People are commenting on an omission of mine: Lindbergh's flight was the first *solo* non-stop flight across the Atlantic, which was a claim to fame. Another reason that Lindbergh was famous is that the whole of America followed the story of his kidnapped baby. Fame breeds fame. The more famous he was for one thing (baby), the more he would be remembered for another (flight). That he played a significant part in 'the war' is irrelevant, because his flight was in 1927, and he played no part in WW1. In WW2, he was a technical advisor to pilots in the Far East theatre of operations, and his advice made very significant differences to US aerial capabilities.
His flight was also between NY and Paris, which was about twice as far. His reputation was sullied by him being a vehement isolationist bordering on Nazi sympathy. He was publicly accused of disloyalty by FDR and resigned his military commission.
As another brit Im starting to contemplate if all us brits are insane because I dont hear any thing like the stuff we've done from other nations (Love how you started waving the flags around by the way)
On a related theme On the 25 July 1909 Louis Bleriot completed the first flight from France to Britain, on the 26th July 1909 Britain built the worlds first Anti Aircraft Gun ;)
Although it's original role wasn't anti aircraft, and many artillery pieces can take down planes (for example, I think it was the Bulgarians, were responsible for the first aircraft kill of the war with a regular artillery piece), but the maxim 37mm or Pom-Pom (the nickname created by the south Africans for the noise it made) was a pretty effective AA gun for its day, obsolete in the mid 20s in AA role (my guess)
"Dear Alcock. I trust you are well, despite the difficult circumstances. I am just writing to you to let you know that I am having difficulty reading the fuel gauges, and I am thinking of taking a little walk out along the wings, just to stretch my legs for a bit. Back in a jiffy. Hoping this finds you as it leaves me, etcetera etcetera. Yours, Brown."
I'm waiting for Lindy to tell everybody that Americans weren't actually the first to land on the moon. "In 1873 a steam explosion blew an Englishman all the way to the moon, but no one counts it because he didn't make it back."
*Speaking of unfortunately-named businesses, I was once in the Southern United States on business when I passed by the Challenger Academy Day Care. "Challenger" as in the space shuttle. The one that famously exploded on launch. Complete with a logo featuring smiling children riding in a space shuttle.*
Kingsford-Smiths flight from Sydney to Auckland is one of the craziest ever, on a 3 engine plane the right engine failed 2 hrs after take off. 4 hrs later the left engine began to overheat and needed more oil to keep working. One of the crew had to climb out on the wing and fill his coffee thermos full of oil from the defunct right engine, pass it back into the cabin to be poured into a suitcase, and then transferred using his thermos into the struggling left engine.
I offer £25 to the first person who can cross the Atlantic on a pogo stick. I believe this can be achieved through the use of a series of strategically placed cork mats.
The Wright brothers were the first to successfully do heavier than air powered *controlled* (pitch, roll, and yaw) flight. There were gliders that flew in Germany in the 1800s.
There are a number of claims that predate the Wright Brothers. I once read of a German immigrant named Weisskopf in the US who flew an aircraft with an acetylene fueled internal combustion engine shortly before the Wright Brothers flight. The story has it that the Wright Brothers get the credit due to two very astute marketing moves: first, having the flight filmed; and second, giving the Smithsonian all their original drawings, designs, and other historically significant items in return for the Smithsonian taking the official position the the Wright Brothers were first. We'll probably never know the true history of those early years of flight with 100% accuracy. Too much personal promotion and regional pride went into the early reporting to sort out the unvarnished facts.
@@mojeo522 Santos-Dumont was a significant contribute to the emerging field but was not the first. He did have a first however, he can't claim the first heavier the air flight and the invention of the airplane but he can claim the first airplane to take off under it's own power. Wright's plane used a slingshot to get it going. Historians are still divided on how you define "first airplane" but it is worth noting that Wright also had takeoffs without the use of their slingshot years before. It is safe to put Wright Brothers as the inventors of the airplane. Failed experiments before and better devices later do not disqualify their plane's title.
@@davehoward22 And? The first computer was made out of existing parts as well. Nothing was invented specifically for it. The first light bulb was glass and wire, neither of which were new at the time. The car was a cart and engine. Invention is quite literally the combination of previously created works. They invented the plane. Nothing previously could really claim to have controlled flight. This came off as rude at least to me I was trying to be direct not rude. Don't take it like that haha.
Manus Carlisle Just because they crashed into Ireland doesn't give the record to Ireland. Although I guess Ireland can claim to be the first country crashed into by a non-stop transatlantic flight.
America: We did something first the field of aviation Britain: No we did that same thing way before you did, you just got all the media attention. France: YOU'RE BOTH WRONG! We French did this when you British fops were hiding behind Victoria's skirts. Germans: No no no, It was Count Alfired Von Scklebkeberghahauremerger in 1803 who did it with nothing more than a piece of paper and a comb. Middle East: Nope fake news it was Abbas Bin Ali Fasel Rakhamanan Mohammed who flew in 927 A. D. in Mesopotamia China: You are ALL WRONG! China did it in the Zhou Dynasty in 2150 B.C. India: China you stole that from us because it was Singh Nosuaureanmatkantoknoanonwamonakakan in 2218 B.C.
I do look forward to the day we can celebrate human achievement without all the flag waving. [I didn't realise there was literal flag waving in the vid lol]
Lindy did three things that were different. He flew from a planned point to a planned point, planned the flight and flew the plan. He did it solo and the plane was still usable after his flight.
He was also a friend of Adolph Hitler and later a nazi and is believed to have murdered his infant son (who was mentally 'defective') because he believed in Eugenics, so another three things that was different to Alcock and Brown.... probably not what you wanted to hear........
Sean Gibbons I dont believe so. When I was taught back in elementary school i was told the first solo flight across the Atlantic. And that was in the 80's.
That may be what is taught, but in my experience that is not what people remember. I'd bet that if you were to ask any random group of people who was the first to fly across the Atlantic ocean, if they come up with anybody, it'll be Lindbergh.
Lindy's a wonderful story-teller. I could listen to him all day long. Truth be told: right up until the end, I was positive that any moment, he was going to tell us that the plane dove into the sea and was lost forever (or something like that). But no, he got us through to the very end. Well done, Lindy! And he is just SO British! Not "brave", but "flipping brave". And that flag waving at the end -- priceless!
Specifically, Lindbergh won the $25,000 prize offered by French born New York hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris. Which was also the first non-stop flight from a city in the continental US to a city in continental Europe. Six years later he surveyed the routes for the first transatlantic passenger services, which led to the flying boat stations at Foynes in Ireland and Botwood in Newfoundland being established, and services commenced in 1937.
WW1: Tech to fly over The Atlantic. WW2: Tech to put things into the orbit. Cold War: Tech to put man into a moon. If WW3 starts, I predict we'll have USA, Russia and China mining asteroids in less than a year.
No one seems to want to mention the R34 Airship that in July 1919 did the FIRST transatlantic return flight across the Atlantic. But despite this I have just discovered Lindybeige and I think you are brilliant, cant get enough of your stuff.
Not to pick too fine a point, but the Wright brothers were the first to demonstrate controlled flight. As in, they were actually in control of their craft, they knew why their design flew, and they understood the principles that enabled it to do so.The same cannot be said of ANY of their predecessors or contemporaries. They had experimented for years with scale models and manned gliders before designing and building their own engine. Also, they weren't exactly 'filmed', there was a fellow there with a camera who took a picture, and it was quite some time before anyone who hasn't witnessed the feat believed them.
@@oml81mm Actually, controlled, powered, heavier-than-air. There were gliders and balloons and dirigibles before. "Controlled" merely means that "taking off, careening in a random direction, then crashing" doesn't count.
Amazing that they were able to fly in the clouds with no gyroscopic instruments. During instrument flight training a flight instructor has you put your head down and close your eyes and you try to fly by the seat of your pants. You may feel like you’re straight and level but when you look up suddenly you’re in a steep bank and in a steep dive or something. This gets a lot of pilots killed even if they have a well equipped airplane. Scary stuff. Badass story, thanks Lindy!
