The Wright Brothers DID Invent the Airplane
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters use it as a well-researched account of what the Wrights actually solved, in threads on airplane physics and invention credit.
What it is
A long rebuttal arguing that the Wright Brothers truly invented the airplane, responding to other YouTubers who credit others. It walks through the engineering breakthroughs the Wrights achieved, such as control and wind tunnel work.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2023 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends mcarmichael · 2024-07 · on “The physics of airplane flight”
Control was an almost completely unaddressed issue before the Wrights took it up, even though it is also crucial to useful glider development. This video has a nice delineation of the collection of breakthroughs needed: [this video]
Recommends dj_gitmo · 2025-03 · on “The Wright brothers invented the airplane, right? Not if you're in Brazil”
Check out Gregs Airplanes and Automobiles for really well researched aeronautic docs. He made one specifically about the Wrights [this video]
Cites somat · 2023-08 · on “How Thomas Edison Tricked the Press into Believing He’d Invented the Light Bulb”
Not as narrow as many want to believe. The Wright brothers were the only ones doing actual engineering on the subject. They were 5 years ahead of everybody else and remember that being second is much much easier than being first, for one somebody else is the one making all the mistakes. [this video]
Cites ahazred8ta · 2024-07 · on “The physics of airplane flight”
Basically, understanding airfoils. Back in the 1840s they put miniature steam engines in model planes and got them to fly. There were powered ground-effect planes in the 1800s that had more powerful engines than the Wright Flyer, but the Wrights were the first people to invent the wind tunnel, so they had a better understanding of lift-to-drag and control surface issues. They adapted the flow-pattern analysis tanks used by ship designers. As mcarmichael said [this video]