WEBVTT - Five First Flights 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:03.960 Hey, everybody. Before we get started today, we want to 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:08.480 make sure everyone knows about our upcoming live shows. First up, 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:12.880 Holly will be at Salt Lake Comic Con September one, three. 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.040 I won't be able to make it to that one, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.480 so past guest and friend of the show, Brian Young 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:23.200 will be talking with her about Lawn Cheney. Then on 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.920 October six pm, we will be appearing as part of 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.560 New York Comic Con Presents, and we'll be talking about 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.000 the first comic book. You can find out more information 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.680 on all of this ticket links everything like that if 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.200 you go to missed in History dot com and click 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:45.360 the link that says live shows. Welcome to steph you 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:54.960 missed in History class from how Stuff Works dot com. 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tray C. V. 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.120 Wilson and I'm Holly Fry So, Holly, you and I 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.480 have been hosts of the show for a little over 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:10.640 four years now Is that all? Actually? Now that I 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.480 think about it, some patterns have emerged in the comments 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.000 that we get when we share stories on particular topics 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.560 over those uh coming up on five years, like mentioning 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:27.959 Paul Revere prompts comments about Sybil Lettington, who we talked 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:32.240 about in Six More Impossible Episodes. UH. Posts about George 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.240 Gordon Lord Byron usually get replies about his daughter Ada Lovelace, 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.880 who has also been the subject of a past episode. UM. 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.040 Anytime we post anything about the Right Brothers, we get 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.000 lots of comments about other people who are not the 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:51.000 Right Brothers, who we should be talking about. Yeah, various 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:55.080 levels from hey did you know about two? You're horrible 0:01:55.080 --> 0:02:01.600 and you ignored these important people. Right. So, one reason 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.120 for all these Right Brothers comments is that the Right 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:09.519 Brothers first has a lot of qualifiers on it. People 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.320 flew in balloons well before the Rights took to the 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.320 air in a plane. There were a lot of gliders 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.640 before them, as well as including ones that they designed 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.600 while they were working toward powered flight. Powered dirigibles also 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.640 predate powered airplanes, and there were also a lot of 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.280 heavier than airplanes that managed to get up off the ground, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.480 but not necessarily in a way that you could describe 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:40.080 as flying, its falling with style. Right. So, when people 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.520 say that the Right Brothers were first in quotation marks, Uh, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.200 there's a series of very particular circumstances we're talking about. 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.520 We're talking about an aircraft heavier than air that achieved 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.440 a sustained and controlled and self powered flight with a 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.560 person on board. All that stuff together and really a 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.800 lot of these distinctions are kind of arbitrary. There's also 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.080 some legitimate conversation to be had about just how controlled 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:09.160 the White Wright brothers first flights really were. Uh, there 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.120 was some careening involved in some cases. So we're gonna 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.920 talk about all of that today and some of the 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:18.359 other folks who come up pretty often as people who 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.480 maybe shouldn't be considered to have flown before the Right brothers. 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:23.480 And we're going to say right from the beginning that 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.799 all the men that we're talking about today, we're all 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:28.720 really remarkable in their own way, regardless of whether we 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:32.480 get to say first before their achievement. And we also 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.120 want to know that even though the people that we're 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.800 talking about today are all men, we have a whole 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.480 women in Aviation tag on our website that has lots 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:45.120 of groundbreaking female aviators as well. We're not leaving them out, 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.440 but we're gonna start just as a level set with 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.440 the Wright brothers. So even among people who agree that 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.520 they were first, there is still something to disagree on. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.800 And that's whether Ohio, where the Wright brothers were from, 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.320 or North Carolina, where they refined their glider designs and 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.440 took their first powered flight, should get most of the credit. 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.240 Whether this interstate disagreement is good natured or not really 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.880 depends on who you ask. And both states have references 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.120 to flight, and the Right brothers flyer on their license 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.840 plates and their state quarters. So the Right Brothers started 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.800 experimenting with flight in the late eight nineties. Wilbert wrote 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.000 to the Smithsonian and to ask for all the prior 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.120 research that they had on it, saying that he was 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:33.000 quote an enthusiast but not a crank overall, though you know, 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.880 aside from talking to the Smithsonian and whatnot, they were 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:40.800 comparatively quiet about what they were doing. Other innovators, including 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:45.000 Samuel Langley of the Smithsonian. We're making very public attempts 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.280 at flight, And it was actually Langley that the Smithsonian 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.800 first supported as being able to claim first flight status. 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.240 The Right brothers, on the other hand, were tinkering, refining, 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.839 and learning from their mistakes, all without a lot of fanfare. 