Matt Whiting wrote in message ...
Harry K wrote:

Matt Whiting wrote in message ...

Ron Wanttaja wrote:


It took about forty years from the date the first government-sponsored
manned aerospacecraft left the atmosphere and glided down to a safe landing
in the California desert to the successful flight of the first private one.
If the same timescale was used for conventional airplanes, the first
privately-owned aircraft would have flown in 1943.

I never knew that the Wright Flyer was gummint sponsored...


Matt


Looks like you (and others) missed the little "if" in Ron's post.

Harry K

No, I didn't miss it and I doubt the others did either. The comparison
was time delta of the first GOVERNMENT sponsored flight of a spacecraft
to the first private one. If the same timescale was applied to
conventional airplanes, you would be comparing the first GOVERNMENT
sponsored flight of a conventional airplane to the first private one.
Backing 40 years off of 1943 yields 1903, which is NOT when the first
GOVERNMENT sponsored airplane flew successfully, so the comparison is
completely invalid.

Matt

And if you re-read that one line starting with 'if' you will see that
he never claimed that. He was saying that if conventional flight had
been developed by the government it would have been 1943 before it
happened.

Harry K