hi!!

I reckon it was the ancient Egyptians or Hindus (virmanas)were the FIRST to fly???

In more recent times I think Richard Pearse had powered flight before the Wright Brothers...I am convinced...but I think the Wright Brothers were the first to have controlled flight.

Richard Pearse has patents for ailerons!!

I am a kiwi and held the Kiwiingenuity/Inventor Next Door Expo in May 2008...so yes I find this interesting!!!!!!!!

Depends on what you mean by "first to fly" .

__________________
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Wan Hu and his rocket chair!

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
-Douglas Adams
Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

In Soviet Russia, UFO report you!- Phil Plait

Clear skies Maksutov.

FACT: For thousands of years people have believed gods are in the sky.
FACT: Air force pilots act like they're god.
ONLY LOGICAL CONCLUSION: Air force pilots and therefore powered flight has existed for thousands of years.

thats an interesting logic Ronald

I would say that Roman Emperors were like Gods...they would wear laurels..it's a symbol of EXCELLENCE

quote Marcus Aurelius.."I think I am becoming a god"

as a matter of fact I got his book the other day that I ordered in the bookshop...Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

and I like Roman weapons

Paul L

OBTW I think who were the 1st to fly is something we will never really know!

A dude suggested that people in Peru developed hot air balloons to look at the Nazca lines in Peru. Interesting idea, but no actual evidence to support it. You'd think it would be easier to climb one of the nearby hills.

Ron, a tall pole perhaps? An 80 foot post sunk into the ground would work well, especially if you designed it to be climbed, and represent no great challenge technology wise.

__________________
Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Regarding controlled, sustained, powered heavier than air flight, that would have to be the Wrights.

Others were first to have controlled flight, or powered flight, or heavier than air flight, but the Wrights combined all that first. The fact that they built the engine also themselves is a nice extra. Granted, the very first flight wasn't that sustained considering its length, but already that same day they showed it could fly (much) further.

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Insects.

Jeez Tobin, that was rather harsh.

__________________
Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Sheep. Though as we all know, sheep do not so much fly as plummet.

__________________
To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Whales.

In all seriousness I think it depends on what you mean by "fly". Do hot air balloons count? How about drug use?

__________________
---"Why do things have to suck so bad?" a friend once asked me.
"Because space is a vacuum and that's a lot of suck." I replied.
(Actual quote)---

Hi Paul,
wasn't there a bloke called Cayton or similar from NZ who according to witnesses slightly predated the Wright brothers?

__________________
Life is its own god.

Can you please ask the voices in your head to keep the noise down?

That would be Richard Pearse, of Paul's first post.

__________________
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

oops! sorry.



(quick search and it was Pearse I was thinking of. Not sure where I got Cayton from. Misremembered from a book about hitch-hiking around the world by plane).

__________________
Life is its own god.

Can you please ask the voices in your head to keep the noise down?

Superman. But he did it first in the '40s cartoons - in the original comics he just jumped really high.

__________________
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

Preston Watson! People never give him enough credit, or even recognition, for what he achieved.

__________________
I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

If only we could have locked you in a room with Van Daniken for an hour when he was working on The Chariots of the Gods, the world would be a better place.

Difference between God and a fighter pilot?

God doesn't act like He is a fighter-pilot.

Ron, long before Van Daniken went off the deep end, Thor Heyerdahl paid 30 dollars, and filmed a tribe of Easter Islanders making one of those figures from start to finish. I saw the film as a child on tv.

During the whole "Chariots Of The Gods" horse manure I kept wondering where this film went to. I know Dr. Heyerdahl absolutely hated Van Daniken.

__________________
Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

It was the Wrights. Everybody before them was just falling with style, or zooming about with no control. They crossed the threshhold of combining the power to defy gravity with the ability to control flight in 3 dimensions.

__________________
Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

I can see how it came off that way. That's what I get for posting at 4 a.m.

Insects were the very earliest things I could think of that were able to fly. I was just expanding the question.