*DAMN R6 Forum

As today is the 100th Anniversary of Powered Flight, I thought I would pose this question.

By the way, Aviation is my number one biggest hobby (I currently have a book in the works) so if any of you would like to try and stump me on anything in Aviation History, here's your chance.....just post a question in this thread!

yeah explain to me what aviation means?

g) GameRanger.

 ;D

Scott.

Damn, sorry Scott, I missed that one!  And I would have added it too if I had thought about it......lol

Sure, aviation includes anything to do with airplanes, helicopters, airships....anything that flies.  Although originally aviation meant anything that was heavier than air, with wings, it has come to encompass all things to do with travel through the air (such as hot-air balloons, airships, gliders, even skydiving).  The root word comes from Latin and means bird.

damn take out the tang and it's almost a four way tie. right now i'd like to think that the tv and comp have been my favorites, but for mankind i'd have to say the automoblie or plane. so i'll pick the plane.

h) sliced bread

i) broads

alcohol.  Ethyl of course

I'd have to say computers and electronics in general.

Aviation/Aeronautics is also a big hobby of mine. (If you know any good flight sims for mac, let me know)

Moving on, I have some good questions about the history of flight.

1. What is the first known example of human flight.
2. How feasible were da Vinci's flying-machine designs? What did he base his models on?
3. Who was shown on a coin flying on the back of an eagle in 3500 BC?
4. Who came up with the idea of a fixed-wing aircraft.
5. In the second trial of the Montgolfier Brother's hot air balloon, who were the three passengers aboard?
6. Who was the first woman to be killed in a flying accident, and how did it happen?
7. How many years before the Wright Brother's 1903 successful attempt was the curved airfoil invented? By whom?

and lastly...

8. What patent number was issued to the Wrights' Flying Machine?

Try to do as many as possible without looking for the answers online.  :)

Enjoy.... Oh.. Still gotta vote. Meh. Computer.

No matter how you look at it, although meant in the most sincere fashion, this is a biased question simply b/c it will produce a biased answer.  What I mean is, most people will answer (like anything in life) based on what they learned, know or have experienced.  For ie., for alot of ppl on this forum, who are young, will answer that it is computers; like I did for their reason.  Others, will say airplanes, simply b/c they love flying or b/c they can meet someone half way across the world.  Those that are 80 years old may say Viagra, for their obvious reasons  :) etc etc etc

Okay, I'll take a stab at it....although my aviation history experience has been centered around the 20th Century.  I will only answer the ones I know off the top of my head....no looking up answers here:

1.  First example of human flight....hmmm.....well, in literature a father and son took to flight with wings that melted when they flew too close to the sun.....but in real life the only thing that comes to mind were the Chinese who made gliders a long long time ago (was it 2 thousand years ago?).

2. If memory serves me, da Vinci's designs were very accurate and may have been able to fly if they could have been built.  I do know that I have personally used one of his inventions 82 times and it works quite well (the parachute).  I don't know what his models were based on.

3.  I don't know, who was on that coin?

4.  I don't know this one either.....was it da Vinci?

5.  If I am thinking of the correct flight, it was a sheep, a duck, and a rooster.

6.  The only woman that comes to mind was Julia Clark.  I know she was the first American woman to die in an airplane crash, but I think there may have been another woman that died in some other type of aircraft before her (hey, any guesses on what I named my daughter?)

7.  I'm not sure who you would actually give credit for this, as Phillips, Chanute, and Lilienthal all created curved airfoils at about the same time in the 1880's and 1890's.  Maybe Phillips though, as I think he was the first one that actually tested his airfoils.

8.  Hmmm.....hard to keep big numbers like that in my head....lol

Please leave me the correct answers....I don't dive too deeply into ancient aviation history, but I would like to know.

Oh, and the only decent Flight Sims for the Mac in the last few years have been X-Plane and Falcon 4....both of which are getting a little old now.  Sure wish Microshitty would port of their new Flight Simulators (even though I hate their guts....at least I would get to fly!).

