Talk:1910 in aviation

First jet flight in 1910?

The supposed jet-powered aircraft of 1910—a disputed story

I have removed from this article any mention of Henri Coandă because his version of the events of 1910 have been seriously disputed by experts. I see no reason why we should tell the reader that something is true when strong debates are taking place about the most basic facts of it. More discussion of this debate can be found at Talk:Coandă-1910.

Coanda said in the mid-1950s that his 1910 aircraft, the Coandă-1910, included fuel injection and combustion to create jet power. Coandă described a flight he made in December 1910 where he was testing the engine and the aircraft began to roll away. Coandă said that he ran after the airplane, jumped in (though he was not a pilot) and tried to fly it. Coandă said that he pulled up sharply, that flames began to come out of the engine, and that he crashed near the end of the runway, with the result of him being thrown out of the aircraft and the engine burning.

There is no version of this story from 1910 or 1911, none at all... in fact, there is no version of this story from before the mid-1950s when Coandă began telling it, at which time some people were amazed and charmed by it, and printed it in aviation magazines. Others were not fooled, and in October 1960 Flight, Sir Charles Gibbs-Smith wrote a letter to the editor pointing to his book The aeroplane: an historical survey of its origins and development in which he takes Coandă's claims apart bit by bit and destroys them. Gibbs-Smith said "the extraordinary claim was not made until 1956", that "there was never any idea of injecting fuel; the machine never flew; it was never destroyed on test; and Flight noted that it was soon sold to a Monsieur Weyman", most likely businessman/aviator Charles Terres Weymann who won an air race that year in France. Gibbs-Smith says that aircraft was exhibited but did not fly, and that it held a ducted fan engine designed with no possibility of fuel combustion in the airstream. He said that if the engine were indeed a jet (which it was not), the pilot would have been burned alive upon firing it up.

In his essay "Ducted Fan or the World's First Jet Plane? The Coanda claim re-examined", Frank H. Winter of the Royal Aeronautic Society wrote in 1980 that Coandă's 1910 aircraft never flew, that the story of it taking off and crashing was false, that Weymann bought it whole from Coandă, that the engine was a ducted fan with intricate heat-exchanger elements and the added input of exhaust from the piston engine. Coandă's engine was very interesting, but it was not a jet. Binksternet (talk) 17:01, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia an aviation history book? Or an Encyclopedia? If is still an Encyclopedia than it should list the historical fact as they are accepted by the historian community, NOT as it is listed in the Wikipedia Talks. ( By the way are you Binksternet an aviation historian? Professional? ) At the Romanian Technical Museum in Bucharest there is a large section about the Coanda 1910 airplane, a replica and original pictures and documents from that time. Your open discussion here is basically challenging those facts which are presented in the museum and you are telling that Henri Coanda was a liar and the historians from the Romanian Technical Museum are a bunch of liars. So please address your concerns to them directly, as this will have direct implications to all history books written about this plane [1]. As well the name of the main airport in Romania Henri Coandă International Airport is named after a scientist and inventor not a world renowned liar as you are trying to present with all this accusations.

Now as a similar example: the hoax accusations of the moon landings. The history facts are not changed. Please list your accusations in all articles in Wikipedia ( this will just prove that those accusation are not founded and will just strengthen that particular fact ) but please DO NOT REMOVE that facts, if they are OFFICIALY accepted!

Now I will try to make a translation of the Romanian Wikipedia about the Powerplant of that plane so that you can try to understand what is presented in the museum in Bucharest. If you still have problems and you are a real aviation historian professional then please make a visit to Bucharest and check the facts with your own eyes.

