They would still be behind Weißkopf, who truely did the first flight!
EDIT: GUYS SERIOUSLY!!!! SARCASM!!!!
but seriously, someone should aknowledge whitehead...(1)
1) Jane's Aircraft 2013 gave the credit to Gustave Whitehead over the Wright Brothers. Doing more discredit to themselves, their researchers, and publishers than to anyone else. The contributions to aviation by the Wrights were enormous. Whitehead made none. Even Bleriot and the other early European aviation pioneers admitted how far ahead the Wrights were over their work in the first decade of the 20th century. Somewhere, the shades of Glenn Curtiss and Samuel P. Langley are smiling. (2)
2) Curtiss did his utmost to violate the Wright's patents by claiming that they stole them from Langley, to the point of Curtiss staging faked demonstrations purporting to show that Langley's "Aerodrome" aircraft was flyable. Until he was exposed as having put 37 different improvements over Langley's original design, and using a pilot. Didn't stop Curtiss from stealing the Wright Brothers' patents, though.
Whitehead may or may not have flown in 1901. He had the advantage of documenting his flight in 1901, but failed to get photos or films of his aircraft in flight. No such photo or film has ever been found or reported. The report of his flight in the front page headline of the Bridgeport Post (today known as the Connecticut Post), the main newspaper for SW Connecticut, only published a sketching of the aircraft in flight, which doesn't speak well for proper authentication.
But at best, Whitehead only built yet another in a long line of reported "flying contraptions", not true aircraft. And I say this as someone who grew up playing in the very fields where Whitehead was said to have made his flight(s). Even the people who "recreated" his aircraft (using an ultralight engine) readily admit that they have not any real idea of what the true engine was like (I knew these people as acquaintances back in the 70s and 80s) beyond it being a lot heavier and less efficient than their installed 1980s era ultralight.
Also, the head of the project himself admitted to me personally that Whitehead had no real control of his machine's flight beyond shifting his weight. Not exactly the same as the aerilons, rudders, and flaps seen on the Wright Brothers Flyer or their later designs.
We all know the story about that the Wright Brothers flew in 1903. But 3 years later a Scandinavian inventor Jacob Ellehammer flew his own plane.
I wonder if Ellehammer had been first and been able to attract investors and had been able to develop his design further. What would that have meant? Could that potentially have meant a more powerful Denmark?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Ellehammer
Well, maybe fleets of Danish heavy bombers blasting the Heer as they tried to advance up the Danish Peninsula?
Yes if Weißkopf was actually first. I read the Wikipedia article and came to the conclusion of possible but unproven. He certainly knew had to build and power an aeroplane so possible. No photos or mass observation of his "pre Wright" flights hence unproven.
Also, it is very difficult to change history when it is wrong.
Well put. I think though the Smithsonian Institute could have spared itself a lot of grief if it weren't hamstrung by its ironclad contract with the Wright Family.