Just had the strangest moment of my whole life. I fell asleep about an hour ago and woke up just now thinking it was 10 Saturday morning, made myself a full fried English breakfast and a cup of tea and give my cat it’s breakfast and let it out...came on my phone to see what’s uploaded and just noticed the actual time watching this video. I needed to share this because I truly believe the matrix has just glitched in me and now I feel surreal.
Someone bicycled across the Humber; a river with dangerous currents, on England's East coast, in the 1930's. So it's likely that the Atlantic must have been contemplated by some nutcase or other!
TH-camrs go I come and go, I get hooked to one and watch them non stop and then get bored but you, Lindy, ypu i stick to through thick and thin, I guess it’s the learning you empart on me, however it’s not just the learning it’s the true facts of the deep research you do that I care for most. You truly outdo yourself with that specific research you do and that makes your videos. I would love you to do more poetic stuff but i appreciate your in-depth knowledge non the less. Keep going beigey
Dear LindyBeige, Very enjoyable and articulate presentation- as usual; thank you. When you visit the landing site from Clifden, it is really quite dramatic and calls to mind the sheer extent of what had been achieved. It is remote, and if they had missed by a fraction of a degree they were in for an icey grave.They would probably survive for no more than 20 minutes in the ocean, assuming that they could “ditch” without serious injury. No radio beacons, no radar, no GPS- they were heroes. It would be nice if you could visit the site and give some local context. I have to discount a lot of the discussion regarding Lindberg. Every year yielded tremendous advances in technology, so that 1927 was far removed from 1919. I acknowledge the great achievement of a single engined solo flight, but it was 8 years later. One must not forget the first East to West flight of the Bremen from Baldonnel, (now Casement airfield) in 1928. An extreme challenge, but perhaps to your regret, not one with a British flight crew. Come visit Ireland and see some of these places for yourself- The achievement is something to be remembered as we strap ourselves in and await the snacks- Every success,
Thanks as always a very entertaining production. My experience of "White outs" or total loss of orientation, is that they are very hard to cope with. Many people will say it was a total Whiteout up there, my experience of thousands of hours of climbing, skiing, running, is that I have only really experienced a Whiteout 3 times, when you are in one you know about it, most people have never experienced how difficult it is. If you are skiing it is difficult to tell whether you are moving or stopped, there is no horizon, there is no feedback about movement, you cannot even see your feet. So well done A&B for coping with this, with very primitive kit.
Very informative and well presented. I'm from New Jersey and was visiting the west of Ireland in the early 1980s. I forget exactly where it was, but there was an exhibit of photos and text near where Alcock and Brown landed. I guess it was near Galway. It was a real revelation, never having heard of them before. What great and brave men.
As I remember it, Lindbergh's challenge wasn't to fly the Atlantic, but non-stop New York to Paris (Orteig Prize). If it was just the Atlantic he could have taken off and landed a lot closer than he did.
Fantastic video, Lindy! Really enjoyed this thrilling story. Any chance of a follow-up episode about the first westbound journey across the Atlantic by the British rigid airship R.34?
Fascinating ! I did not know this ! I don’t imagine it was the weight of the fuel that was of concern in this flight . It was the size and weight of the stones on these men to attempt such an arduous journey in a string-bag , open cockpit aircraft . Heroes true , and examples to us all . Thanks for the story , Lloyd , I will remember it always . Waiting on more of the same , you have the talent and presentation to give us these treasures in proper form . Outstanding , sir !
Lindenbergh was the first confirmed flight for a single person in a plane, also known as solo flight, and at the same time a non-stop direct flight between North America and Europe. There was no confirmed flight before Lindenbergh's crossing that was both a SOLO flight and a NON-STOP flight. There were plenty of multicrew flights across the Atlantic that were non-stop, and plenty of solo flights that were with stops along the way on islands. There was never a confirmed flight before Lindenbergh (there were claims for the feat as far back as 1923) for both solo and non-stop across the Atlantic.
As a Brit and aviation enthusiast I would argue Lloyd that the reason that we are so enamored by the flights at Kitty Hawk was that they flew a controlled aircraft that they continually developed with different models, as you say the aerial steam carriage flew short hops and then they gave up with it. Other than that your storytelling as always was excellent.
"aspiration Blinds" reminds me of a sign I saw once that was advertising "Invisible Burglar Bars" and the only thing I could think of was "Looks like someone been having a problem with Hobbits".
I actually have a tattoo of a smashed coin you could get at the st.louis zoo. It's the one they had of Charles Lindbergh's plane surrounded by the words "spirit of st.louis". I am st.louis born and bread so the history of the great Atlantic flight and the Lindbergh story are huge cultural phenomenon here.
I can't believe a guy running a channel called "Lindybeige", who teaches Lindy Hop, made a video talking about how the guy who is supposedly the source of the term "Lindy Hop" wasn't actually as great as people seem to think
@Marry Christmas - true he dabbled but Hitler's shenanigans changed his mind and he went to a Pacific Island and showed pilots how to increase the mileage on their P-38s.
One of the examples of publicity overshadowing real achievements is the case of stratosphere jumps. In 2012 Austrian extreme sports star Felix Baumgartner got to perform a jump from the highest altitude in history - 24 mi / 39 km. The whole thing was also a gigantic publicity stunt for his sponsor - Red Bull. They poured enormous amount of cash to film and broadcast the whole event through the internet and TV and radio around the globe. Red Bull also made shure that their logos were allvover the place making the whole affair one giant advertisement. Whole world saw this or was informed about this in the news. Many people today belive that it was Baumgartner who performed the longest leap in history and that his record was never beaten. But that's not true at all. Merely two years later a member of Google's higher management - an unremarkably looking middle-aged man by the name Alan Eustace beat Baumgartner by two miles or three kilometres. He just got the sponsors, paid his share for the equipment and work neaded to make the whole thing work and jumped. With almost no publicity at all compared to the well-cherished Red Bull media campaign from two years prior. And so almost nobody heard about this feat. So I don't blame people for not knowing the first men who flew across the Atlantic and other heroes and daredevils of early aviation. Many remarkable people were lost and will be lost to history. In 21st century those types of things still happen.
David Vanau Just like Charles Lindbergh was the first man to fly across the Atlantic *alone* , but clearly wasn't the first to manage this feat as a part of a group. Baumgartner achieved the longest free-fall, but not the jump from the highest altitude. Still people conflate real achievements of Lindbergh and Baumgartner with feats that just seem more impressive or simpler to fathom. But they are wrong and I wanted to point that out. I just read and heard the wrong informations on this whole affair over and over for over three years now, so when I saw Lindy talk about similar thing I just took the opportunity to misspell another misconception you may often come across.
Except Alcock and Brown are actually well known for the managing first Transatlantic flight. Lindbergh was separately famous for the first solo flight. So not sure of the point of this video. Wright Bothers, Blériot, Alcock +Brown, Lindbergh get taught as being the major aviation pioneers. Blériot did the first English Channel/La Manche Crosing
Great job as always Lindy, my wife just bought me a copy of 'The life and correspondence of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith' and I'll probably be calling my twin boys Jack and Author. Keep up the good work and I look forward to your next video.
In his excellent book "A Short History of nearly Everything" Bill Bryson explains that although the Wright brother's Kitty Hawk flight had predecessors, theirs was the first machine capable of sustained controlled flight. Their acheivement was much more than just tinkering in a shop, getting lucky and good publicity. Being English born in 1952, of course I knew that Alcock and Brown first flew the Atlantic! But great video, thanks.
You are the only video maker who can speak about the sponsor in an enjoyable way. I never skip your ad bits. (Neebs Gaming does good ads - one of only two video makers who advertise well) :)
The problem with facts is that your brain has a limited capacity to absorb them. Just like when you go to a party and you are introduced to 10 people in 30 seconds. You will remember maybe 3 or 4 of their names. So when you read that "the American Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1927 in the Spirit of St-Louis", that is a lot of facts all at once. One fact that is easily missed is expressed with 4 little letters: "solo". He is also famous for winning the Orteig Prize, which was a 25 000$ prize offered to the first aviator to fly from New-York to Paris non-stop. So that is probably why he got a lot of press. You will get much more publicity if you leave from New-York and land in Paris than if you leave from middle of nowhere Newfoundland and land in Ireland.
