WI Kitty Hawk didn't fly?

New to the site, so don't bite my head off if this has been done before, pretty please...

WI Wilbur and Orville Wright had died, or simply lost interest/been unsuccessful in their attempts to fly?
I realise that this doesn't mean that airplanes wouldn't exist today, as SOMEONE was bound to get it right eventually, but let's say that the first manned powered flight isn't made until say, 1909...
This would mean smaller, less effective planes during WWI, with possibly less interest during the interwar years in aviation, both land and naval based. Just trying to provoke some discussion on how this would affect certain things, with Blitzkrieg being one major strategy whose effectiveness is significantly lessened by inferior airtech.
Then you've got Taranto, and its effect on Japanese strategy as it pertains to Pearl - I reckon that Taranto might have gone the same way, as Stringbags were a relatively old model in OTL, but would the Japs want to risk it at Pearl? Or would they have tried to get in closer for some Mers-el-Kebir style gunnery practice, confident that landbased aircover would have negligible impact?
And battleship fans, drool.... Imagine a Midway with virtually no Cvs, where the grand old dukes of the sea steam towards each other, big guns blazing.....

Alberto Santos-Dumont flew in 1906. His aircraft was in no way comparable to the Wright Flyer but the secretiveness of the Wrights played against their actual achievement. Frenchmen went into development of superior designs and quickly surpassed the Wrights to the point where the United States was building French and British aircraft during WW I.

Ok..... let's assume he fell off a bridge too then!

Someone else would invent the airplane for America.

Alexander Graham Bell would have been the first on the Bra d'or lakes, with his silver dart, and that would have put the Brits into the heavier than air business first.

Hell, the Wright Flier barely flew. There were a lot of groups trying to get powered flight going at this time; it would have happened, and probably not any later than 1910.

The flight of the Silver Dart was a notable landmark in Canadian aviation history. It was the first flight in Canada. It was flown by J. A. D. McCurdy who apparently called himself Douglas, not John. The aircraft was built by a Canadian/American team in Hammondsport NY. As far as it's significance to the actual progress of aviation, the fact that one of it's builders was Glenn Curtiss was more important than the aircraft itself. It was shown to the Canadian military, who were not impressed. It was destroyed when one wheel sank too far in the soft dirt. The model that I made of it was destroyed when I moved. Alas.

Yep, the Silver Dart. It would be interesting if the Wright Brothers failed. Quite likely we would still have aircraft, but Curtis aircraft would have some differences (remember, Glenn Curtiss was part of Alexander Bell's group) Butterflies will result with Thomas Selfridge still alive.

Just Leo said:

Alberto Santos-Dumont flew in 1906.

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Leo,

Yes he did. His far more witnessed flight in 1906 was about the same length and about the same height as the third of the Wright Bros. first day of flights in 1903.

His aircraft was in no way comparable to the Wright Flyer...

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Yes, but his original flying design, the 14 bis, was not the one he settled on and not the one that people around the world copied and tinkered with. That design was the late 1908 Demoiselle which incorporated many of the Wright's ideas regarding three-axis control.

The Wrights, thanks to their glider trials were the first to realize that a flying was machine was inherently unstable and would require constant "supervision" from the pilot. Before that, everyone had assumed flying would be like sailing; you'd set the equivalent of the sails and rudder and the machine would glide along without any need for additional input until the course needed to be changed.

The Wrights almost pathological secretiveness meant many on either side of the Atlantic called them frauds and liars. However, when the Wrights began their series of public exhibition flights in France during August of 1908, everyone realized just how far ahead they were. The Flyer model the Wrights showed off vastly out performed anything and everything the French had been able to fly previously. One of the observers famously said he was going to have to tear up everything and begin from scratch.

... but the secretiveness of the Wrights played against their actual achievement.

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Bingo! Give the man a cigar!

The Wrights wanted to invent the airplane to make money and they kept that goal foremost in their minds to the near exclusion of all else. Sadly, that meant they threw away a huge lead. In 1906, while Santos-Dumont won a European prize for being the "first" person to fly more than 75 feet, the Wrights in 1905 were already spending 30-40 minutes aloft and flying over 20 miles.

The Wrights didn't put on shows for the public and would only allow private viewings if you signed a purchase contract for one of their planes. They wanted the money.

Santos-Dumont, on the other hand, heavily publicized each flight or attempted flight and welcomed anyone who wanted to watch. He didn't need to worry about money at all because his father was Brazil's "Coffee King".