Powerplant -turboprop (the name given by Henri Coanda at that time)//jetengine (with centrifugal blower and post combustion)(accepted names according to current terminology)

-internal combustion engine with 4-cylinder in line CLERGET 50HP with 4000 rpm multiplication device for the turbine(with centrifugal blower) injectors and blowers ( in agreement with words of Henri Coanda)

Coanda's truboprop in 1910 was designed to generate power by accelerating a cup of air set in motion by a centrifugal blower and was located inside a conical fairing. The turbine was preceded by a fixed guiding device, consisting of 15 fixed clockwise curved blades, which are visible in all pictures with the front of the plane. In accordance with the words of Henri Coanda, after turbine (or downstream) there were two post combustion areas with a "hollow reaction" shape, located on two sides along the fuselage inside the same conical fairing. In this "hollow reaction" areas probably took place the fuel injection and combustion which produced "flames so strong" that generated "a high feeling temperature" that it was necessary to "cover this flames, with two small ceramic plates."

It is true that we have yet another proof of the existence of these "hollow reaction" areas except own statements made by Henri Coanda in 1967, but without the propeller and the post combustion and the geometric configuration as far as it is know, it could not generate a measured force of 220kgf.

Turbo propor technical characteristics as specified in the aircraft folder of presentation were: - diameter 0m50 - lenght 1m10 - turbine speed 4000rpm - measured thrust at 50 HP 220kgf

Testing

was the day - 16/18 December 1910, a cold December morning, without official representatives as the plane was not yet registered for the official test.

"... I wanted to do a test and then there was nobody to teach us, so we must learn ourselves. I told Breguet and Gabriel Voisant who were with me: - ... look ... I will try to make some ground runs ... I started. I sat in the middle of the device and then flames coming out of both sides from the reaction areas were so strong that I felt a high temperature in the cockpit. Then I decided to cover these flames, both below and above with two small ceramic plates and went on runway again. Then something extraordinary happened. The jet flames, instead of being directed out they started to deviate, to come against the fuselage. Yet fuselage was wood and I was in the middle and I was very afraid. Then I decided to gradually reduce the flames and bring them back over the ceramic plates and in the middle of that mental concentration I never realized what was happening all around me. I raised my head, I saw that I was no longer fixed to the ground, but while I saw the walls of Paris, at that time Paris was surrounded with walls. I saw the Paris walls coming at me with enormous speed. And then I was so afraid I pulled the gouvernails (nn. differential steering wheels of the airplane flying right and left of the pilot) and I went up. Even that that wing was having slats on the leading edge the plane lost speed, fell and burned. Luckily at that time had no belt and no canopy, so I was thrown out and the plane burned. So it ended the flight of the first jet airplane."

excerpt from an interview with Henri Coanda at his return to Romania - probably 1967

Henri Coanda 24 years (1910)

engineer balloonist, mechanic , refrigeration engineer, electrician, mechanical science degree in physical, metallurgical and constructions of the Faculty of Paris and Liege

A financial disaster

"... I was lucky, very lucky in life that I had a father as general Coanda, who was not only a father, was a friend to me, a mentor, a professor at the Polytechnic School, the Ph.D. at Sorbonne. Although he was an officer, had the Polytechnic School in Paris, a man of extraordinary fineness and a charity. And then, having this opportunity, all I went through my head, I realized his grace. Americans wondered how I financed the first jet aircraft and then I replied that:

- it was supported because I started to write

- Uh, they told me, you are a writer?

... Say

- No ...

... I wrote my father! So if he would have been my family, which was ruined, of course, I would have not done the first jet .... I did all,not only the power plant which I designed and manufactured, I had to make the whole plane, in a time when nobody knew how to make a plane. I had a friend called Bleriot, who was making headlight for automobiles and airplanes, but to me the construction of this first plane (with jet engine) was in financial terms, a disaster. From a technical standpoint was very interesting because only through it I realized what is now called the "Coanda effect" ... an accident ... I saw flames coming towards the fuselage. This system has proved to be later "Coanda effect", but it took me 20 years before I realized what was that phenomenon that brought the flames to the axis of the wooden fuselage of the aircraft. "

excerpt from an interview with Henri Coanda at his return to Romania - probably 1967