Prizes like that serve as a spur to motivate attempts to accomplish certain things, and they set the parameters on the accomplishment, too, in this case, the New York to Paris specification. This specification made the flight something that more people could relate to than a flight from one remote point to another remote point on the other side of the Atlantic. A non-stop trip between New York and Paris inspired a lot more personal imaginations than a non-stop flight from a cold, rough field in Newfoundland to a bog in rural Ireland. This is one of the factors that made Lindbergh more famous.
To be fair, Lindbergh never claimed to be the first to cross the atlantic, that was just wrongly attributed to him. He claimed to be the first to have flown non-stop from New York to Paris (no idea if he actually was). My favourite atlantic-crosser has to be Michael Manousakis, who had the crazy idea of crossing the pond in an Antonov An-2. Apparently that thing is so slow that some ATC controller mistook it for a helicopter
Who claims that Lindbergh was the first to fly across the Atlantic? I thought it was well established that he was the first to fly SOLO across the Atlantic.
Lars Petter Simonsen I seem to have remembered Lindbergh being the first to cross the Atlantic. I mean, granted it was covered in like 8th grade for me and was never touched again. I never looked back into it. So watching this video was pretty informative for me because I assumed Lindbergh was the first.
It's often paraphrased as "Lindbergh was the first to fly across the Atlantic". Not really through anyone's fault or purposeful deception, but it's clear simply through the comparative fame of the two events that most people would answer "Lindbergh" if asked "Who was/were the first to fly across the Atlantic".
I wish I didn't have to do this, but as this is a history channel I feel it necessary to point out Llloyd's errors. Lindbergh is famous not because he was filmed, but rather because he was the first to fly non-stop from New York to Paris(The Orteig Prize), and he did it solo to boot, which many found even more extraordinary. Henson's Aerial Steam Carriage could be considered the first manned heavier than air flight. It flew about 40m, indoors, without controls. It wasn't an airplane because it couldn't control it's pitch, yaw, or roll. The Wright Brothers are famous not for being filmed, but for the first airplane(or if you're British, aeroplane). You'll find the information about Lindbergh and Henson on Wikipedia. For an explanation on way many primitive flying machines weren't airplanes, watch this video: th-cam.com/video/EZcuJN0Yyi0/w-d-xo.html It's a shame that Lloyd so often makes these kind of errors, because he is an entertaining speaker and many people see him as a reliable source for history on TH-cam.
I contend that these are not really 'errors'. I never argue that the earlier steam-powered aircraft were practical transport. They weren't. I just say that they were just heavier-than-air powered flying machines, which they were. Yes, Lindy flew further. My point was that he wasn't the first across the Atlantic, but that he is famous, and most people seem to think that he was the first. So, what I said was true, but didn't have the spin you would have chosen.
Lindybeige You asserted that Lindbergh is famous for crossing the Atlantic because of 1. He was a good self-publicist 2. He was American 3. A Movie 4. He was filmed When in fact, he is famous because he won the Orteig Prize. That’s an error.
The problem is that being the first heavier than air powered flight is not, nor has ever been, the Wright brothers claim to fame. I go to school in America for Aerospace Engineering and we are very specifically taught - and I have read the Wright brothers proclamations as such - that they are the first to fly a heavier than air powered CONTROLLED flight. Their entire engineering focus was on the problem of control. When no on believed they flew in 1903, they changed their minds in 1909 when the world saw them fly perfectly controlled in all three axis of flight. ALL OTHERS were building aircraft with rudder and elevator control, and just trying to make the plane so stable it wouldn't roll, or relying on weight shift to control roll. To speak of this the way you did is to smear their entire endeavor. It is slanderous. And I've lost a lot of respect for your channel for your handling of this. Also, another major error is the way you described the spiral issue. Death Spirals are an instrumentation issue, not a piloting issue per se. The issue there is that when in a spiral in zero visibility, the plane can maintain one G until very deep into the dive, at which point, you don't know which way to pull out. To combat this, pilots were trained to use the secondary information of the compass and altimeter, along with throttle discipline, to fly on instruments in the days before gyro instruments. These techniques are still taught as 'partial panel' today. It would have been nice to see some detail on this, its a neat innovation in practice, very early after its adoption. The way you described this is as if there were some special, super hero control inputs needed to combat the dive. There isn't. You just have to be aware you're in one, and which way to go to get out of it. All in all, this video was hard to listen to. So very disingenuous.
Another great film Lindy. I remember learning about Alcock and Brown at school in the 1970s. I seem to remember they featured in a Ladybird book. The ice sticks in my mind 40 years later. Keep up the good work!
You can see Alcock and Brown's Vimy in the Science Museum, London. The fuselage covering is cut back so you can see that it was just _stuffed_ with fuel tanks.
Love this video Lloyd, however i have one small correction... You mention that aAlcock and Brown were “trained by the RAF”. Alcock was actually a Royal Naval pilot first, though he learnt to fly before the War, and Brown was trained in the Royal Flying Corps, and hence an Army Officer.
Jimmy Stewart played a man in a movie who was the first NON-STOP SOLO FOUGHT over the Atlantic ... So at least give him credit for that. Great presentation lindy :) loved it
One very impressive thing that I only recently learnt was that Brown had worked out what he could expect to see in terms of observations throughout the journey and written them in a notebook so the few occasions when they were able to see things he was able (despite being frozen) to work out where they are rapidly.
Hi Lindy, I don't normally comment on youtube videos but I kind of can't help myself this time. I just wanted to point out that St. John's itself isn't an island, it's a town on the island of Newfoundland.
@@johnladuke6475 The Continent which contains Newfoundland is North America. North America is often referred to simply as 'America', over here. It's an accepted colloquialism. Incorrect, of course, but it happens. It's similar to your people calling your language 'English', and ours 'British English'. In truth, our language is called, correctly, 'English', after the country in which it originated (and we have numerous dialects), whereas yours is perhaps more correctly referred to as 'US English' (which also has many dialects). 'British English' does not exist as a language, and never has done.
The town of Gander Newfoundland has named two crescents for the pilots. Alcock Crescent and Brown Crescent. The story of the flight was one of the more stirring history lessons we had in Canada (1960s). This was no surprise for me.
The first flight across the Atlantic was by the NC-4, an American flying boat, in May of 1919. Alcott and Brown made the first NONSTOP flight in June of that same year.
Lindbergh was the first to fly non-stop from the U.S. to continental Europe, and he did this solo. This should not diminish what Brown and Alcock's did in their harrowing journey seven years earlier. Lindy opines that Lindbergh's fame eclipses Alcock and Brown mostly because it was filmed. This is easily disproved because when Lindbergh landed in France, he was greeted by 150,000 cheering Frenchmen who obviously did not see this movie.
Actually, that's not what he said at all. "Because it was filmed" is a polite euphemism which is correctly translated as "because Americans, as usual when it comes to history, have been drinking their own bathwater".
Nice job. As a Canadian schoolboy I grew up on the story of Alcock & Brown (despite the fact that Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada in 1919). Two minor quibbles. One, the St. John's they took off from is not an island (although Newfoundland is); it's the capital city. Two, "Newfoundland" is correctly pronounced by those who live there with the stress on the last syllable (and a lot of Canadians get this wrong).
Can you imagine how exciting that would be? 2000 miles over patches of ice and ocean, sound of the engine only thing in your ear, and your natural senses guiding you through the way.