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:02.839 This would be come doubly true after their first successful flight, 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.680 at which point they became very secretive, especially once they 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.919 were embroiled in a patent or over their flight control system. 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.200 So the Right Brothers shows the outer banks of North 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.880 Carolina as their testing ground because the constant wind helped 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.480 with the lift. They first refined the gliders that they 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.360 were working on until they were satisfied with their aerodynamics, 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.200 and then they turned their attention to power, developing a 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:30.720 lightweight gasoline engine UH and a propeller. The end result 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.479 was the six five pound eleven point eight one horsepower Flyer, 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.799 which they tried to use for a powered controlled flight 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.919 with the person on board on December fourteenth three. This 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.240 attempt at kill Devil Hills with Wilbur flying did not 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.599 go well. Rather than creating a wheeled undercarriage, they launched 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.560 the flyer from a wooden rail, which it traveled down 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.680 on a wheeled dolly On December fourteenth, Wilbur climbed too 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.920 sharply after leaving that rail, and the flyers stall and crashed. 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.880 They had it repaired in time for another attempt on 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:08.360 December three, and at about ten thirty five in the morning, 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.280 Orville made a brief and, as we noted at the 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.719 top of the show, somewhat careening hundred and twenty ft 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:18.800 or thirty six meter flight stayed aloft for about twelve seconds. 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.440 They had set up a camera ahead of time, and 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.480 John T. Daniels activated the shutter to take the now 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.799 famous picture of the flyer aloft with Wilbur running alongside 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.680 of it. They tried three more times that day taking turns, 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.839 with their best attempt being there last of the afternoon. 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.480 Wilbur flew eight hundred fifty nine feet that's about two 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.120 hundred and sixty two in just under a minute. Then 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.920 the flyer pitched and, in Orville's words quote darted into 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.240 the ground. They sent their father a telegram that night 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:54.480 to tell him the news. Unfortunately, back in their base camp, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.360 a gust of wind flipped the flyer over and wrecked it, 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.840 and at that point it was too badly damaged to 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.880 be easily repaired, so that put a temporary end to 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.600 their attempts at flight. The Rights kept refining and improving 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.880 their designs from there, testing and making adjustments as they went. 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.440 On October five, n o five, they flew thirty eight 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.640 kilometers near Dayton, Ohio in the right Flyer three. This 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.400 was its own type of first a flight measured in 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.720 kilometers instead of meters was a feat at the time. 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.840 Next we are going to talk about perhaps the rights 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:32.840 most fanciful challengers was self taught French engineer and aviator 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.920 Claimant Adair. He was born on February four, eighteen forty one, 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.840 and like a lot of the other early aviators, he 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:44.080 got his start with ballooning. He made his first heavier 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:46.920 than aircraft in eighteen seventy three, which was pulled on 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.120 a tether, kind of like a kite. He also studied 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.240 birds and bats, and they would go on to influence 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.920 his aircraft designs. Adair's first powered aircraft was a monoplane 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.080 that he named aol after Ale of Greek mythology, and 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.240 he was granted a patent for it on August eleven. 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.240 On October nine, eight ninety it left the ground and 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.160 moved about a hundred and sixty five feet that's about 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.320 fifty meters, But this wasn't really so much a flight 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.600 as it was a hop. He'd successfully made a vessel 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.640 that could go in the air and come back down, 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:22.920 but it couldn't stay in the air in any sort 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:28.880 of meaningful way. They're claimed. He made another more successful 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:33.320 attempt in September of the following year, although historians generally 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:37.920 doubt that one actually happened. In a day, was granted 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.760 a subsidy from the French Minister of War to work 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.719 on another aircraft. The result, after a couple of iterations, 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:49.120 was the Avian three, another monoplane with twin twenty horsepower 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.240 steam engines with foot pedals to control the rudder, the 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.240 rear wheels, and the speed of the propellers. There was 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.199 also a crank that could change the positioning of the wings. 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.760 Because aircraft never really made it off the ground. On 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:07.199 October twelfth, it traveled around a circular track in Sassory, France, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.839 but it never really lifted off. It did briefly come 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.520 off the track during a test on October fourteenth, but 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.040 it didn't remain airborne. This was you could imagine, It's 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.000 like if something hit a hit a bump and sort 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.400 of leapt up in the air. It was that level 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:27.040 of yea. Because this project was being funded by the 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:31.240 Ministry of War, the government had a representative witnessing these tests, 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.520 and that general's assessment that witnessed them was that though 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.959 the Aviano three had not successfully flown, those tests should continue. 