Other consequences

"(...) I carve, I'm a sculptor, I was a student of Rodin and I really like to carve. I cannot do music, but read a lot .(...). I care about music a lot, but since I broke my arm, in the accident of my first plane (ca 1910), I cannot sing the cello, as for violin, mandolin and guitar, I sing with my left hand. This arm is broken ... I can use it ... "

excerpt from an interview with Henri Coanda at his return to Romania - probably 1967 Lsorin (talk) 11:33, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Your source used the words "In accordance with the words of Henri Coanda". The only source for the claim that Coanda created the first jet is Coanda. I challenge you to find a source which discusses 1910s reports and also credits Coanda with fuel combustion in the airstream of his engine, nor even a short, catastrophic flight for the aircraft. My source does this, and comes up with the very strong result that Coanda, a very intelligent and accomplished engineer in other respects, was telling stories that were not true about his 1910 aircraft. I am certain that your airport museum display is utterly wrong. Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith wrote a book in 1960 that included a section entitled "Other Claims and Controversies". In it, he describes a number of men who made false claims about their aircraft, and he shows how each one was wrong. A subsection is entitled "The Coanda Sesquiplane of 1910". Here is what Gibbs-Smith wrote in 1960:

"There has recently arisen some controversy about this machine, designed by the Rumanian-born and French-domiciled Henri Coanda, which was exhibited at the Paris salon in October of 1910. Until recently it has been accepted as an all-wood sesquiplane, with cantilever wings, powered by a 50-h.p. Clerget engine driving a 'turbo-propulseur' in the form of a large but simple ducted air fan. This fan was fitted right across the machine's nose and the cowling covered the nose and part of the engine: the resulting 'jet' of plain air was to propel the aeroplane.

"Although ingenious—and certainly the first full-size completed aeroplane designed for reaction propulsion—there is general agreement today, as in the past, that the machine could not possibly have flown: a fan-produced jet of air of such a kind would not have nearly sufficient thrust to propel the aircraft. No claims that it flew, or was even tested, were made at the time, although there was favourable comment on its originality. ...[Comments about there being "next to no comment" about the aircraft from 1911 to the mid-1950s... Comments about the sudden appearance of the Coanda story in the mid-1950s... Comments upon the various elements that differ between the 1910 aircraft as reported at the time and the mid-1950s version...]

"Take then the 'flight': it could not both 'certainly' fly, and be destroyed on its first take-off; and, as for this dramatic event happening at Issy, it should be remembered that Issy was the most famous, most used, most observed, and most reported-on 'airfield' in Paris, with strictly defined times for flying allowed by the army, who owned it. Any attempt, let alone a dramatic crash and fire, would not only have made the headlines, but would have been faithfully reported in the next number of L'Aérophile—and everywhere else—as were all 'events' at Issy. No word, till 1956, has ever been said in the aeronautical press of such a happening. Incidentally, the relevant issue of Flight in 1910 states that the machine had already been bought by a Mr. Weymann.

"Now for the description of the aeroplane. Ingenious as the machine undoubtedly was, there are good photographs of it which are available and there is no visible trace of any slots, or of any wires or other gear attached to, or passing anywhere near, the wings that could be associated with slots. There is also no trace of a fuel pipe coming from the wing to the engine, or of one emerging from one of the struts; furthermore, a petrol tank is clearly visible just aft of the engine. The undercarriage was certainly not retractable, as the axles of the wheels are joined by a substantial rod, and a skid is firmly attached both to the rod—to which it is lashed—and to the lower wing.

"But the all-important point, of course, is the question of the ducted fan having fuel injected and ignited in it, and thus making it a 'gas turbine'. Investigation of contemporary records shows this idea to be completely incorrect. The written descriptions of the 'turbo-propulseur' state that it was simply a ducted air fan driven by a petrol engine; and this is confirmed by two sectional diagrams of the fan, with full descriptive text, which appeared in the issue dated December 10th 1910 (pages 900–901) of Flug- und Motor-Technik, the official journal of the Österreichische Flugtechnische Verein, the drawings being taken from a French source. The photographs show the huge fan-cowling placed centrally over the aircraft's nose, and the air was driven back all round and over the aircraft, in the midst of which sat, high up, the pilot. He would not have sat there for long if burning gas was being driven rearwards by the 'blower'. ...[Comments about engine and fan positions.]

