Foolish Pioneers

This is a test of how much man is being able to trust their instruments when the accuracy of the said instruments is +/-10% span(how good is that with visuals?). Maybe the design is suitable for handicap.

Without pioneers, we'd still be stuck on the east coast.

Quite.

Wrong coast.

No! Without pioneers we'd all be serving Her Majesty, or the head of which ever country your ancestors came from. Oh heck, we might be bowing down to Der Fuhrer since USA wouldn't have been here to help stop that little maniac. The buffalo and passenger pigeon would own this land. The Native Americans would still be in far east Asia.

More likely we would still be sitting around in trees somewhere in central Africa.

Welllll... yes and no. I had to stop somewhere. Go back as far as Arfica and you get a bit of necessity rather than pioneering spirit involved. Early expansion was probably due to starvation and/or thirst as much as curiosity. But you are right that we had some extreme pioneers in BC times. Can you imagine how much moxie it must have taken to go out on an ocean in a canoe sized boat with no idea what was out there? Or cross a mountain chain with no knowledge of world geography? The earliest expansion of humans involved a lot of "well, here we go. We've no idea what is over there, but we'll try it and see." At least Lindy had a good idea of what he was getting into. (pun intended)

George Bernard Shaw said: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

He wanted Bellanca to build his airplane and wanted an Allison engine . He took what he could get , and this was far from a long shot . He researched this attempt and knew the odds were slightly with him . Still , it took brass _____'s . And that's what's called the pioneering spirit !

Google John Alcock and Arthur Brown for the first trans-Atlantic flight in 1919

Crazy thoughts only bring development, and if the invention is good to stand the test of time, it is termed brilliant, otherwise, foolish, ballsy, and such 'endearing' epithets are used.

Tangential thinking is what brings results. Flying was definitely considered a most foolish act, before Man graduated to the excellent flying machines we have today.

Nevil Shute's books bring out the development in Aviation graphically. One could read them. Though fiction, they are based on actual events.

When you are supporting an untenable position changing the focus of your argument is a standard debating tactic, but it only works if your new position can be reasonably linked to your old position. Lindbergh did something historic and pioneering, how relevant his achievement is to Penny and Sam is questionable. He risked his own life, they have not. On crashing he could have steered his plane away from other potential casualties, they cannot. He did not add 20% to his journey by flying around in circles. He did not fly backwards on purpose or unintentionally. Had he known about the jet stream he could have taken advantage if air currents just as they are taking advantage of sea currents. That would have greatly reduced his risk. At a time before radar was invented a custom radar reflector would be superfluous but silver paint on a stretched doped fabric surface does act as an excellent radar reflector. A lone pilot does not have much time to operate a radio while crashing a plane. The highly reflective silver body of the Spirit of St Louis had no need of high visibility paint. Was his flight ill conceived? Given the death of several pilots who had previously attempted to win the $25,000 prize, yes. It was not murderous but it was probably suicidal. Lindbergh was certainly reckless, he was a barnstormer stunt pilot before he was an airmail pilot prior to crossing the Atlantic. His profile fits the old adage. The only people who try to commit suicide a second time are those who failed at the first attempt.

you really are a piece of work, we'll just have to wait till it beaches in Portugal to sum up all the murderous casualties caused by these guys, my bet is you'll be skunked and the total will not exceed zero

And.....Charles Lindberg did it again in 1944. He flew to the SW Pacific to see what all the buzz was about with the P-38 Lightning twin engine fighter aircraft. By observing the aircraft, the pilots, and studying the flight and engine characteristics, he advised the pilots and groundcrews to change the cruising prop/engine RPMs they used during their missions. He told them they could DOUBLE THE RANGE of the P-38. The pilots and ground crews were skeptical, thinking that Lindberg's advice would lead to damaging the engines, that lowering the RPMs as he suggested would starve the engines of oil/fuel/power/cooling.

Lindberg then flew on missions with the fighter group, to prove he was correct......to the dismay of the fighter group commander and pilots. With Lindberg's advice, the range for the P-38 went from 900 miles total......to 1,800 miles! An engine tear-down after several flights proved Lindberg correct again! No damage to the engines whatsoever!

Lindberg flew on an actual mission in a P-38 and shot down a Japanese Zero.

Extending the range of the P-38 changed the outcome of the war with Japan in the Pacific.....the P-38 was then the fastest, most well armed, best long range/high altitude fighter aircraft of WWII.

Yup. He was ballsy. Not insane.