definition of what constitutes the first airplane, which is kind of arbitrary.
If you get off the ground for a few hundred meters, why isn't that enough to be first?
Why does it need to be tens of kilometers? Are you establishing a 1km distance minimum? Based on what?
I'm not taking any position either way. But the idea that it's "Moon landing denialism" is ludicrous. It's not about whether the Wright brothers flew. It's about how you draw the definition of "flying" as opposed to e.g. an "assisted jump", which is non-obvious.
Define powered. Powered enough to take off from a flat surface without wind? Could the Flyer III do that? Or are you allowed to have wind behind you? If so, how much? Surely not 50 knots? Where's the line?
Define controlled. Look at how much Flyer I and Flyer II crashed. Are they controlled? How controlled is controlled? Where's the line?
I'm not saying who invented the plane. I'm saying reasonable people will come up with different reasonable definitions. Different totally justifiable lines. And it's not "denialism" to appreciate that reality.
It covers your points, except it doesn't mention 3-axis control that the Wrights had in their first Flyer, and the Europeans did not have until the Wrights demonstrated flying in circles.
Yes, the Flyer III could and did take off and fly without wind or catapult.
Controlled means 3 axis control. The Flyer had all the critical elements of an airplane in place.
You seem to be misunderstanding again. You are arbitrarily defining these things. Based on what? And why is your definition more valid than someone else's?
And per your own link, the earlier Flyers did not take off without wind:
> They also ignore the records of the flights the Wrights made in 1904 and 1905, which show that the catapult wasn't always used. If the Wrights felt they had sufficient headwinds, they took off without it.
It's not clear from the article when the first time was that it took off without catapult or wind. It seems to suggest 1908?
But the larger point is that you're taking the definition of flight for granted as whatever you've defined it to be. You don't seem to be acknowledging that other people can validly disagree, and that that's OK.
I actually have a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. I'm quite comfortable with the definition of powered, controlled flight. It's not arbitrary.
The thing is, nobody else even came close to the Wright's achievement for years afterwards. No amount of cooking the definition of controlled, powered flight is going to fix that for a pretender.
This isn't about aeronautical engineering. It's not about your definitions. It's not about your degree. It's not about what came afterwards.
This is about semantic definition, and how definitions of thresholds are arbitrary to a large degree, and why it's valid to differ.
Your refusal to acknowledge that another point of view might have its own validity says a lot. But the world is a larger place than just your perspective. And that's something that has consequences far beyond anything to do with who invented the first airplane.