"There can be no doubt that the important source quoted in the [November] 1956 article [in Royal Air Force Flying Review] was either indulging in a friendly leg-pull, or was suffering from a faulty memory. However, the 'jet' Coanda was certainly remarkable in its way, and deserves a somewhat modest place amongst the ingenious ideas that were unworkable in practice." – Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith (1960). The Aeroplane: An Historical Survey of Its Origins and Development, pages 220–221. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

At Wikipedia, we cannot present disputed facts as simple facts. There is a choice to be made: the first choice is to find which facts are correct and present them; a path which requires one side of the dispute to be utterly unreliable. Gibbs-Smith is reliable, and many people think that Coanda is reliable (though I disagree), so this path is not open to us. The second choice is to present both sets of facts as disputed, with attribution to proponents of each version. This "1910 in aviation" article is not the place to debate the Coanda-1910 aircraft, or to debate the possible faulty memory of Henri Coanda. The third choice is to present only facts which are not disputed, such as Coanda being a very intelligent and dedicated aeronautical engineer and inventor, the man who discovered the Coanda effect. This is the path I wish to take here. Binksternet (talk) 16:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually I would have thought as an experienced editor you would be more familiar with wiki process. A disputed edit, such as in this case the removal of an entry, should be discussed on the talk page to gain consensus for that edit before the edit is allowed to stand. As there is no consensus that the removal is justified the information should remain/be reinstated until such time as there is such consensus. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 19:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I felt I had a very compelling case, one that would become clear upon explanation. Binksternet (talk) 19:52, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

As I already stated before this is a very serious case, as you are attacking some facts presented in different museums in the world ( I think this is why the museums are build usually, so that facts are presented and not to be contested by persons like Gibbs-Smith ) in Romania and France. If your case will be proven true by a team of historians and specialists in aviation ( you can start from here ), then those exposed replicas and artifacts shall be noted as the biggest lies of the century of Henri Coanda ( by the way in less than 3 months there will be the anniversary of 100 years since the first jet flight, maybe that is your hidden agenda ) and then the most important airport of Romania cannot keep the name of the biggest liar of the century as its name. The same for the "Henri Coanda Air Force Acedemy. By the way on another topic. I contacted the Romanian officials regarding this problem in Wikipedia and the answer of one of the officials was that they are not interested about a site (Wikipedia) written by amateurs. This proves that your personal vendetta, Binksternet, is not in the benefits of Wikipedia in general.

Lsorin (talk) 21:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Creating an exhibit at a museum does not protect one from attack by scholars such as Gibbs-Smith and Frank H. Winter. There is no need to exaggerate the problem we are faced with by calling it the biggest lie of the century—it is only a small problem in the larger scheme of things. I suggest that the centennial of the jet engine would be better saved until at least 2021 when recognition can be granted Maxime Guillaume who filed for a turbojet patent in 1921, Frank Whittle who filed in 1930, or Hans von Ohain who with Heinkel in 1939 built the first flying aircraft based on the jet. It would be unfortunate to hold a centennial celebration and be subject to global ridicule for being wrong.

I have no vendetta against Romania or Coanda. My only aim is to tell the truth about the situation. It turns out that the truth is a confused morass, with highly placed people on both sides saying exact opposite things. Wikipedia benefits from telling both versions, and attributing each version to its adherents. Binksternet (talk) 23:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The difference between this article and Moon_landing#Hoax_accusations is that there are no reliable sources which assert that the moon landing was a hoax. In that case, the moon landing article can supply the official, true version and send the curious reader off to the hoax articles Moon landing conspiracy theories and Apollo hoax in popular culture to read about the various unreliable hoax stories. For the Coanda-1910, both sides of the conflict have reliable sources—a very different situation. In that case, both sides must be presented, with no indication from Wikipedia that one side or the other is true. Binksternet (talk) 02:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Could you please tell us what are the reliable sources of Charles Gibbs-Smith except his own infamous article? I haven't heard of a museum exposing artifacts owned by Charles Gibbs-Smith regarding the Coandă-1910 airplane. In Bucharest at the [Romanian Air Force Museum] you will find real artifacts ( pieces and 100 years old pictures ) of the real plane! I will buy you a ticket to Bucharest to visit this museum, if you stop this Wikipedia vendetta. Please understand that Sirs and Lords can make mistakes as well some times.

