PICLIST &         BCC to a few others who MIGHT find it interesting
(maybe not :-)

Wagner said -
>We need to remember that in less than a single generation time, we went
>from the first documented airplane flight with Mr. Alberto Santos Dumont
>in Paris (by the way another Brazilian fellow) up to send robots to
>Mars.


Actually, the first powered flight was made by a New Zealander, Richard
Pearse *, but don't tell the American's - they think that they did it.

If you think the Wright brothers were clever (and they were) you should see
what one man working by himself without any support organisation, came up
with! He even designed and built a VTOL aircraft (but it didn't) with
variable motor angle for takeoff to horizontal transition.). The remains of
the original "1st flight" aircraft are displayed in Auckland's MOTAT museum.
They were dug from a river bank where they remained for many years after the
crash at the end of its first and only flight .

Like Orville & Wilbur, Richard had to build his own engine from scratch (it
appears to be a 4 cylinder flat-four (like a VW :-) engine but muuuch
smaller) from the appearance of the glass-cased remains).

His aircraft however was quite different from W&O's. If you copied it with
modern materials it would be undetectable in a field full of modern
microlights - single high wing, tricycle undercarriage (maybe 2 wheels and
skid?), pilot seated in midst below wing, very light weight pipe framework.
Overall very light and compact and sensible. There's also a full scale
replica flying forever (Ok, suspended) so you can examine its lines. Looks
good to me (but I'm not an aircraft expert).

International aviation experts will probably remain forever uncertain
whether RP's craft did actually fly (although the case looks very good to
me).
US aviation experts will forever remain absolutely certain that it didn't
:-)
IF it did, he probably beat the Wright Brothers. Dunno about Mr ASD.



Russell McMahon

* - he also used to make his own PICs out of melted sand, his airstrip was
cut out of raw gorse wasteland and was uphill both ways and he flew in
winter in 6 foot (1.828800000000 metre) snowdrifts and his hangar was a
cardboard box at the bottom of a lake (frozen, of course). I can't work out
where the barefoot in the snow without shoes (or feet) should be fitted in.