Hi David We were just making the point that "powered" means to leave the Earth by it's own means... And we a speaking about the "heavier than the air" (this excludes hot-air ballons)... My point is that the first to fly an airplane capable of doing all the maneuvers we see on an aircraft was Santos Dumont... The Wright Broders we kicked-off from the ground by external power and then just tried to managed it's flight and descent into the ground! To me it was a "hop" not a flight... As I said this is a controversial subject but, as I said before, I have no doubts about who made the first aircraft to fly... Dumont did it! Best regards Miguel Branco da Silva ----- Original Message ----- From: "David MR" <damiross2@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 2:40 AM Subject: Re: Who Invented the Airplane? > Former Vice President Gore invented the airplane, along with the Internet. > While we are at it - the media and everybody else is getting it wrong. It's > the 100th anniversary of powered flight, not aviation. Aviation itself goes > back at least as far as the 1700's with hot air balloons. > David R > http://home.attbi.com/~damiross > http://home.attbi.com/~damiross/books.html > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Dennis W Zeuch" <DZTOPS@xxxxxxx> > To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 18:32 > Subject: Re: [AIRLINE] Who Invented the Airplane? > > > > Gee, I recall back during the 'cold war' the Russians claimed that they > of > > course invented the airplane, telephone, television, etc etc etc > > Kinda liked Nikita though, dz >