Is Discovery Civilization Channel video reliable source enough for you?

Lsorin (talk) 06:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Given that this entry is contentious the obvious solution would be an entry such as:

• "Romanian inventor Henri Coandă builds the Coandă-1910 which he exhibits at the International Aeronautic Salon in Paris, and tests at the airport in Issy-les-Moulineaux. This is considered by some to be the first thermojet prototype,<references> but others have disputed this.<references>

DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 07:54, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Aviation historian Dan Antoniu member of the Aviation History Section of the Romanian Academy just finalized a monograph on Henri Coanda titled "Henri Coanda si creatia sa din perioada 1906-1918" ISBN 978-973-7729-60-6, which right at the moment of this writing is being printed and will be published in few days, after several years of extensive research of artifacts from French Air and Space Museum, Bristol Aero Collection - Kemble and several Romanian Museums as I listed before. The authors: Dan Antoniu, George Cicos, Ioan Buiu, Alexandru Bartoc. They are very happy to be contacted directly! Lsorin (talk) 13:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

To Lsorin: There is no need to go against Wikipedia policy and contact any modern Coanda researchers directly. Wikipedia rests on published sources, and there are very strong published sources by Frank H. Winter, Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith, and Bill Gunston which describe the Coanda engine of 1910 as having no combustion in the airstream. All three of these experts say that the engine is of little importance. Binksternet (talk) 16:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

To DerbyCountyinNZ: that is not such an obvious solution, since Winters and Gibbs-Smith deny that the aircraft was ever tested at Issy. How about this?

• "Romanian inventor Henri Coandă builds the Coandă-1910 which he exhibits at the International Aeronautic Salon in Paris. In the 1950s he said he tested it at the airport in Issy-les-Moulineaux, and that it crashed and burned. He said it was a motorjet,<references> but he was contradicted by experts who said that the aircraft never flew and that its engine had no combustion of fuel in the airstream.<references>

Does that satisfy? Binksternet (talk) 16:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

No. It's too detailed not sufficiently balanced. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 08:39, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I see no way for the short entry to contain both Coanda's version and the rebuttal without there being some level of detail. The balanced part is easy. Binksternet (talk) 03:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

In short (as this is a summary page), all that is necessary in this case is "Claim"<refs>, "claim is disputed"<refs>. The details of both the claim and the dispute are avilable in the links for Coandă and the Coandă-1910. When the consensus of aviation sources is that it was not a jet and did not fly then the entry can be amended to reflect that. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 05:10, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

For the whole Wikipedia community

For the last few days I was banned in editing and commenting back any information in Wikipedia ( not only related to Coanda ). I totally admit I don't have the knowledge of all the rules present here and that is why I would like somebody to help in escalating this discussion to higher levels in the Wikipedia community and all the information about Coanda and related ( example the Jet Engine and History of Jet Engine ) to be locked with the information before the whole reediting started ( basically since Bisksternet started the reediting ). I will stop editing any longer articles in this system in which the democracy has special colors. As well with this posting here I will slow down my personal editing as I received lately personal threats from both sides of the discussions.

And now back to explin my point. Biskstenet, otherwise active and "decorated" editor of Wikipedia, but as I understand, with no technical, historical and publishing expertise in aviation has started reediting all Coanda-1910 related articles in Wikipedia, based on a very know in the British aviation history, Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith book and the articles related to that. With all respect for Gibbs-Smith work there is some problems ( in this case is Wikipedia's terms ) related especially to his book The aeroplane: an historical survey of its origins and development, 1960 book by Charles Gibbs-Smith with section entitled "The Coanda Sesquiplane of 1910" which are doubtful as a source and the sequent articles published related to that information.