If you like that kind of stuff, give this a read. It’s about a diphtheria outbreak in an isolated northern town and pilot Wop May’s famous Race Against Death in an open biplane during the harsh Canadian winter. Good stuff. www.wopmay.com/mercy-flight-of-1929/
i recall reading a detailed account of the flight back when i was at school researching my project for early flight. to add to your intro... orville and wright take the record for the 1st controlled flight. early fliers like clement ader were already making exhibition "hops" with steam powered machines in the 1890s
It does seem odd to me that when you google "the first transatlantic flight" it comes up with the guy who did it *solo* first, not the guys who did it *first.* I realise this is probably just a result of them being American, and there being more webpages written by Americans with a pro-American bias, but it's not good that fact and information is getting subtly distorted like that. It makes you wonder how many things are slightly twisted like that online
Yes. It also shows the "People also ask" section where his name is highlighted in bold again in response to "Who made the first transatlantic flight?".
Huh? We're taught that he did it solo and with one engine. I went to school in Little Falls, MN where a museum dedicated to the guy is really the only claim to fame, they even stress the solo and single-engine part. Google's shortcomings have nothing to do with the American nationality, just browse the Play store for more evidence of that.
Jixijenga of course. It's not really a "pro American" bias so much as a bias towards misconception. You can't really blame Google as its algorithm just runs the inputs and spits out the outputs. If the top results/sites generally suggested the name Lindbergh then it'll struggle to show othereise.
Actually I can blame Google for that, and I do. If my dog jumps the fence and mauls my neighbor's six-year-old who's responsible? The dog? No, the dog has no agency, but I do so therefore I am responsible for whatever my things do.
I'm going to have to call bullshit on the British STEAM POWERED heavier than air flight. Lots of people tried to do that, steam engines are notoriously heavy. Even the Wright brothers struggled with getting an internal combustion engine light enough. They had to make their own engine out of aluminium.
No, it's true, but they never became practical transport. The engines had poor power-to-weight ratios, and the aerodynamics of the craft were not great, and they didn't even have decent propeller designs. Some could fly themselves, but not carry anything, and others just managed short hops. I imagine that with today's improved aerodynamics and improvements in materials, a steam-powered aircraft is possible, but why bother?
Surprisingly enough, the United States Air Force looked into Steam Powered aircraft back in the, I'm going to say, 1960's, though it actually could have been back in the 1950's! What they were really looking at is a nuclear powered aircraft, but nuclear power is best utilized by using the nuclear fuel to turn water into steam and then using the steam to provide power to the propellers. They were interested in extremely long ranged aircraft, which is why they looked at nuclear/steam powered aircraft. Currently they are using solar celled gliders drones for extremely long range.
"but why bother?" - did you know the Mythbusters once built a lighter-than-air airship out of LEAD, just to see if it could be done? A steam-powered aircraft sounds simple by comparison.
Just three years after the Lindbergh hop, a young English girl Amy Johnson, flow solo from London to Australia. Flying solo for a girl is even more challenging as there is no one to chat to.
Lindybeige, In the same way that the first of so many things are called first...You may want to play with definitions. the Wright Bros were first to fly because their aircraft took off with its own power, had control in flight, and landed where and as expected. The oodles of documentation showing scientific and engineering work along with that first flight, made it possible for many to follow the path they blazed. Give them their due.
The wright brothers really were the first to do s powered flight. Even of you think they technically weren't the first to fly with a motor, they were the first to fly with a vehicle that produces more loft than it's weight. And that's not their first flight btw.it took a few iterations for them to actually produce enough lift. Their first flight got luck in that there was a headwind that produces more lift on their first flight.
People are commenting on an omission of mine: Lindbergh's flight was the first *solo* non-stop flight across the Atlantic, which was a claim to fame. Another reason that Lindbergh was famous is that the whole of America followed the story of his kidnapped baby. Fame breeds fame. The more famous he was for one thing (baby), the more he would be remembered for another (flight). That he played a significant part in 'the war' is irrelevant, because his flight was in 1927, and he played no part in WW1. In WW2, he was a technical advisor to pilots in the Far East theatre of operations, and his advice made very significant differences to US aerial capabilities.
Charles Lindbergh was also in the observing stands at the Apollo 11 launch.
His flight was also between NY and Paris, which was about twice as far. His reputation was sullied by him being a vehement isolationist bordering on Nazi sympathy. He was publicly accused of disloyalty by FDR and resigned his military commission.
As another brit Im starting to contemplate if all us brits are insane because I dont hear any thing like the stuff we've done from other nations (Love how you started waving the flags around by the way)
Nice video, but I already knew about this flight.
Yeah, we in America are taught he was the first to fly across Solo, and it was between 2 significant cities of the day.
On a related theme On the 25 July 1909 Louis Bleriot completed the first flight from France to Britain, on the 26th July 1909 Britain built the worlds first Anti Aircraft Gun ;)
We know our priorities, shooting Frenchmen out of the sky
Haha
Although it's original role wasn't anti aircraft, and many artillery pieces can take down planes (for example, I think it was the Bulgarians, were responsible for the first aircraft kill of the war with a regular artillery piece), but the maxim 37mm or Pom-Pom (the nickname created by the south Africans for the noise it made) was a pretty effective AA gun for its day, obsolete in the mid 20s in AA role (my guess)
The first anti aircraft gun was built by krupp in 1871 for shooting French balloons, not in 1909.
@@archdornan1722 Its a well known joke......
"Dear Alcock. I trust you are well, despite the difficult circumstances. I am just writing to you to let you know that I am having difficulty reading the fuel gauges, and I am thinking of taking a little walk out along the wings, just to stretch my legs for a bit. Back in a jiffy. Hoping this finds you as it leaves me, etcetera etcetera. Yours, Brown."
And that wasn't easy in thick mittens.
ixtl guul
Nothing really beats Lawrence Oates, "I'm just going out. I may be some time."
Then again, Oates wasn't reduced to writing exclusively.
@ixtl guul, this may be my favorite TH-cam comment ever!
"P.S. Have you seen the cat?"
@@loddude5706 Thanks for the laugh!
I'm waiting for Lindy to tell everybody that Americans weren't actually the first to land on the moon. "In 1873 a steam explosion blew an Englishman all the way to the moon, but no one counts it because he didn't make it back."
don't give him ideas.
no one counts because it wasnt filmed.
I thought everyone knew about Cuthbert Aberington?
But im sure that was filmed ;)
I tried googling what you said and got a walkthrough for Goat Simulator. Am I missing something?
*Speaking of unfortunately-named businesses, I was once in the Southern United States on business when I passed by the Challenger Academy Day Care. "Challenger" as in the space shuttle. The one that famously exploded on launch. Complete with a logo featuring smiling children riding in a space shuttle.*
They wanted to reflect the realities of American public education.
There were more than 1 challenger missions
Kingsford-Smiths flight from Sydney to Auckland is one of the craziest ever, on a 3 engine plane the right engine failed 2 hrs after take off. 4 hrs later the left engine began to overheat and needed more oil to keep working. One of the crew had to climb out on the wing and fill his coffee thermos full of oil from the defunct right engine, pass it back into the cabin to be poured into a suitcase, and then transferred using his thermos into the struggling left engine.
I offer £25 to the first person who can cross the Atlantic on a pogo stick. I believe this can be achieved through the use of a series of strategically placed cork mats.
You will have to film it though.
That £25 might just cover the cost of the pogo stick and selfie stick needed to even start. Actually it probably wouldn't... Can I get a second offer?
I'd be willing to throw in another 25...
I'd throw in 50 AUD
I'll front 30¢
The Wright brothers were the first to successfully do heavier than air powered *controlled* (pitch, roll, and yaw) flight. There were gliders that flew in Germany in the 1800s.
And Santos-Dumont made the first motorized heavier than air flying machine independently from the Wright Brothers and it was the fist ever airplane.
There are a number of claims that predate the Wright Brothers.
I once read of a German immigrant named Weisskopf in the US who flew an aircraft with an acetylene fueled internal combustion engine shortly before the Wright Brothers flight.
The story has it that the Wright Brothers get the credit due to two very astute marketing moves: first, having the flight filmed; and second, giving the Smithsonian all their original drawings, designs, and other historically significant items in return for the Smithsonian taking the official position the the Wright Brothers were first.
We'll probably never know the true history of those early years of flight with 100% accuracy. Too much personal promotion and regional pride went into the early reporting to sort out the unvarnished facts.
