You’ve Got To Be Kidding!

I was stumbling around the Internet a few days ago and I came upon an article with this title, The Most Disappointing Planes and Choppers in Aviation History. Of course, I read it top to bottom.

The article did have some strange looking Flying Machines. Rather than see each one as a failure I saw each one as an Experiment. Without mankind’s attempt to try and do something different we would still be pulling unstable carts full of our stuff that only had one wheel because no inventor had gone to the trouble to dare to try and invent the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th wheels.

***************

To my utter shock and amazement I found that the people who put together their list of what they considered to be Aviation Failures had included The Wright Flyer!

In case I just went right by what you know about aviation history, allow me to be more specific…

These IYI’s included the first airplane that was put together by Wilbur and Orville Wright! They actually included the machine that started everyone everywhere flying anywhere. Aghhhh!

Here is what these nut cases had to say about The Wright Flyer…

“Here is how the Smithsonian Institution describes the Wright Flyer: “the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard.” They did not mention that it could not last over 59 seconds mid-air. On top of that, it was hard to manage and covered only 852 feet. The aircraft only ever flew four times on the 17th of December 1903. Pilots just gave up on it after that.”

The point should not be that it was Hard To Control or it Only Flew 852 Feet or it Only Flew For 59 Seconds or it was Only Flown 4 Times and then Orville and Wilbur “gave up on it”!

They did not give up on it! They went back to the drawing board to put together the Apollo Moon Landing Program to get us to the moon and back only 66 years later.

The shortcomings pointed out above were not the end of the road. They were the shortcomings discovered on the beginning of the road.

Hey, IYI Guys, The Point is... It Flew!

***************

Other “failures” on the IYI Most Disappointing Blunders of Mankind List…

• The Model T Ford because it was not a 2020 Cadillac.
• The entire Apollo Program because it only went to the Moon and fell woefully short of making it to Mars.
• The Gutenberg Printing Press because it only printed one sheet at a time and could not hold a candle to the High Speed Printing Machine that puts out the New York Times.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: Have you Googled “IYI”? If not, I’ll save you the trouble. It is the abbreviation of, “Intellectual Yet Idiot”.