LET US NOW PRAISE GEORGE CAYLEY

摘要

When some Connecticut boosters recently dusted off the claim that Gustave Whitehead, of the township of Fairfield in that great state, was "first in flight," I, and I suspect quite a few others, emitted the sigh of jaded deja vu. These "who was first" arguments have become pretty tedious. Predictably, the few who were stirred to action by the Whitehead claim trotted out their own candidates: Cldment Ader, Richard Pearse, Karl Jatho, Alberto Santos-Dumont and so on. That all of the usual suspects cluster around the turn of the 20th century is no accident. The basic principles of flight were already understood. Model airplanes and man-carrying gliders existed. Beginning around 1890, when small, powerful gasoline engines became available, there was such a surge in aeronautical experimentation that success was both inevitable and imminent. Being first was a distinction merely of degree.