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.760 The Ministry of War disagreed, and it cut its losses 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:47.559 at sixty five thousand francs. The Avon three eventually made 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.320 its way to Muse desu Amitier in Paris. But in 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.880 nineteen o six, Alberto Santos Dumont, who you're going to 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:59.319 talk about next, made Europe's first public airplane flight. So 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.560 clament and Air was really frustrated that he had not 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.720 gotten here first, and he started claiming that he had 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.360 made a successful flight aboard the Avian three, having gone 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:13.520 at least three or ninety meters during those October fourteen tests. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.000 He offered no substantiation for this claim, though, and it 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:22.240 directly contradicted what the General had reported. Flight historians generally 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.320 agree that this is a fabrication trying to get in 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:31.199 on that um that's sweet, sweet first money. Of all 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.000 the aircraft that we're talking about today, Adairs looked the 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.840 least like a conventional airplane. He fashioned his with wings 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.080 pattern after a bat, and the avy On three's propeller 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:45.000 blades looked like feathers. It looks like if a tiny 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.360 race of forest creatures in a video game tried to 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.800 make an airplane which to me sounds delightful and I 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.680 wish they all looked that way. It is pretty delightful. 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.920 There will be a picture of it as part of 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.880 the art for this on our website. So it doesn't 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.480 appear that he ever actually made a successful sustained flight, 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.600 but he did succeed in innovated in other areas, including 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.400 in telephone technology. He gave a demonstration of his stereo 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.400 telephone device at the one Paris Exposition of Electricity, and 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:16.880 he earned a patent for it later that same year. 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:22.679 Adair died into lose a March fifth, ninet. So next 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:27.600 we are going to get to another, uh, pretty fascinating character. 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.440 That is Alberto Santos Dumont. We're gonna talk about that 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:40.079 after a break. Unlike claimant Adair, who, as we said earlier, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.840 was self taught, Alberto Santos Dumont was formally trained in 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.760 physics and mechanics, as well as in chemistry and an astronomy. 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.520 He was born in Brazil on July seventy three, and 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.280 he was the son of a wealthy coffee planter. When 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.560 he was eighteen, he went to Paris to study. He 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:01.440 was twenty five when he started experimenting ballooning, making his 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.680 first ascent in Paris on July four in a balloon 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.040 he had named Brazil, and he quickly started trying to 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.560 figure out how to build a practical balloon that could 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.600 be steered. So at that point, as you may recall 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.520 from our numerous episodes on balloon ing, most balloons could 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.080 change altitudes, but they were really at the mercy of 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:23.200 the wind when it came to the direction of their travel. 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:27.920 Figuring out how to make a reliably steerable balloon required 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.599 him to rethink basically everything from the shape of the 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.400 balloon itself, to the materials it was made up, to 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.600 the system used to steer, to the engine used to 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.760 drive it. He wound up designing his own three point 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:44.880 five horsepower gasoline powered internal combustion engine, that being one 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.000 that was safe enough to use an hydrogen filled bag 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.079 of gas, which at the time was quite a feat like. 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:56.559 Making an internal combustion engine that was was safe enough 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.520 and reliable enough to not set that bag of gas 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.920 on fire was a big deal, and the Santos Dumont 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.560 number one, his first attempt at a steered balloon, ascended 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.960 on September eighteenth. He tinkered with the design and the 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:15.199 Santos Dumont number three ascended on November eighteen nine. He 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.960 was able to steer it around the Eiffel Tower several 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:22.480 times before landing. On October nineteenth, nineteen o one, the 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.800 Santos Dumont number six took off from Saint Cloud, circled 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.520 the Eiffel Tower and returned, and under thirty minutes was 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.320 earned the Aero Club of Francis Deutsch prize, which had 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.120 been announced more than a year before in an effort 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:40.199 to inspire aeronautical innovation. This prize, which I mean this 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.360 was an accomplishment for sure. They basically set this prize 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.000 at a hundred thousand francs, which they did because they 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.680 didn't think it was actually possible that anybody would pull 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.640 it off. So he won that prize and distributed a 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.920 quarter of it to his crew and then gave the 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.839 rest of it to the Parisian poor. And at first 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.600 they actually tried to deny him the prize because it 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.280 took a minute in twenty five seconds to secure the 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.959 aircraft at the finish line, putting the trek just over 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.520 that thirty minute mark. He offered to do the whole 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:14.040 thing over again, and the judging committee ultimately reversed their decision. