Jed, I know you've elaborated on this subject numerous times in the past but I was wondering if you could give a synopsis of just whom in your historical eye were the most important players in the race to construct the first powered flight airplane, besides the obvious Wright players.
Viewing an interesting Wikipedia article "First Flying Machines", See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_flying_machine lists a surprising number of people involved. I didn't see them mentioned in the Wiki article but I seem to recall that there had also been a federally funded U.S. project to build a powered plane. Millions of dollars were spent building a prototype only to see the results crash into a lake on its maiden flight. What I'm leading up to here is the observation of a historical pattern where inventors of some new innovative technology, more often than not, have many, MANY competitors nipping at their heels. Official historical accounts, OTOH, tend to gloss over the many players & contributors who were simultaneously involved in the same quest. Official historical accounts often tend to focus on a single "winner" as if they the only game in town. I'm wondering if official historical accounts may soon repeat itself, generating the same pattern of misleading information as we witness the race to build the first ZPE OU "motor." Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