1.  First example of human flight....hmmm.....well, in literature a father and son took to flight with wings that melted when they flew too close to the sun.....but in real life the only thing that comes to mind were the Chinese who made gliders a long long time ago (was it 2 thousand years ago?). Chinese kites that carried men, 3000 years ago. Partial credit.

2. If memory serves me, da Vinci's designs were very accurate and may have been able to fly if they could have been built.  I do know that I have personally used one of his inventions 82 times and it works quite well (the parachute).  I don't know what his models were based on.
Full credit. Well done.

3.  I don't know, who was on that coin?
King Etena of Babylonia. No credit

4.  I don't know this one either.....was it da Vinci?
Sir George Cayley. 1799. No credit

5.  If I am thinking of the correct flight, it was a sheep, a duck, and a rooster.
Full credit. Well done.

6.  The only woman that comes to mind was Julia Clark.  I know she was the first American woman to die in an airplane crash, but I think there may have been another woman that died in some other type of aircraft before her (hey, any guesses on what I named my daughter?)
Marie Madeleine Sophie Blanchard. 1809. Her hydrogen balloon caught fire while watching a fireworks display. No credit.

7.  I'm not sure who you would actually give credit for this, as Phillips, Chanute, and Lilienthal all created curved airfoils at about the same time in the 1880's and 1890's.  Maybe Phillips though, as I think he was the first one that actually tested his airfoils.
Phillips indeed. Full credit.

8.  Hmmm.....hard to keep big numbers like that in my head....lol
Patent number 821393. No credit.

3.5 out of 8. Not bad. Those weren't easy questions. Thanks to The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (http://www.flight100.org) for providing the information.

hah dint know you had a wee one ghost.
we have much to disscuss ;D

Silly noob, the computer was invented in the 19th century by Charles Babbage.

     Or it would have been, if he'd ever finished building it.

     I voted for atomic power. It is not the most important invention on the list from today's standpoint, but once humanity wises up enough to take advantage of it, it will be the most important invention since written language.

I am the only one who voted for television (i would've voted for radio, but it was not on there). To me, these technologies brought a HUGE cultural change which resulted in tons on fast paced innovation - communication became nearly instantaneous and could reach a huge audience. Computers (in the broadest sense, information technologies) are an natural outgrowth of these fledgling technologies.

Later, people built functional machines using the exact specs that Charles Babbage drew up. I consider that enough to give him credit for inventing the computer.

Okay, if you wanna get technical, the first computer advances were made in 400 BC by the Bablylonians that created the Abacus.  Or a little later, around 100 BC, you have the Greeks who made the Antikythera Mechanism.  Or how about Wilhelm Schickard who built the 1st Mechanical Calculator in 1623.  When I said computers, I was really referring to Personal Computers that pretty much anyone has access to and can actually do something more than help someone count.  That advance did not come about until well into the 20th Century.


P.S.--What three people voted for TANG???  lol

The difference is that those were forerunners to calculators, whereas Babbage's designs are fundamentally similar to modern computers. Babbage incorporated modern concepts of I/O, memory, and CPU-like device.

Actually, the Antikythera Mechanism was a device that registered and predicted the motion of stars and planets.  But anyhow, some people would argue that calculators are computers.  But I will concede the point that yes Charles Babbage is in many cases considered the person whose ideas led to modern computers.  Next time I'll put "Personal Computers" instead of just Computers (and Apple, by the way, was the first to invent that!).

The car.

vroooom vroooom - tuut tuut

     Computers are programmable. Calculators are not. Babbage's device was (or would have been) programmable, making it the first proper codified example of the idea of the computer.

Frankly, this list is missing *the* Invention of the 20th Century.



Tanks!

I say the computer because everything on the list can be connected to it.

Airplane- computer tracking and shiznit
Tang- made by a machine operated by a computer( I think???)
Automobile- Some cars do have computers in them I say the computer because everything on the list can be connected to it.

Airplane- computer tracking and shiznit
Tang- made by a machine operated by a computer( I think???)
Automobile- Some cars do have computers in them
Atomic power- without a doubt in some way maintained or regulated with a computer

fu

actually all new cars have computers in them. abs, airbag system, any electrical components, all that garbage.