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.560 So this was the first really effective demonstration of a 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:24.000 practical airship. Previous attempts at airships had been a lot 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:27.800 more limited than this design. But after this success, Santos 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.280 S Dumont decided that dirigibles were way too influenced by 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.880 weather condition to ever by weather conditions to ever become 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.800 a truly workable method of transportation, So he turned his 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:43.320 attention to heavier than airplanes. So back in Brazil, he 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.480 designed the fourteen BES or if you're looking at its 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.720 fourteen dash b I S and that's a boxy looking 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.920 biplane with a twenty four horsepower motor. It looked boxy 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.160 because it was designed from box kites, and unlike the 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.640 Right Brothers who used a wooden launching rail to become 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.160 airble worn, he wanted to make an aircraft that could 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.720 take off under its own means. His first attempt to 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.480 do so in July of nineteen o six failed, Another 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.000 attempt on September seven barely left the ground, and then 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.360 a few days later he made a meter off the ground, 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.120 And every time he would sort of address the problems 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.280 that came up. Whatever he discovered that seemed like it 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:23.640 was preventing him from reaching its successful flight, he would 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.880 refine the design and then he would try again. On 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.760 October twenty three, nineteen o six, the fourteen Bees took off, 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.280 traveled about sixty meters at about three ft in the air, 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.080 and then landed. A flight on November twelfth, nineteen o 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.440 six flew two and twenty. Both of these were obviously 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.160 after the December seventeenth, nine o three Wright Brothers flight, 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:51.160 and he was in fact inspired by that success. The 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.760 reason that people point to Alberto Santos Dumont over the 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.440 Right Brothers is that this whole distinction of the wheeled 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.640 undercarriage on the beasts versus the wooden launching rail that 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.840 the Right flyer was using. The argument is that the 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.600 Rights flyer doesn't count because the plane relied on separate 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.560 pieces to take off rather than an integrated set of 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.240 wheels that were actually part of the aircraft. They are 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:21.120 also some very passionate Santos Dumont supporters who argue that 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.440 the Rights didn't fly in three at all, suggesting that 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.280 all their secrecy was really a cover up, and that 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.360 their continued use of a launching rail was evidence that 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.640 they had never really perfected their earlier designs. So I 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.040 don't know if I would go so far as to 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.720 say that's accurate. But in terms of this was a 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.440 self contained aircraft that took off under its own power 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:46.720 rather than using a launching rail, I kind of my 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:51.320 opinion is that actually has some merit. Yeah. Santos Dumont 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.880 didn't stop with the fourteen Bees. He went on to 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:58.640 design the Demoisille or Dragonfly, a practical light aircraft, and 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:00.840 he published the plans for any one to use to 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.919 build their own. But in nineteen ten he was seriously 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.160 hurt in a plane crash, and that led to him 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.120 having a number of ongoing physical issues and it kept 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:14.880 him from ever flying again. He had also genuinely, passionately 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.119 loved flight, and he was terribly dismayed at the growing 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.480 use of aircraft in warfare, and he was especially upset 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.920 by because he felt like he was personally responsible. There 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.960 had been so many developments and aviation that were either 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.640 his or that built off of work that he had done. 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.680 And in addition to the lingering effects of the nineteen 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.280 ten crash, he also became seriously ill. He died by 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:41.919 suicide on July twenty nine, thirty two. In addition to 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.320 the aviation awards he earned during his lifetime, he was 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.720 a charismatic showman who became something of a celebrity. Contemporary 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.600 accounts also described him as flamboyant and somewhat feminine, and 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.919 there's been some speculation about what his sexual orientation might 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.600 have been. Today, he is still a highly feered figure 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.919 in Brazil, known as the father of the Brazilian Air Force. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.479 Multiple roads and schools, as well as the town he 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.840 was born in, have been named after him. Now we 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.080 will move on to Richard Pierce, who, for our first 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.720 year or so on the show, was the person most 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.320 often mentioned when we brought up the Right Brothers. He 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.359 was a New Zealand aviation pioneer born on December three, 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.320 eight seventy seven. He was a mostly self taught inventor 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.399 and farmer, and he was granted his first patent in 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.480 nineteen o two for a new style of bicycle that 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.000 used pedals that you pushed up and down rather than 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.119 in a circle. He invented a lot of other devices 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:46.320 to including a potato planter and a needle threader. Thinking 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:47.840 about what it would be like to ride a bike 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:49.480 where you had to push the pedals up and down. 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.840 It's kind of like a StairMaster bike. That seems sort 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.800 of mean, but probably not uh. He was also working 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.560 on ideas for powered flight. His first airplay design was 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.399 a low profile monoplane made of bamboo wire, canvas and 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.080 steel tubing. On his first attempt to fly it, he 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.439 took off from the road adjacent to his farm on 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.480 the South Island. He flew fifty yards or so and 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.040 then he crashed into a gorse fence. So there were 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.040 some witnesses to this flight. It definitely happened, but the 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.240 details aren't recorded in any kind of official account, so 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.359 there has been a whole lot of debate about exactly 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.600 when this flight happened. Pierce was a bit of a loaner. 