• it is clear that Gibbs-Smith does not take a neutral position in his attack in the book and the previous article from Flight magazine in this try to minimize the importance of Coanda-1910 in the history of aviation and especially jet engine
• the press at the time (1910) shows the clear message that Coanda's plane was the attraction on the Paris exhibition especially because of the odd looking powerplant and the thrust listed - 220Kg. This very important detail is ,very sadly , ever touched in any of Gibbs-Smith work.
• as well he is using the Flight, 29 October 1910 information that Charles Terres Weymann has purchased the airplane, but sadly once again, without any other confirmation from Weymann himself (he dies in 1976 in France according to the "trusted" Wikipedia)
• this adds even more mystery to Gibbs-Smith investigation as he does not mention anything about the sudden disappearance of the attraction of 1910 Paris Exhibition, Coanda-1910, from the press of 1910-1911. In accordance to the bullet above used by Gibbs-Smith, if Weymann has an incapable to fly aeroplane because of the powerplant, the logical expected move will be to change the powerplant to a more classical ( with propeler for instance ) and try to fly it again and this will be all over the news of that time again. The assumption that the plane was scraped by Weymann will not stand as the plane was the attraction of the exhibition and definitely had a good price tag on it. So Gibbs-Smith, in a neutral approach would have had all the interest to contact Weymann to find the fate of an incapable to fly airplane. This Romanian Air Force link ( sorry is in Romanian ) lists that Weymann had only the intention to buy the plane which will be the most plausible case.
• this adds even more mystery to Gibbs-Smith investigation as he does not mention anything about the sudden disappearance of the attraction of 1910 Paris Exhibition, Coanda-1910, from the press of 1910-1911. In accordance to the bullet above used by Gibbs-Smith, if Weymann has an incapable to fly aeroplane because of the powerplant, the logical expected move will be to change the powerplant to a more classical ( with propeler for instance ) and try to fly it again and this will be all over the news of that time again. The assumption that the plane was scraped by Weymann will not stand as the plane was the attraction of the exhibition and definitely had a good price tag on it. So Gibbs-Smith, in a neutral approach would have had all the interest to contact Weymann to find the fate of an incapable to fly airplane. This Romanian Air Force link ( sorry is in Romanian ) lists that Weymann had only the intention to buy the plane which will be the most plausible case.
• on the key topic the powerplant. Every single attack against Coanda's powerplant for others authors before Gibbs-Smith are referring to the [http:/jet100.com patents] (a lot of them in that site) published by Coanda during 1910-1911. Coanda never declared that he patented the jet engine ( this means the whole system: the internal combustion engine + compressor or "ducted fan" in Gibbs-Smith words + injectors and burners ). Coanda patented only the compressor part or 'turbine' capable of producing power jets of air. Why he would even patent fuel injectors and burners which where already in use in the normal piston engines and they were already patented long ago? In this case in make very much sense the probability that the injectors and the burners to have been added during the experiments of October-December 1910 with a small, add possible dangerous ( from Coanda's own descriptions ) and just experimental and they did not belong to the patents of 1911 addressed by Gibb-Smith and the others before him. This particular important aspect is, sadly again, not described at all by Gibbs-Smith and the others before him: an airplane does not fly with one patent. It is noted by them still that it is 'sad' that Coanda did not list the injectors and burners in that patent, as that would have been the only missing piece in the puzzle. Again Coanda would not be able to write an patent on existing things. Again the patents from March 1911 already explain the "heat exchangers" importance, which clearly address the very relevant topic of the temperature of the air jets in the whole system using the compressor as one part. So Gibb-Smith should have at least asked himself if a very inventive mind like Coanda did try to change the temperature of air jets with a simple existing system like injector+burner. In the end we talk about a engineer specialist with doctorate at Sorbone and a knighted writer, talking about the work of a specialist.
• to add the the above topic in the period 1910-1913 Coanda published very many patent all over the world (France, Switzerland, England etc) in very many areas which means that is was a period of extensive experiments (some linked to [2]) Sadly once again, Gibbs-Smith is addressing one single patent published in England ( the same one in Switzerland is already having different drawings and they have be published in the same time )
• a celebrated historian like Gibbs-Smith working from a neutral position would have searched all the archives (at least the English ones) of that time to find that of the "Motor Sleight" with same type of prowerplant Popular Mechanics, March 1911. As well, sadly, he is not mentioning anything about his previous work in Romania on same topics, like the experiments (sadly again just in Romanian) with jet models from 1906 from Dealul Mitropoliei, Bucharest.
• finally ( maybe not ;) ) Why Gibbs-Smith did not ever get in contact with Coanda at the time of his investigations? Was the problem of caliber ( a Knight to address to a minor importance engineer )? For the neutrality?

