Jeff Fink wrote:
You forgot J. J. Montgomery, the father of basic flying. He flew a
controlled glider in 1883. The Wright brothers read his book before
designing their own successful flying machines.
Montgomery is discussed in Chanute's book, and I think most people
agree he was the first person in the U.S. to glide, but his
contributions were minimal. I doubt the Wrights learned any more from
him than from Pilcher and the others who flew uncontrolled gliders.
His glider was manifestly not "controlled" (contrary to some web
sites), because he made only one glide in 1884 and nearly killed
himself doing it. (Crouch, p. 296). He never tried to fly again. In
1905 he re-emerged in tandem-wing glider, which was launched from
4,000 feet, and quickly crashed, killing the pilot, Maloney. Wilbur wrote:
"The tragic death of poor Maloney seemed the more terrible to me
because I knew it was coming and had tried in vain to think of some
way to save him. I knew a direct warning would tend to precipitate
rather than prevent a catastrophe. The Montgomery pamphlet showed an
entire misapprehension of the real facts regarding the distribution
of pressures and the travel of the center of pressure with increasing
speed, and it seemed to me something awful that poor Maloney should
cut loose high in the air and lightly cause the machine to dart and
describe circles without knowing that there were critical points
beyond which it would be absolutely impossible for him to right the machine."
Crouch, p. 297, letter to Chanute, August 6, 1905
Montomery was killed while gliding in 1911. His survivors sued
Orville Wright over a patent in 1921. The suit was finally dismissed
in 1928, with the finding that Montgomery contributed nothing. The
suit was based on a misunderstanding. In 1906, Montgomery filed a
patent for the glider that killed Maloney. The survivors sued the
Wrights because this patent specified that the wings should have a
"parabolic curve as in the arc of a circle." The Wright patent said
that the wings are "normally flat." Montgomery's attorney pointed out
that everyone knows practical airplanes have curved wings. The
Wrights' patent attorney Tumlin pointed out that he meant that in
normal flight the wings are flat across the span, whereas they
were warped to turn in a bank, giving them a helical twist. He said
further that everyone knows wings must be arched and this was so well
known that it was not patentable so it was not discussed in the
Wrights 1906 patent.
This is case of an amateur misunderstanding a technical detail.
The Montgomery legend has grown. He is supposedly a "forgotten"
aviator, even though any history of aviation describes him. Hollywood
even made a movie about him, "Gallant Journey." It is all bosh. Many
people in different countries made uncontrolled hops long before the
Wrights, and they were still at it -- and still killing themselves --
well up until World War I. These people had no knowledge of physics
and no idea how to control an airplane.
If cold fusion is ever accepted you can be sure dozens of people will
claim they discovered it long before Fleischmann and Pons. They will
all be wrong, or liars.
- Jed
