this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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This is super dumb. People always act like airplanes were just "invented" one day, especially by the Wright brothers.
This isn't the case at all, decades before there were people doing (powered) gliders and getting pretty far. Propellers were also well known at that point and a lot of people knew if you could get enough power to weight ratio you could get something that flew. Multiple people were working on small engines with a lot of output, combined with a light airframe and a death wish. Controlling the plane was also a huge challenge people were working on, which was the same for gliders and planes a like.
Sure the Wright brothers got there first, according to history, but many people followed soon after with their own designs. It was more of a humanity's capabilities to build such a thing caught up with their imagination and thus it was a thing.
*chefs kiss*
George Caley helped create aero sciences and developed the forces of lift by the early 1800s. He was a towering figure of English science and couldn't get off the ground so if Real Men of Science weren't able to get it to work then it was hopeless for the common man.
After a century of countless deaths from gliders and bad parachutes, the New York Times clearly chose the easy way and said 'its just too difficult' and was banking on timid traditionalism to keep the statement true.