Props to the bros

Relative to the average YouTube vid, the one embedded below is a bit long (50 mins+), and it's quite a deep dive, but it's also worth your time for the way it unpacks an interesting tale of historical and technological contingency.

tl;dr*: the Wright brothers were the first to fly a heavier-than-air craft** and did so using an engine which was, by subsequent standards, pretty feeble (12-16hp). One innovation which helped them to translate this miserly amount of power into powered flight was figuring out how to build an efficient propeller.

On the other side of the Atlantic, aviation pioneers in France were struggling with stumpy, inefficient paddles for propellers, but building ever more powerful, efficient engines in an attempt to overcome this limitation and get their creations off the ground.

Then, in 1908, Wilbur Wright rocked up in France to demonstrate one of his aircraft. French customs unpacked the machine for some sort of check and managed to damage it in the process. Wright had to get his aircraft repaired and rebuilt with the help of locals, some of whom had been working with French aviation pioneers. This was the moment when the secret of the Wright's propeller technology stopped being a secret.

The fortuitous combination of Wright propellers and powerful French engines quickly became one of the main drivers of the aviation firsts of pioneers like Louis Blériot and Henri Farman, the early French dominance of the aviation industry and the swift evolution of the aeroplane from astonishing novelty to a useful device with practical applications.

It's an interesting tale, far more so than the abbreviated list of "firsts" in less detailed accounts and I like the way it both does justice to the Wrights' genius and the contribution of French engine makers who, in struggling to overcome the limitations of primitive propeller design turned a disadvantage into industry dominance.

*I guess the video equivalent should be tl;dw.

**Not Alberto Santos-Dumont - the video examines the claims that Santos-Dumont was the first to achieve powered flight and demolishes them pretty convincingly. What I particularly like about this video is that it treats Santos-Dumont's actual achievements with seriousness and respect, rather than dismissing him completely for not having achieved this world-changing first.