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.000 He never married, There weren't really people that he talked 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.359 to day to day about his work, and he also 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.760 didn't keep a lot of written records or notes. Then 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.320 most cases, when it comes to things that he worked on, 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.320 patent applications are the only remaining documentation of what he 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.840 was doing, and this is also why we have way 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.760 less to share about his process than most of the 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:55.080 other aviators were talking about today. Much later, in nineteen 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.960 fifteen and nineteen eighteen, he wrote two different letters in 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.520 which he remembered the flying having happened in February or 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:07.240 March of nineteen o four. Researchers reconstructed various bits of 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.880 eyewitness testimony to arrive at a date of March thirty one, 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.040 nineteen o three, although some have also argued that it 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.800 was actually in nineteen o two. And this is why 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.040 for the first year or so after we joined the show, 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.840 he was the person so often cited as a counter 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.840 argument to the Right brothers. However, in fourteen, while doing 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.960 while doing research for a book on Pierce aviation, historian 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.560 Errol Martin found an old article published in the Timoroo 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.280 Post on November seventeenth of nineteen o nine, and in 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.639 this article, Pierce himself contradicts the idea that he was 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.720 flying anywhere close to the time that the Wright brothers did. 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.199 As he said to the reporter quote, I did not 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.639 attempt anything practical with the idea until in nineteen o 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.439 four the St. Louis Exposition authorities offered a prize of 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.400 twenty thousand dollars to the in to the man who 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.879 invented and flew a flying machine over a specified course. 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.000 I did not, as you know, succeed in winning the prize. 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:12.400 Neither did anybody. He went on to describe some tests 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.960 of the machine that he was currently working on, a 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.720 comparatively lightweight craft powered by a twenty five horsepower engine 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:21.359 that he had designed himself, along with the rest of 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:25.159 the planes components. Even the tests that he described to 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.480 this reporter were more like hops than true sustained flight, 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.680 and Errol Martin suspected that the reason that the nineteen 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.640 o two or nineteen o three date persisted for as 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.480 long as it did was because people were looking for 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.760 substantiation that that flight occurred somewhere around that time, not 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.679 six or seven years later. Pierce himself also said that 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.520 he didn't fly before the Right Brothers, and that he 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.000 became motivated to work on his own aircraft after their successes. 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:58.879 So the counter argument that we've heard most often in 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.440 response to Richard Pierce saying that he had not beaten 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:09.679 the Right Brothers was that he was just being nice. 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.280 He may have been lovely, he may have just been 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.160 being nice, but like that's not a very substantive counter 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:21.200 argument right, uh, and Pierce died in christ Church on July. 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:26.720 Most of the other men we've talked about today wound 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.000 up influencing the greater field of aviation in some way, 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:35.040 regardless of whether their attempts at controlled powered flight were 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:37.960 really all that successful. And this was less true for 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.760 Richard Pierce, but it was only because being in New 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:43.399 Zealand put him really far away from where most of 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.840 that work was happening. His plane, though, was pretty sophisticated 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:50.400 for the time. It had wing flaps, a rear elevator 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:55.040 and a wheeled steerable undercarriage and a propeller with variable 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.960 pitch blades. Because he was so physically removed for most 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.800 of the other people physically doing this work, though not 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:04.040 a lot of people who were trying to come up 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:07.000 with workable aircraft actually saw it or got to learn 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.680 from it. Yeah, it makes you wonder if he were 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.920 closer to those people, if his innovations wouldn't have accelerated 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.919 the development of flight in a very serious way. And 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:21.359 for a time after his death, Pierce's work was nearly forgotten. Fortunately, 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:25.080 knowledge of his efforts did survive. An auctioneer offered his 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:28.840 last plane to the Canterbury Aero Club, and aviation engineer 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.440 George Bolt later bought it and donated it to the 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:35.440 Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland, where a replica 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:39.160 is now part of their collection. Although it seems unlikely 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:42.760 that Pierce achieved true sustained flight in his aircraft, modern 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:47.359 replicas powered with ultralight aircraft engines have been capable of flight. 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:51.320 So we're going to take one more quick sponsor break 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:54.560 before we talk about our last first flight, which was 0:23:55.240 --> 0:24:04.640 by Gustav Whitehead. So in a weird little irony, Gustav 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.560 Whitehead is not the name who is most often tossed 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:10.959