Michael McNeil says that the BBC chose today to clumsily, in fact mindlessly attempt to throw cold water on the notion that the Wrights were first. What a shocker.

[Via emailer Mike Daley]

Not only that, but yesterday's report of the attempted flight recreation posted on the BBC News website declared the flyer "broke apart". That's just plain wrong, as anyone who saw the attempt on TV knows.

The story carried no byline, contained no internal evidence that the reporter had witnessed the attempt (at Kitty Hawk or on television), and was, very probably, pasted together from agency reports.

I'm a big fan of Santos-Dumont, since he clearly invented the airplane completely independent of the Wrights. BUT, even he admitted the Wrights were first. Brazil certainly has every reason to be proud of Santos-Dumont. Britain, OTOH, should be ashamed of the Beeb. Bunch of idiots.

Hee..
Let me mention Richard Pearce, a New Zealand farmer who first flew in March 1902. Up to a km, and even made turns!
It's fuzzy how controllable his flights were (one terminated in a hedge), and the claim is never pressed to hard - and the Wright brother's claim to be the founders of modern aviation can't be disputed.

See Peter Jackson's Forgotten Silver for an amusing take on Pearse's flight.

This month's issue of "Fortean Times" takes on the four major counterclaims against the Wrights being first, and finds each of them wanting. It also covers in brief a batch of other claims, some preceding the Wrights by a century.

As for Pearse, FT concludes a review of the evidence (much of it in his own words) by calling his claim "a clear if sparse record of the continuous development of a flying machine from 1904 to 1909, with unequivocal statements by its creator as to its lack of success." The article describes the ongoing claims for Pearse being first as based on supposed eyewitness testimony gathered 50-60 years after the event and as something pushed by "zealously patriotic New Zealanders" who choose to ignore the primary evidence contradicting the claim.

Curiously, Santos-Dumont doesn't appear to be mentioned in the FT article at all, at least not in any of the profiles of major or minor claimants.

It does have a picture of G L O Davidson's reaaaally odd attempt at a flying machine, though.