Calculators are not programmable???  I believe there are about a hundred engineers on this forum that would differ with that opinion.

I have owned several calculators that I could program to do all kinds of things.....the first thing I ever programmed into one of my calculators was a calculation that would determine ballistics data.

     Heh. I knew that someone would object to that definition of calculators vs. computers. I should have known it'd be you. Programmable calculators are computers, according to that definition. There's no conflict.

If it's missing something, it's electronics, what half of the stuff on the list has fundamentally built in.

Interesting thought. Instead of computers, perhaps the option should've been the Printed Circuit Board?

As for the most important invention of the 20th century, it's really hard to point at one major invention as being the most important. But I suppose if I had to choose I would go with the printed circuit board. Most of the rest of the inventions rely on this one.

It's what I said in my first post as well but no one seemed to react to that  :(

I'll have to go with the invention of the Computer.
However I would have liked if the Internet was one of the options.

The Internet provides us with:
?News
?Gaming/Recreation
?Music
?Arts & Entertainment
?Matchmaking
?E-Mail
?Online Banking
?Online Shopping/Stores/Businesses
?Photos/Clipart
?Forums
?Storage
?And Websites of course!

But, without the invention of the Computer we wouldn't have the Internet, so here's my vote to "Computer" as the most useful invention of the 20th century.

But without a car the inventors who came up with all that other stuff woulda gotten too tired to walk from their home to the invention lair, and simply given up. And cars dont need electronics, or computers - maybe less safe and less efectivly but cars cant get by without computers.

Thus the car is the number one invention.

Remember though that at the time the airplane was invented (and it didn't need computers either) the automobile was also relatively young and not in great use.  Although the auto made going short distances more convenient, you already had trains that could take people throughout the country.  But airplanes, they opened up the whole world as a rather fast way of crossing oceans and continents.  And they also changed the way we fight wars forever.

Joka, also remember without the invention of the Computer and Internet, we wouldn't be using this forum!

Computers are built upon electronics, without electronics we wouldn't have calculators, computers or the internet. Modern warfare relies heavily upon electronics as well, which is why in the future we'll have to watch out for EMP bombs as well.

I think your a bit off track...the topic is the greatest invention, not saying that these forums arent nice though..

Computers are a luxury not a neccesity. Well...ok today they are, but out of these inventions the car has shaped the whole world the most. They affect how we build citys, how we travel, they save lifes, kill ppl, shorten distances bla bla bla...It's the car!!

Electronics drive cars, they fly planes, they sail ships, they aim rockets, they convey information, they've helped build our society more or less, think about it.

Yes, but electricity was not an invention of the 20th Century.

GhostSniper, Electronics are to electricity as Cars and Planes are to fuel. We're talking about inventions in the 20th century, right?

     Electricity wasn't an invention at all. It was a discovery.

The internet is easily most important to me. I would give all those things up in exchange for the internet (except the computer, obviously). In terms of its effect on my daily life, the internet is paramount, and I think that its role is only going to continue to grow. The automobile and the airplane had their heydey and are not as significant as they once were. In terms of impact on our society, I think the internet will easily quash the television in terms of cultural significance, and future incarnations of technology based on the original principles of internet connectivity will continue to be prevalent.

Tasty, and uh oh, it would've been impossible without electronics ;)

GG Loth.

All I was saying is that electronics were not needed for the invention of the Airplane and the Automobile, although they all take great advantage of them now.  And just lump the internet, GameRanger, and anything else computer-related in with "Computers."

Yeah I voted for computers, but since computers = electronics... You get what I'm trying to say :)

Well, it looks like the computer won out on that one.....of course it could have gone my way if I hadn't put Tang on the list....lol.

THE MACINTOSH!!!  The Mac was by far the greatest invention of all time!!!  Without the Mac, who would have ever started "Thinking Different"???

anyone they used in their ad campaign?

it's hard to compete with tang.