The Wright Truth: Undecided

The current controversy whether Gustave Whitehead flew before the Wright brothers is hitting international news. It's time to get down to business and tackle the abuse of aviation history that has occurred from the near beginning of the twentieth century.

History needs references. References need sources.

If a flow chart of references was made for the currently accepted history from any reference back to the original source, a significant number of arrows would point, in the end, to the Wright brothers. Wilbur died in 1912, but Orville lived for another 36 years, dispensing more of  his interpretations of history. A proposed chart of references would need to include any publications by and through our once venerable Smithsonian Institution. Many have as their sources, the brothers Wright.

An example of Orville's clouding of history is his publication that Whitehead's flights were "mythical."  (U.S. Air Services Magazine, 1945) The problem is that the Wrights had very little proof that their own flights in 1903 weren't "mythical," in fact, even less legitimate proof in the form of witnesses than we have for Whitehead's early flights.

So Wright advocates are resorting to an ancient non sequitur: that if the Wrights flew publicly in 1908/9 and if these flights were well documented and photographed, then they must have been the first to fly (in 1903). That is fallacious reasoning. It is also only opinion.

As far as the early Wright documentation is concerned, before their public flights in 1908, the statements and writing about their powered flights were either by the Wrights or are subject to question. And all of the Wright documentation has been subject to years of editing by Orville, some of it even possibly destroyed if it didn't conform to the history he wanted.

Now even the famous photograph labelled as proof of their first flight December 17, 1903, is coming under scrutiny. (To be continued)

An undoctored Wright photo?  December 17, 1903?