Slight Miscalculation: WI Wright Bros Never Succeeded?

*shrugs* hope this hasn't been done before, if so than I apologize.

But I've been wondering what the world would be like if the Wright Bros. never succeeded in their attempts at controlled flight. Perhaps giving up after way too many failures, or perhaps became too hesitant to continue after one of them suffered a significant injury during one of their many tests, or something in the varied (and possible) randomness that could've occurred to them.

But the basic concept is this, without their achievements and subsequent contributions to the concept of airplanes, what would've happened to the world? Would someone have eventually come up with the same/similar concept? or would the world never achieve such flight? Doomed to rely upon balloons to fly us around, or water-bound ships to transport us.

What would the various wars to come be like without the airplane? The Travel/Transport industry?

Just a hopefully fresh idea. *shrugs* Hope this isn't too vague as well. >.>;;
 

Hendryk

Banned
At the turn of the 20th century, powered flight was, pardon the pun, in the air. Apart from the Wright brothers, lots of people were trying to get powered contraptions airborne. Eventually, one of them would have succeeded through trial and error, so the history of aviation would only have been delayed by a couple of years at most.

See, for example, the attempts by Clément Ader, who almost managed to get his prototype to fly in 1897, and the creation of the Aéro-Club de France in 1898.

Ader.jpg
 
I agree with Hendryk, everything was ready for powered flight by 1880 but the source of power. Russian sailor Mozhaisky tried to build steam-powered monoplane as early as 1880s It was obviously a failure, as there's no such thing as lightweight steam engine. But aerodimanics was there (Soviet engineers built 1:20 model in 1979 using Mozhaisky's archive and tested it in wind tunnel; they concluded that the thing was doomed due to engine's weight, not any flaws in plane design). So, would Wrights fail, someone would fly in next coupla years.
 
Wright-Patterson Airport has a different name. Kitty Hawk NC is just another sandy spot in the Outer Banks. NC needs a new license plate design.

Otherwise...meh.
 

maverick

Banned
A random engineer in New York, Germany or any other place succeed...the very next day after the Wright brothers fail...there were just that many people trying...
 
Don't forget the Brazilian aviator who was first to take off in still air (without a strong headwind or catapult push).
 
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