@@mojeo522 Wrong. The Wrights did it in 1904
@@mojeo522 Santos-Dumont was a significant contribute to the emerging field but was not the first. He did have a first however, he can't claim the first heavier the air flight and the invention of the airplane but he can claim the first airplane to take off under it's own power. Wright's plane used a slingshot to get it going. Historians are still divided on how you define "first airplane" but it is worth noting that Wright also had takeoffs without the use of their slingshot years before.
It is safe to put Wright Brothers as the inventors of the airplane. Failed experiments before and better devices later do not disqualify their plane's title.
@@davehoward22 And? The first computer was made out of existing parts as well. Nothing was invented specifically for it. The first light bulb was glass and wire, neither of which were new at the time. The car was a cart and engine. Invention is quite literally the combination of previously created works.
They invented the plane. Nothing previously could really claim to have controlled flight. This came off as rude at least to me I was trying to be direct not rude. Don't take it like that haha.
And another first for Britain. The world's first crash into a bog as the end of a transatlantic flight.
Ireland.
Manus Carlisle in all fairness Ireland was still part of britain at the time
Manus Carlisle
Just because they crashed into Ireland doesn't give the record to Ireland. Although I guess Ireland can claim to be the first country crashed into by a non-stop transatlantic flight.
Jim Fortune they crossed the Atlantic first, non-stop.
JohnyG29
Actually, I believe it was first done by an unladen sparrow.
America: We did something first the field of aviation
Britain: No we did that same thing way before you did, you just got all the media attention.
France: YOU'RE BOTH WRONG! We French did this when you British fops were hiding behind Victoria's skirts.
Germans: No no no, It was Count Alfired Von Scklebkeberghahauremerger in 1803 who did it with nothing more than a piece of paper and a comb.
Middle East: Nope fake news it was Abbas Bin Ali Fasel Rakhamanan Mohammed who flew in 927 A. D. in Mesopotamia
China: You are ALL WRONG! China did it in the Zhou Dynasty in 2150 B.C.
India: China you stole that from us because it was Singh Nosuaureanmatkantoknoanonwamonakakan in 2218 B.C.
I do look forward to the day we can celebrate human achievement without all the flag waving. [I didn't realise there was literal flag waving in the vid lol]
Tadicuslegion78 this gave me a good laugh.
India's probably right.Can't trust those ancient texts, they're definitely hiding something.
it was actually Jara da Cimrman...
Germany: Otto Lilienthal.
29:48 I like the idea that Lloyd had those flags just sat there ready to wave the entire video
Lindy did three things that were different. He flew from a planned point to a planned point, planned the flight and flew the plan. He did it solo and the plane was still usable after his flight.
He was also a friend of Adolph Hitler and later a nazi and is believed to have murdered his infant son (who was mentally 'defective') because he believed in Eugenics, so another three things that was different to Alcock and Brown.... probably not what you wanted to hear........
But Alcock and Brown flew the Atlantic in an open cockpit with no heat in absolutely freezing conditions, so they should get some points for that. 😁
Lindbergh was famous for the first SOLO flight over the Atlantic
While that is true, there's a lot of people who think his flight across the Atlantic was the first in general.
Yes, but mostly those who are not passionate enough about history to value facts.
Sean Gibbons I dont believe so. When I was taught back in elementary school i was told the first solo flight across the Atlantic. And that was in the 80's.
Ben Vaun He said "a lot", not everyone. Also why does it matter that it was in the 80's?
That may be what is taught, but in my experience that is not what people remember. I'd bet that if you were to ask any random group of people who was the first to fly across the Atlantic ocean, if they come up with anybody, it'll be Lindbergh.
Lindy's a wonderful story-teller. I could listen to him all day long. Truth be told: right up until the end, I was positive that any moment, he was going to tell us that the plane dove into the sea and was lost forever (or something like that). But no, he got us through to the very end. Well done, Lindy!
And he is just SO British! Not "brave", but "flipping brave". And that flag waving at the end -- priceless!
Man, youre a great story teller Lindy, you paint a great picture.
Specifically, Lindbergh won the $25,000 prize offered by French born New York hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris. Which was also the first non-stop flight from a city in the continental US to a city in continental Europe. Six years later he surveyed the routes for the first transatlantic passenger services, which led to the flying boat stations at Foynes in Ireland and Botwood in Newfoundland being established, and services commenced in 1937.
Imprisoned by hope and blinded by aspiration.
30 minutes of aviation history on a Friday night? Sounds like a party to me!
It's so impressive to me how he manages without cuts.
yshwgth same haha
I want to party with you, man!
There's nothing like a good war to give technology a boost.
Justin Gould
Unfortunately, yes.
Nothing motivates people like wanting or needing to beat the other guy.
WW1: Tech to fly over The Atlantic.
WW2: Tech to put things into the orbit.
Cold War: Tech to put man into a moon.
If WW3 starts, I predict we'll have USA, Russia and China mining asteroids in less than a year.
The big question is what will the next Meme War yield?
Why a good war, when you can have a Great War?
No one seems to want to mention the R34 Airship that in July 1919 did the FIRST transatlantic return flight across the Atlantic. But despite this I have just discovered Lindybeige and I think you are brilliant, cant get enough of your stuff.
Not to pick too fine a point, but the Wright brothers were the first to demonstrate controlled flight. As in, they were actually in control of their craft, they knew why their design flew, and they understood the principles that enabled it to do so.The same cannot be said of ANY of their predecessors or contemporaries. They had experimented for years with scale models and manned gliders before designing and building their own engine. Also, they weren't exactly 'filmed', there was a fellow there with a camera who took a picture, and it was quite some time before anyone who hasn't witnessed the feat believed them.
Controlled POWERED flight.... There were loads of controlled glider flights before that (as you actually said yourself).
.
@mandellorian No mention of Clement Ader in the video or comments, as I expected.
@mandellorian A Wright flyer kept flying and flew quiet some distances, over and over. 24 miles in a circle, for example. It was a real plane.
Don't bother. The nationalists won't listen.
@@oml81mm
Actually, controlled, powered, heavier-than-air. There were gliders and balloons and dirigibles before.
"Controlled" merely means that "taking off, careening in a random direction, then crashing" doesn't count.
Amazing that they were able to fly in the clouds with no gyroscopic instruments.
During instrument flight training a flight instructor has you put your head down and close your eyes and you try to fly by the seat of your pants.
You may feel like you’re straight and level but when you look up suddenly you’re in a steep bank and in a steep dive or something.
This gets a lot of pilots killed even if they have a well equipped airplane.
Scary stuff. Badass story, thanks Lindy!
Just had the strangest moment of my whole life. I fell asleep about an hour ago and woke up just now thinking it was 10 Saturday morning, made myself a full fried English breakfast and a cup of tea and give my cat it’s breakfast and let it out...came on my phone to see what’s uploaded and just noticed the actual time watching this video. I needed to share this because I truly believe the matrix has just glitched in me and now I feel surreal.
I heard about this story in a mustard video and had to lookup a video of it. Now I’ve found you and I’m very happy to be subscribed :)
I crossed the Atlantic with a bicycle and some Irish friends
Someone bicycled across the Humber; a river with dangerous currents, on England's East coast, in the 1930's. So it's likely that the Atlantic must have been contemplated by some nutcase or other!
?
That’s all I’m going to say
@@shipofbats9134 ngl it was a reference to something but I forgot what it was
Ok
TH-camrs go I come and go, I get hooked to one and watch them non stop and then get bored but you, Lindy, ypu i stick to through thick and thin, I guess it’s the learning you empart on me, however it’s not just the learning it’s the true facts of the deep research you do that I care for most. You truly outdo yourself with that specific research you do and that makes your videos. I would love you to do more poetic stuff but i appreciate your in-depth knowledge non the less. Keep going beigey
Dear LindyBeige,
Very enjoyable and articulate presentation- as usual; thank you.