Personally I think, very sadly, that Gibbs-Smith is not very neutral in his approach on the topic of Coanda's plane and he did not do extensive enough research on the topic especially in the years before 1910 and after 1910. This is as well is very sadly reflected by the actions of his documents supporters in Wikipedia.

To more links for discussions: The airfield (sorry is in French): [3] And the recoding from the TVR archives with the man himself about the flight ( sorry is in Romanian and a have no clue about the copyright ): Coanda interview in 1966 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.112.202 (talk) 12:10, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I will be very grateful if the Wikipedia experts can lock the articles and related ones with the information before this whole mess was created by a group of non-professionals and wait until the "Henri Coanda si creatia sa din perioada 1906-1918" ISBN 978-973-7729-60-6 book is available. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lsorin (talk • contribs) 12:18, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

This long complaint of yours should have been brought to Talk:Coandă-1910, not here. No part of your concerns are separate from the dispute about the Coandă-1910. You appear to be fishing for sympathetic ears.

You have repeatedly said that other editors who oppose your version of the Coanda story are not experts in the field. Guess what? I am expert enough to recognize that a dispute has arisen when industry giants such as Winter and Gibbs-Smith demolish the Coanda claims. Expertise in the topic of jet engine technology does not guarantee good editing of jet engine subjects, and the lack of topic expertise does not stop an interested editor from making excellent contributions. You will not be able to attack my level of topic expertise to get the desired result of me being knocked out of the article space, so please stop.

To counter your points:

• The Gibbs-Smith book The aeroplane: an historical survey of its origins and development is not "doubtful as a source". If you do not like it as a source, take it up with WP:Reliable sources noticeboard.
• Gibbs-Smith does not need to be neutral about Coanda to be reliable and verifiable, to be an expert speaking with great knowledge.
• The "press at the time" did nothing like identify the Coanda airplane as the star attraction. In fact, Coanda's airplane was relegated to the upstairs gallery far from the hangar doors. No reporter expected it to fly. No reporter gave it more "ink" than other aircraft. The stars of the exhibition were the ones that were expected to fly, and flew.
• The only information we have about Weymann is that a "Mr Weymann" purchased the Coanda-1910 in October 1910. No more information is available on the subject. We don't know if Weymann merely signaled his intention to buy, or actually bought the aircraft. All our conjecture about Weymann means nothing in the absence of hard facts. The only added bits that we have about Weymann are the opinions of Gibbs-Smith and Winter that the reported Weymann purchase throws more doubt on Coanda's 1950s version of what he did in December 1910. If your Romanian Air Force source had a name, was verifiable and reliable, then the bit about Weymann could have another expert opinion attached to it. Unfortunately, we cannot use it because it fails WP:V and WP:RS.
• The position that Coanda did not patent the engine of his Coanda-1910 aircraft, that he patented some other kind of engine in the 1910s, is a position that is not supported by any except Stine and Coanda himself, who were both involved in reworking the diagrams in the mid-1960s to support Coanda's version of history. Winter's and Gibbs-Smith's comparisons between the various diagrams of the 1910s and the 1910 aircraft are legitimate opinions of experts.

In the future, please keep this kind of discussion at Talk:Coandă-1910 where it is most appropriate. Thank you. Binksternet (talk) 20:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:23, 14 June 2017 (UTC)