Inventor in a right flap!
QUESTION Did inventor Gustave Weisskopf achieve powered flight before the Wright brothers?
THIS is one of the most controversial claims in aviation. In 2013, aviation annual Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft claimed Gustave Whitehead (who had changed his surname from Weisskopf), a German immigrant living in Bridgeport, Connecticut, had achieved powered flight on August 14, 1901.
The Wright brothers made their debut flight on December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk in North Carolina.
There is little evidence to support the Whitehead claim. On August 18, 1901, a Bridgeport newspaper published an article describing the flight.
The claimed only witness, James Dickie, later branded the story a hoax: ‘I do not remember . . . ever hearing of a flight with this particular plane or any other that Whitehead ever built.’
In the spring of 1902, the newspaper reported a claim by Whitehead that he had flown seven miles over Long Island Sound. However, days later, a rival paper, the Evening Farmer, published the article, Unrealised Dreams: The Last Flop Of The Whitehead Flying Machine.
In 1903, Scientific American published an article on Whitehead that contained the quote ‘the aeroplane was made to skim along above the ground’. This was taken out of context as the article was referring to a glider.
Whitehead’s claims weren’t backed by notebooks, calculations, technical drawings or the details of Plane No 21, the name of the craft in which he claimed he took to the air. While there are various photographs of his various planes, none prove powered flight.
Weisskopf, who was born in 1874 in Bavaria, was fascinated by bird flight as a young man. He made mechanical contraptions for a toy company before being hired as a mechanic for the Boston Aeronautical Society in 1896.
While working as a factory engineer, he built 52 flying machines before his death in 1927, aged 53.
In March 2013, John Brown, an Australian aviation researcher living in Germany, claimed he had found key evidence of the flight, but this was only a blurred photograph. In June 2014, the Royal Aeronautical Society stated that claims for a Whitehead flight have been ‘thoroughly discredited’.
Paul Oliver, Derby.
QUESTION Apart from the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody, what other hits don’t include the title in the lyrics?
CURIOUSLy, when Queen’s masterpiece was released in October 1975, there was another song in the charts with a title that was not part of the lyrics — David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
A song title that does not feature in its lyrics is not unusual. Early examples include diverse Number Ones The Ballad Of John And yoko by The Beatles, Double Barrel by Dave & Ansel Collins and Annie’s Song by John Denver.
Cliff Richard heralded a new era with Millennium Prayer, which was succeeded by a clutch of chart-toppers: Dakota by Stereophonics, The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars and Viva La Vida by Coldplay.
Honourable mentions go to Creeque Alley by The Mamas & The Papas, New york Mining Disaster 1941 by the Bee Gees, Paranoid by Black Sabbath and Fairy Tale Of New york by The Pogues.
Bob Dylan notched up a Top Ten treble with Subterranean Homesick Blues, Positively 4th Street and Rainy Day Women. The Monkees were advised to change the name of 1967 U.S. hit Randy Scouse Git. They released it as Alternate Title. Neither title features in the song.
The daddy of them all is Unchained Melody by composer Alex North and lyricist Hy Zaret from Unchained, a 1955 B-movie. In that year, four versions were simultaneously in the UK Top 20.
The song was Number One four times: for Jimmy young in 1955, The Righteous
Brothers in 1990, Robson & Jerome in 1995 and Gareth Gates in 2002.
David Morgan, Laleham, Middlesex.
THOUGH Bohemian Rhapsody doesn’t mention its title, it does feature the title of the song it knocked off the Number One spot: Mamma Mia, by Abba.
Andy Palin, Bromley, Kent.
QUESTION My nickname for jam roly-poly is dead man’s leg! Are there other macabre names for various foods?
SHIP galleys and works canteens have given rise to a host of nicknames for regularly served up meals.
I grew up on yellow peril (smoked haddock) and gas cape (boiled cabbage), names which came from my uncle’s naval days and my mother’s time in the ATS.
After the war when food was scarce, Mum used to boil bitter, thick, dark green outer cabbage leaves in an attempt to soften them up.
When they were dished up, they resembled stewed seaweed. The smell was so pungent it was said a gas cape was required before you could eat it.
When I married, my mother-in-law would make a hot lunch for me. It was often an eclectic mixture that contained my nemesis — boiled cabbage.
She would add washing soda to the boiling water, which turned the vegetable a bright, almost luminous, green. I nicknamed it nuclear cabbage! The washing soda didn’t improve the taste.
C. E. Sayers-Leavy, Broadstairs, Kent.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT. You can also email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published, but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.