I remember the restrictions placed on the 'world's first flight' were
something along the lines of take off and land under its own power
(without crashing) and staying in the air for a certian period of time.
Every time I've seen a book list wilbur and orville wright as the first,
it also seems to mention these criteria.  Perhaps these other fellows in
Paris and New Zealand didn't quite fit these criteria?

But it's all a matter of pride anyway.  I'm just glad we have flight
now.

-Adam

Russell McMahon wrote:
>
>     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.