When you visit the landing site from Clifden, it is really quite dramatic and calls to mind the sheer extent of what had been achieved. It is remote, and if they had missed by a fraction of a degree they were in for an icey grave.They would probably survive for no more than 20 minutes in the ocean, assuming that they could “ditch” without serious injury. No radio beacons, no radar, no GPS- they were heroes.
It would be nice if you could visit the site and give some local context.
I have to discount a lot of the discussion regarding Lindberg. Every year yielded tremendous advances in technology, so that 1927 was far removed from 1919. I acknowledge the great achievement of a single engined solo flight, but it was 8 years later.
One must not forget the first East to West flight of the Bremen from Baldonnel, (now Casement airfield) in 1928. An extreme challenge, but perhaps to your regret, not one with a British flight crew.
Come visit Ireland and see some of these places for yourself-
The achievement is something to be remembered as we strap ourselves in and await the snacks-
Every success,
Thanks as always a very entertaining production.
My experience of "White outs" or total loss of orientation, is that they are very hard to cope with.
Many people will say it was a total Whiteout up there, my experience of thousands of hours of climbing, skiing, running, is that I have only really experienced a Whiteout 3 times, when you are in one you know about it, most people have never experienced how difficult it is.
If you are skiing it is difficult to tell whether you are moving or stopped, there is no horizon, there is no feedback about movement, you cannot even see your feet.
So well done A&B for coping with this, with very primitive kit.
the logo would work an engine warning, as in "don't look into the carburetor! aspiration blinds!"
Very informative and well presented. I'm from New Jersey and was visiting the west of Ireland in the early 1980s. I forget exactly where it was, but there was an exhibit of photos and text near where Alcock and Brown landed. I guess it was near Galway. It was a real revelation, never having heard of them before. What great and brave men.
As I remember it, Lindbergh's challenge wasn't to fly the Atlantic, but non-stop New York to Paris (Orteig Prize). If it was just the Atlantic he could have taken off and landed a lot closer than he did.
I came looking for the story of who crossed the Atlantic first and I found exactly what I wanted, very well told, 10/10
Fantastic video, Lindy! Really enjoyed this thrilling story.
Any chance of a follow-up episode about the first westbound journey across the Atlantic by the British rigid airship R.34?
Fascinating !
I did not know this !
I don’t imagine it was the weight of the fuel that was of concern in this flight .
It was the size and weight of the stones on these men to attempt such an arduous journey in a string-bag , open cockpit aircraft .
Heroes true , and examples to us all .
Thanks for the story , Lloyd , I will remember it always .
Waiting on more of the same , you have the talent and presentation to give us these treasures in proper form .
Outstanding , sir !
Lindenbergh was the first confirmed flight for a single person in a plane, also known as solo flight, and at the same time a non-stop direct flight between North America and Europe.
There was no confirmed flight before Lindenbergh's crossing that was both a SOLO flight and a NON-STOP flight.
There were plenty of multicrew flights across the Atlantic that were non-stop, and plenty of solo flights that were with stops along the way on islands. There was never a confirmed flight before Lindenbergh (there were claims for the feat as far back as 1923) for both solo and non-stop across the Atlantic.
I enjoy listening to your stories, you're one hell of a storyteller, carry on Loyd!.
Seaplanes seem to be ideal for flying over huge oceans and resupplying at islands
As a Brit and aviation enthusiast I would argue Lloyd that the reason that we are so enamored by the flights at Kitty Hawk was that they flew a controlled aircraft that they continually developed with different models, as you say the aerial steam carriage flew short hops and then they gave up with it. Other than that your storytelling as always was excellent.
Choo-choo planes? In the 1840s? British Humor just never gets old :)
30 minute take, one of the reasons why i love you lindy.
"aspiration Blinds" reminds me of a sign I saw once that was advertising "Invisible Burglar Bars" and the only thing I could think of was "Looks like someone been having a problem with Hobbits".
I actually have a tattoo of a smashed coin you could get at the st.louis zoo. It's the one they had of Charles Lindbergh's plane surrounded by the words "spirit of st.louis". I am st.louis born and bread so the history of the great Atlantic flight and the Lindbergh story are huge cultural phenomenon here.
I can't believe a guy running a channel called "Lindybeige", who teaches Lindy Hop, made a video talking about how the guy who is supposedly the source of the term "Lindy Hop" wasn't actually as great as people seem to think
Well, he was, because his flight was solo and single engine which was a big fucking deal in 1927.
Lindbergh hated the nickname "Lindy" and the fact that there was a dance named after it, anyway, so it's probably just as well.
@Marry Christmas - true he dabbled but Hitler's shenanigans changed his mind and he went to a Pacific Island and showed pilots how to increase the mileage on their P-38s.
@Marry Christmas also believed to have murdered his handicapped baby son...nice chap.......
@Marry Christmas Might've also killed his kid...
Lindy you are one of the few who can make even the advertising part of your vid entertaining.
One of the examples of publicity overshadowing real achievements is the case of stratosphere jumps.
In 2012 Austrian extreme sports star Felix Baumgartner got to perform a jump from the highest altitude in history - 24 mi / 39 km. The whole thing was also a gigantic publicity stunt for his sponsor - Red Bull. They poured enormous amount of cash to film and broadcast the whole event through the internet and TV and radio around the globe. Red Bull also made shure that their logos were allvover the place making the whole affair one giant advertisement. Whole world saw this or was informed about this in the news. Many people today belive that it was Baumgartner who performed the longest leap in history and that his record was never beaten.
But that's not true at all. Merely two years later a member of Google's higher management - an unremarkably looking middle-aged man by the name Alan Eustace beat Baumgartner by two miles or three kilometres. He just got the sponsors, paid his share for the equipment and work neaded to make the whole thing work and jumped. With almost no publicity at all compared to the well-cherished Red Bull media campaign from two years prior. And so almost nobody heard about this feat.
So I don't blame people for not knowing the first men who flew across the Atlantic and other heroes and daredevils of early aviation. Many remarkable people were lost and will be lost to history.
In 21st century those types of things still happen.
Baumgartner still holds the record for the world's highest free-fall jump. Alan Eustace used a drogue chute.
David Vanau Just like Charles Lindbergh was the first man to fly across the Atlantic *alone* , but clearly wasn't the first to manage this feat as a part of a group. Baumgartner achieved the longest free-fall, but not the jump from the highest altitude. Still people conflate real achievements of Lindbergh and Baumgartner with feats that just seem more impressive or simpler to fathom. But they are wrong and I wanted to point that out. I just read and heard the wrong informations on this whole affair over and over for over three years now, so when I saw Lindy talk about similar thing I just took the opportunity to misspell another misconception you may often come across.
Except Alcock and Brown are actually well known for the managing first Transatlantic flight. Lindbergh was separately famous for the first solo flight.
So not sure of the point of this video.
Wright Bothers, Blériot, Alcock +Brown, Lindbergh get taught as being the major aviation pioneers. Blériot did the first English Channel/La Manche Crosing
Baumgartner also had a drogue parachute. Eustace did something else remarkable; the whole flight and dive was made without using a gondola.
Great job as always Lindy, my wife just bought me a copy of 'The life and correspondence of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith' and I'll probably be calling my twin boys Jack and Author. Keep up the good work and I look forward to your next video.
This video had my attention from start to finish. Well done on another great video. Keep up the great work.
In his excellent book "A Short History of nearly Everything" Bill Bryson explains that although the Wright brother's Kitty Hawk flight had predecessors, theirs was the first machine capable of sustained controlled flight. Their acheivement was much more than just tinkering in a shop, getting lucky and good publicity. Being English born in 1952, of course I knew that Alcock and Brown first flew the Atlantic! But great video, thanks.
Can you make a video on the Welsh ;) just the welsh in general...we need any publicity we can get...
Don't be silly, we all know that Wales isn't a real place.
Sir Robby Walpole
What did you do with Wales, you slippery PM!?
...cough welsh rebellion cough 1400 cough nearly beat the English cough the French betrayed us! cough
He'll just shit on you like he does any non-brit culture.
Welsh? Aren't those the guys with the overly long words?
... No! Not the germans! The OTHER guys with overy long words off course.
