Thread: Trivia and other useless but interesting items

The Wright Brothers may not have been the first to fly! In an Australian twist to this tale "The controversy reached new heights in 2013 after Australian aviation historian John Brown announced that he had found a photograph of the exhibit mentioned in Scientific American in 1906 that showed the missing snapshot of Whitehead in flight."
History Faceoff: Who Was First in Flight? - HISTORY

I've also seen a doco about this on the ABC called "Who Flew First" IIRC.

Originally Posted by Johndoe

A few months ago My son and 3 of my mates were out in the Disco when we come across a huge black cat in the Latrobe valley.
We were motoring down a rarely used trail at night when it crossed infront of us.
I have heard the stories of circus animals being dumped. Never believed they could survive let alone breed.

But we seen what can only be described as a puma. Every one in the car said the same thing at the same time.
Huge all black cat standing nearly as high as my cars bonnet and as long as my car is wide! We got a side profile view as it crossed the track.

This honestly happened and had i not witnessed it with my own eyes i would say its something else.

So the big black cat rears its head again.

Pumas are not as big as you describe. They are also not black but silver grey to reddish.

It was "something else"

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

Pumas are not as big as you describe.

Source = Puma | mammal species | Britannica

Rare individuals can exceed 100 kg; length is about 1.2 metres (4 feet), excluding the 0.75-metre (2.5-foot) tail.

Interestingly that would make the length of the cat around the width of the disco as described earlier.
Exceed 100 kegs well thats a BIG CAT!

yes , a rare individual...

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

The Wright Brothers may not have been the first to fly! In an Australian twist to this tale "The controversy reached new heights in 2013 after Australian aviation historian John Brown announced that he had found a photograph of the exhibit mentioned in Scientific American in 1906 that showed the missing snapshot of Whitehead in flight."
History Faceoff: Who Was First in Flight? - HISTORY

I've also seen a doco about this on the ABC called "Who Flew First" IIRC.

Apparantly there have been very serious crashes of the original Wright Flyer (reproductions) Difficult to contro, and requires a steady headwind... and I"m sure I recall seeing a brief image of what looks like a weight-assisted take-off.
Whether they WERE the first of not, their business acumen was such that the Smithsonian is *legally* bound to declare and continue asserting the primacy of the Wright brothers, - upon pain of losing the right to the prize exhibit.
My reaction to learning that was... 'IF they need to contract the Smithsonian to a particular viewpoint... then perhaps the reality of them being First is, questionable...'

Yes, I saw a similar doco. Maybe the same one. Personally, and my BS meter agrees... there's more than an even chance Gustv got up there first... maybe also the honour of first Controlled Flight into Terrain !

Sad to say, this behaviour is almost an American Business Model. Denigrate, attack and destroy your competitors.
- Think of Edison, most of whom's inventions were from his bright young minds employed at Menlo Park, whereas Nikola Tesla did his own inventing...and came up with more useful stuff. Light bulb filaments are one thing, but an efficient, effective and economical method of conveying power (alternationg current+ Tesla, DC = Edison) is still the foundation of electricity distribution. Edison refused to see that.

A further comment could be made on the Wright Flyer - on the 12th July 1910 a Wright Flyer was the centrepiece of the first fatality in the UK involving powered flight, and the first Briton to die in powered flight.

Most of you know of the pilot - the Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls, a ballooning, aviation and motoring pioneer, died when his Wright flyer suffered a structural failure during a flying display at Bournemouth.

"Unsafe and any speed..." looks like 'that' car wasn't the first American vehicle to warrant the accolade !

The biography of Rolls I have attributes the failure of one of the longerons carrying the tail asembly to unauthorised modifications, combined with a violent manoeuvre. He was attempting a spot landing, and was overshooting, so put the nose down and pulled out abruptly. The load on the longerons resulted in their bending, apparently bringing one into contact with a propeller, snapping it, with the resulting loss of pitch control, and it hit the ground nose first.

The original design used a canard for pitch control. Finding this was too sensitive, Rolls added a horizontal plane to the tail assembly to improve stability. This resulted in inadequate pitch control, so he connected it to the pitch control. This put a vertical load on the tail assembly that it was not designed for. Rolls was no averse to modifying the aircraft - he had already made undercarriage modifications.