While the Wrights throttled US aviation in it's cradle with their patent fights, Santos-Dumont freely gave away plans to his Demoiselle design to anyone who sent the postage.

And that's why...

Frenchmen went into development of superior designs and quickly surpassed the Wrights to the point where the United States was building French and British aircraft during WW I.

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... as the constant fight over the Wright's "IP rights" stifled aviation innovation in the US.

You could build a Demoiselle from the freely available plans, tinker with it in any way you wanted, make improvements, crash, fly, fly better, and Santos-Dumont would be the first to applaud. Meanwhile, the Wrights wanted a piece of every heavier-than-air flying machine being thought of, drawn, built, flown, or crashed in the US.

Is it any wonder where the innovation occurred?


Bill

Wilhelm kress Von Kressenstein may get the honors he was rather close.. maybe the Kaiser or Emperor or even the Czar decide to fund him a bit better.

considering he was born in Russia of a German family and lived in Austria.

The Welsh beat the yanks by 8 years!
http://activity-holidays.visitwales.co.uk/15/yanks-steal-man-fly-welsh/

Ok I'm biased cause I'm from Dayton and go to Wright State University. So I think no matter even if Kitty Hawk failed, they would have done it eventually.

Meh, there was already the AEA (Graham bell's group) making their aircrafdt, so they might make the first confirmed flight.

The Doctor said:

Ok I'm biased cause I'm from Dayton and go to Wright State University. So I think no matter even if Kitty Hawk failed, they would have done it eventually.

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You're at Wright State? I'm an aero major at UD!

Ignoring coincidental geographic similarities, Bill Cameron is dead on. The patent fights the Wrights got into were what killed their lead over other, not any issues with their aircraft which were indeed head-and-shoulders above most of the others that were being developed.

Don't forget about Gustav Whitehead, Hiram Maxim and even good old Langley.

Langley's design could possibly fly but he seemed to disregard many details. Taking off, landing, control, and stress were not addressed.

e of pi said:

You're at Wright State? I'm an aero major at UD!

Ignoring coincidental geographic similarities, Bill Cameron is dead on. The patent fights the Wrights got into were what killed their lead over other, not any issues with their aircraft which were indeed head-and-shoulders above most of the others that were being developed.

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Sweet I have a few friends over there. All freshman or a few might be close to sophomore status by now.

Some of you may or may not be aware that the Ohio licence plate says "Home of the Wright Brothers" while North Carolina's plate says "First in Flight". They always trying to steal Ohio's wonderful Wright Brothers.

The Doctor said:

Sweet I have a few friends over there. All freshman or a few might be close to sophomore status by now.

Some of you may or may not be aware that the Ohio licence plate says "Home of the Wright Brothers" while North Carolina's plate says "First in Flight". They always trying to steal Ohio's wonderful Wright Brothers.

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I actually am a freshman with sophomore status, so maybe I know some them.

Wow. That didn't work.

derfelcadarn said:

Wow. That didn't work.

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derfelcadarn,

Why do you think it didn't work? You got an answer to your question.

It really doesn't matter if the Wrights fail in 1903 or if you kill off the Wrights. It really doesn't matter if Santos-Dumont fails in 1906 or if you kill off him. There were hundreds of people worldwide around the turn of the last century attempting to build heavier-than-air flying machines, so one of them would have succeeded sooner or later.

All the parts are there, powerful engines, lightweight materials, etc., and someone is going to eventually put them together correctly. Once people began taking hops, the three-axis control breakthrough the Wrights made would have been self-evident and would have been "invented" by someone. After that the sky's the limit, pun intended.

What you didn't get direct answers for were your musings about the potential knock on effects from flight being delayed up to a decade and that's because those ideas are nonsense.

Whether people have been flying for 11 years or 1 year prior to WW1, the utility of aircraft for recon work alone is blindingly obvious to even the most hidebound general or admiral. Once the war begins and government funding plus wartime pressures kick in, aircraft are going to advance as rapidly as they did in the OTL. In the OTL more was done to advance aviation in 11 months of the WW1 than in the 11 years prior. Aircraft will come out of the war in much the same technical state no matter if the first flight is in 1903, 1906, or 1910.

You're suggestions about Taranto being different or of the IJN's gunline visiting Pearl instead of the Kido Butai are non-starters. Aviation in this ATL 1918 is going to be on par with the OTL.


Bill