You are the only video maker who can speak about the sponsor in an enjoyable way. I never skip your ad bits. (Neebs Gaming does good ads - one of only two video makers who advertise well) :)
The first Trans Atlantic flight and they're still waiting for the luggage at the carousel.
Glad you noticed Alcock and Brown, I authored a school project on the way back in the 60s when we made airfix kits & balsa and tissue models!
The problem with facts is that your brain has a limited capacity to absorb them. Just like when you go to a party and you are introduced to 10 people in 30 seconds. You will remember maybe 3 or 4 of their names. So when you read that "the American Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1927 in the Spirit of St-Louis", that is a lot of facts all at once. One fact that is easily missed is expressed with 4 little letters: "solo".
He is also famous for winning the Orteig Prize, which was a 25 000$ prize offered to the first aviator to fly from New-York to Paris non-stop. So that is probably why he got a lot of press. You will get much more publicity if you leave from New-York and land in Paris than if you leave from middle of nowhere Newfoundland and land in Ireland.
Prizes like that serve as a spur to motivate attempts to accomplish certain things, and they set the parameters on the accomplishment, too, in this case, the New York to Paris specification. This specification made the flight something that more people could relate to than a flight from one remote point to another remote point on the other side of the Atlantic. A non-stop trip between New York and Paris inspired a lot more personal imaginations than a non-stop flight from a cold, rough field in Newfoundland to a bog in rural Ireland. This is one of the factors that made Lindbergh more famous.
To be fair, Lindbergh never claimed to be the first to cross the atlantic, that was just wrongly attributed to him. He claimed to be the first to have flown non-stop from New York to Paris (no idea if he actually was).
My favourite atlantic-crosser has to be Michael Manousakis, who had the crazy idea of crossing the pond in an Antonov An-2. Apparently that thing is so slow that some ATC controller mistook it for a helicopter
Who claims that Lindbergh was the first to fly across the Atlantic? I thought it was well established that he was the first to fly SOLO across the Atlantic.
Lars Petter Simonsen I seem to have remembered Lindbergh being the first to cross the Atlantic. I mean, granted it was covered in like 8th grade for me and was never touched again. I never looked back into it. So watching this video was pretty informative for me because I assumed Lindbergh was the first.
I thought the same.
It was the first solo and the first non-stop to Europe proper (New York and Paris, not Newfoundland and Ireland).
That's how I remembered it...
It's often paraphrased as "Lindbergh was the first to fly across the Atlantic". Not really through anyone's fault or purposeful deception, but it's clear simply through the comparative fame of the two events that most people would answer "Lindbergh" if asked "Who was/were the first to fly across the Atlantic".
You are an amazing storyteller Mr. Beige
I wish I didn't have to do this, but as this is a history channel I feel it necessary to point out Llloyd's errors.
Lindbergh is famous not because he was filmed, but rather because he was the first to fly non-stop from New York to Paris(The Orteig Prize), and he did it solo to boot, which many found even more extraordinary.
Henson's Aerial Steam Carriage could be considered the first manned heavier than air flight. It flew about 40m, indoors, without controls. It wasn't an airplane because it couldn't control it's pitch, yaw, or roll. The Wright Brothers are famous not for being filmed, but for the first airplane(or if you're British, aeroplane).
You'll find the information about Lindbergh and Henson on Wikipedia. For an explanation on way many primitive flying machines weren't airplanes, watch this video: th-cam.com/video/EZcuJN0Yyi0/w-d-xo.html
It's a shame that Lloyd so often makes these kind of errors, because he is an entertaining speaker and many people see him as a reliable source for history on TH-cam.
Lloyd's claim about Lindbergh is what Knyght Errant would call, "Replacing myth with myth".
I contend that these are not really 'errors'. I never argue that the earlier steam-powered aircraft were practical transport. They weren't. I just say that they were just heavier-than-air powered flying machines, which they were. Yes, Lindy flew further. My point was that he wasn't the first across the Atlantic, but that he is famous, and most people seem to think that he was the first. So, what I said was true, but didn't have the spin you would have chosen.
Lindybeige You asserted that Lindbergh is famous for crossing the Atlantic because of 1. He was a good self-publicist
2. He was American
3. A Movie
4. He was filmed
When in fact, he is famous because he won the Orteig Prize. That’s an error.
And wikipedia is hardly a completely objective source. It's riddled with meddling by all sorts of people who wish to control its content.
The problem is that being the first heavier than air powered flight is not, nor has ever been, the Wright brothers claim to fame.
I go to school in America for Aerospace Engineering and we are very specifically taught - and I have read the Wright brothers proclamations as such - that they are the first to fly a heavier than air powered CONTROLLED flight. Their entire engineering focus was on the problem of control. When no on believed they flew in 1903, they changed their minds in 1909 when the world saw them fly perfectly controlled in all three axis of flight. ALL OTHERS were building aircraft with rudder and elevator control, and just trying to make the plane so stable it wouldn't roll, or relying on weight shift to control roll.
To speak of this the way you did is to smear their entire endeavor. It is slanderous. And I've lost a lot of respect for your channel for your handling of this.
Also, another major error is the way you described the spiral issue. Death Spirals are an instrumentation issue, not a piloting issue per se. The issue there is that when in a spiral in zero visibility, the plane can maintain one G until very deep into the dive, at which point, you don't know which way to pull out. To combat this, pilots were trained to use the secondary information of the compass and altimeter, along with throttle discipline, to fly on instruments in the days before gyro instruments. These techniques are still taught as 'partial panel' today. It would have been nice to see some detail on this, its a neat innovation in practice, very early after its adoption. The way you described this is as if there were some special, super hero control inputs needed to combat the dive. There isn't. You just have to be aware you're in one, and which way to go to get out of it.
All in all, this video was hard to listen to. So very disingenuous.
'loyd rants! fog and clouds!!'
i miss the rants!
you're a fantastic story-tellerby the way!
6:33. Was waiting for, "WAR WERE DECLARED!" Oh...never mind.
His Britishness won out!
Jesus us c&rsenal fans certainly get around on the old interwebs, I was expecting the same thing lol
Another great film Lindy. I remember learning about Alcock and Brown at school in the 1970s. I seem to remember they featured in a Ladybird book. The ice sticks in my mind 40 years later. Keep up the good work!
I absolutely love how Lindy just does these entire storytime videos in one big take, feel like my fun uncle is telling me a story over dinner haha
Love the Churchill impression.
and this Vickers Vimy plane is on display at the Science Museum in London.
Saw it there. Near to a Wright flyer. While the Vimy was definitely from a different era to the Flyer, it really looks flimsy.
Bloody hell! The advert for audible is incredible! Respect, Lindy!
Love the flag waving!
Typo Anglais.@@carloaldo5130
@@carloaldo5130 Go on, admit it; you’re just jealous! 😉
You can see Alcock and Brown's Vimy in the Science Museum, London. The fuselage covering is cut back so you can see that it was just _stuffed_ with fuel tanks.
Love this video Lloyd, however i have one small correction... You mention that aAlcock and Brown were “trained by the RAF”. Alcock was actually a Royal Naval pilot first, though he learnt to fly before the War, and Brown was trained in the Royal Flying Corps, and hence an Army Officer.
Jimmy Stewart played a man in a movie who was the first NON-STOP SOLO FOUGHT over the Atlantic ... So at least give him credit for that. Great presentation lindy :) loved it
Even the commercial by Lindy is so funny to listen that you don't skip forward xD
You're great, sir!
One very impressive thing that I only recently learnt was that Brown had worked out what he could expect to see in terms of observations throughout the journey and written them in a notebook so the few occasions when they were able to see things he was able (despite being frozen) to work out where they are rapidly.
Hi Lindy, I don't normally comment on youtube videos but I kind of can't help myself this time. I just wanted to point out that St. John's itself isn't an island, it's a town on the island of Newfoundland.
Could also point out that he keeps calling Newfoundland "America", when it is in fact "Canada", and was at the time "Britain".
