First flying machine

There are conflicting views as to what was the first flying machine. There are many confident histories, with a large numbers of supporters, that have different views. This may be influenced by the fact that local heroes make more interesting histories, as well as national pride. Different definitions of first flying machine are emphasized, which leads to different claims.

Debate on veracity of claims

For a claim to be accepted there must be some credible evidence. The number, quality and possible bias of witnesses are analyzed. There may be language and cultural barriers to analyzing the witnesses' reports. There may be cultural and philosophical barriers of the witnesses to overcome to even understand, much less properly report, the event they witnessed. Inventors skilled at marketing may be favoured because of more substantial evidence, even though such skills aren't usually associated with inventing flying machines. There is even an opposite effect, where a skilled "showman" can be accused of inflating claims or even falsifying inventions. More weight is given to photos of the flight, even though this favours claims taking place after the invention of photography.

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The number of flights is used to evaluate some claims in relation to others. If only a single flight was achieved by an invention, some dismiss this as a fluke. The more flights achieved, the more credible the evidence becomes, even though this favours inventors with more time and resources to invest. Damage to the aircraft on landings, and even injuries to the pilot, can be severe setbacks limiting the total evidence, even though they may be due to mere bad luck.

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For inventors that focused on skills other than science, their inventions can be dismissed because of the non-scientific nature of the evidence. To answer this, there are sometimes attempts to provide the missing scientific aspects to the evidence by recreations after the fact. In the more extreme cases, rough sketches are turned into complete flying machines. But there is no way to prove that the re-creators' modern knowledge didn't influence details of the recreation, improving the original invention. The same problem arises when aircraft are recreated in attempts to perform new test flights years later.

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Various governments and other organizations will often only give some claims an "official" approval in attempt to elevate one attempt over another, usually in the interest of a national or cultural pride. A great deal of disinformation and revisions can take place as well with some claims, both from individuals and governments, to adjust the level of importance of some respective claims. Minor mistakes or misinformation are sometimes widely reproduced without any further investigation. In the worst cases, some histories fail to mention the fact that counter-claims even exist, much less contrast them with a preferred claim.

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