@@johnladuke6475 The Continent which contains Newfoundland is North America. North America is often referred to simply as 'America', over here. It's an accepted colloquialism. Incorrect, of course, but it happens. It's similar to your people calling your language 'English', and ours 'British English'. In truth, our language is called, correctly, 'English', after the country in which it originated (and we have numerous dialects), whereas yours is perhaps more correctly referred to as 'US English' (which also has many dialects). 'British English' does not exist as a language, and never has done.
The town of Gander Newfoundland has named two crescents for the pilots. Alcock Crescent and Brown Crescent. The story of the flight was one of the more stirring history lessons we had in Canada (1960s). This was no surprise for me.
The first flight across the Atlantic was by the NC-4, an American flying boat, in May of 1919. Alcott and Brown made the first NONSTOP flight in June of that same year.
Almost first
nope he was 92nd
Still waiting for the changeover day
Maybe, but history will remember the guy who posts later, but has more social media points.
NOPE C.L> was the FIRST to solo across the Atlantic and in a single engine.
The Iron Armenian aka G.I. Haigs hey Haigs. What are you doing here?
I really enjoyed this one, thanks lindybeige.
Perhaps Lindbergh was the "First to fly to France using a periscope"?
To be fair, he also had sandwiches.
@@ZGryphon yummy, sandwich, the best kind of witch 😋
Lindybeige covering aviation is music to my ears!
Lindbergh was the first to fly non-stop from the U.S. to continental Europe, and he did this solo. This should not diminish what Brown and Alcock's did in their harrowing journey seven years earlier. Lindy opines that Lindbergh's fame eclipses Alcock and Brown mostly because it was filmed. This is easily disproved because when Lindbergh landed in France, he was greeted by 150,000 cheering Frenchmen who obviously did not see this movie.
Actually, that's not what he said at all. "Because it was filmed" is a polite euphemism which is correctly translated as "because Americans, as usual when it comes to history, have been drinking their own bathwater".
Nice job. As a Canadian schoolboy I grew up on the story of Alcock & Brown (despite the fact that Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada in 1919). Two minor quibbles. One, the St. John's they took off from is not an island (although Newfoundland is); it's the capital city. Two, "Newfoundland" is correctly pronounced by those who live there with the stress on the last syllable (and a lot of Canadians get this wrong).
Can you imagine how exciting that would be? 2000 miles over patches of ice and ocean, sound of the engine only thing in your ear, and your natural senses guiding you through the way.
More like terrifying.
The two aren't mutually exclusive
If you like that kind of stuff, give this a read. It’s about a diphtheria outbreak in an isolated northern town and pilot Wop May’s famous Race Against Death in an open biplane during the harsh Canadian winter. Good stuff.
www.wopmay.com/mercy-flight-of-1929/
I swear Audible, The Great Courses plus and Headspace sponsor every TH-camr on the planet
It was me, I did it
Michael Milburn
No way! It was me! I should know...i was there. And i didn't see you.
😀
Stanley Striker Whoa whoa whoa; are you sure it wasn’t me?
no it was me :)
And I'm Spartacus.
Michael Milburn aha you thought it was you, but it was me, Dio!
i recall reading a detailed account of the flight back when i was at school researching my project for early flight. to add to your intro... orville and wright take the record for the 1st controlled flight. early fliers like clement ader were already making exhibition "hops" with steam powered machines in the 1890s
a paper bag in the jet stream flow across first :)
Such an amazing storyteller
It does seem odd to me that when you google "the first transatlantic flight" it comes up with the guy who did it *solo* first, not the guys who did it *first.* I realise this is probably just a result of them being American, and there being more webpages written by Americans with a pro-American bias, but it's not good that fact and information is getting subtly distorted like that. It makes you wonder how many things are slightly twisted like that online
Yes. It also shows the "People also ask" section where his name is highlighted in bold again in response to "Who made the first transatlantic flight?".
If you google "heaviest stable element" it gives you Uranium, which is unstable. It's google's algorithms.
Huh? We're taught that he did it solo and with one engine.
I went to school in Little Falls, MN where a museum dedicated to the guy is really the only claim to fame, they even stress the solo and single-engine part. Google's shortcomings have nothing to do with the American nationality, just browse the Play store for more evidence of that.
Jixijenga of course. It's not really a "pro American" bias so much as a bias towards misconception. You can't really blame Google as its algorithm just runs the inputs and spits out the outputs. If the top results/sites generally suggested the name Lindbergh then it'll struggle to show othereise.
Actually I can blame Google for that, and I do.
If my dog jumps the fence and mauls my neighbor's six-year-old who's responsible? The dog? No, the dog has no agency, but I do so therefore I am responsible for whatever my things do.
I bet not a sole I have ever met (USA) would know who really crossed the Atlantic first! You are a master storyteller, I enjoyed this immensely!
Am I the only one who wants Lindy to make an episode where he just rambles about random things? Its too fascinating to listen to.
Then I guess I just want more Lindybeige :]
Amazing to see an aviation video. Didn’t think it was your cup of tea, but I quite like aviation, but I am hoping for some more in the future!
I'm going to have to call bullshit on the British STEAM POWERED heavier than air flight. Lots of people tried to do that, steam engines are notoriously heavy. Even the Wright brothers struggled with getting an internal combustion engine light enough. They had to make their own engine out of aluminium.
David Liddelow yeh, if Hiram Maxim couldn't do it in the 1890s, and Langley in the 1900s, then I don't think anyone could have done it in the 1840s.
Those were mostly short hops, glides and the likes. Powered, still, flight, perhaps.
No, it's true, but they never became practical transport. The engines had poor power-to-weight ratios, and the aerodynamics of the craft were not great, and they didn't even have decent propeller designs. Some could fly themselves, but not carry anything, and others just managed short hops. I imagine that with today's improved aerodynamics and improvements in materials, a steam-powered aircraft is possible, but why bother?
Surprisingly enough, the United States Air Force looked into Steam Powered aircraft back in the, I'm going to say, 1960's, though it actually could have been back in the 1950's! What they were really looking at is a nuclear powered aircraft, but nuclear power is best utilized by using the nuclear fuel to turn water into steam and then using the steam to provide power to the propellers. They were interested in extremely long ranged aircraft, which is why they looked at nuclear/steam powered aircraft. Currently they are using solar celled gliders drones for extremely long range.
"but why bother?" - did you know the Mythbusters once built a lighter-than-air airship out of LEAD, just to see if it could be done? A steam-powered aircraft sounds simple by comparison.
that was an amazing story! even for lindybeige!
Just three years after the Lindbergh hop, a young English girl Amy Johnson, flow solo from London to Australia. Flying solo for a girl is even more challenging as there is no one to chat to.
Lindybeige,
In the same way that the first of so many things are called first...You may want to play with definitions.
the Wright Bros were first to fly because their aircraft took off with its own power,
had control in flight, and landed where and as expected.
The oodles of documentation showing scientific and engineering work along with that first flight,
made it possible for many to follow the path they blazed.
Give them their due.
@Marry Christmas , ok that comment is hilarious. Have you ever hand launched an airplane?
I giggled through about 85% of this 😂
Dear Mr. Beige,
Please stop calling us "american".
Thank you.
- Canada.
Yeah, properly they're "America's Hat."
It's the Continent. But yes, it is annoying.
But then nobody will know who's he's talking about
Touché, well played, well played!
People in America think that the USA owns the name of the continent.
I didn't realise it was an open cockpit. That's extraordinary.
"Aspiration blinds, so don't even try" the real Spirit of Britain.
The only channel I don't skip the sponsor part. Lindybeige makes wonders.
Lindybeige needs to team up with filthy frank in a video and wear a beige skin tight dress, and jump down and say "British officers don't duck"
You're in denial, I know you have a shrine to him too.
Angus : If a Brit officer quacks will it echo????????
The wright brothers really were the first to do s powered flight. Even of you think they technically weren't the first to fly with a motor, they were the first to fly with a vehicle that produces more loft than it's weight. And that's not their first flight btw.it took a few iterations for them to actually produce enough lift. Their first flight got luck in that there was a headwind that produces more lift on their first flight.
First powered flight but not the first flight.