Kitty Hawk : A New Perspective. The Wrights' Famous Photo

           Were you the photographer in this picture — precariously perched on an assistant’s shoulders, standing on sand, in a blustery wind, varying 24 to 27 MPH? Had it been you, simultaneously snapping one of the most significant events of the 20th Century while performing this balancing act, could you then have forgotten the event?

         Bizarrely, that’s one of the less curious aspects surrounding the iconic “First Flight” picture of the Wright Brothers which is examined below. Despite an astounding conclusion, we are unable to offer much in the way of new facts while getting there: It’s all in the picture, and has been so since the image entered the public domain on September 1, 1908. It just needs looking at with a clear, critical, open mind, plus a basic knowledge of perspective.

Kitty Hawk — A New Perspective

            The Earth is flat and light travels in straight lines. On the Global and Cosmic scales, both these statements are incorrect, but for the purposes of everyday life they are not only good enough, but they also help us make sense of the world. Especially the painter; and particularly, the landscape artist.

    Here, we shed new light on the “perspective” of the Wright Brothers’ reported flights at Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, in December 1903. The validity of the assertion that those short flights constituted the first by an airplane rests on the claim that they took-off from level ground; traversed level ground; and landed on ground which was at the same level as that from which the take-off had been made. Level ground; the Brothers and their supporters have been keen to stress that there was no downhill gliding to assist, and thereby invalidate, the powered flights of December 17.

    For example: Orville Wright in How We Invented the Airplane: “These flights started from a point about 100 feet to the west of our camp. The ground was perfectly level for a mile or two in every direction, excepting those towards the big and the smaller Kill Devil Hills. The ground was level in the directions towards those hills for a distance of a quarter of a mile.”

    And again, in the supposed telegram to their father: “Started from Level with engine power alone.” This reiterated by Orville in a letter to Max Herzberg, as late as July 11, 1942: “All these [on December 17] were made from level ground….”

    Or American National Biography Online, “four powered flights made from a strip of level sand.” Or, indeed, just about any other biography of the Wright Brothers.

    Had those flights taken off downhill, Wilbur and Orville Wright would be branded frauds and liars. “Level ground” is, literally, the foundation of the Wright Brothers’ claim to have invented the airplane.

    Generations of aviation historians have looked at the iconic “First Flight” photograph and found nothing amiss. After all, the image is instantly recognized around the world, and even appears on US pilot’s licenses – surely, the hallmark of its authenticity. The Wrights’ reputation lives on, untarnished. But has anyone asked the opinion of an artist?

Art for a bit more than art’s sake

            It is hoped that the reader will not mind sitting through a short lesson in artistic perspective. Study material is no more complex than an illustration from a children’s encyclopaedia of the 1950s.

   The “laws” of perspective are governed by Nature and apply wherever the eye of the observer might happen to be. Imagine the viewpoint of the trolley wire maintenance man on his raised inspection platform. If his head is between the two wires (don’t try this at home!) those wires will seem to be short and horizontal, originating beside each ear and terminating in front of the nose. The roof of the trolley-car will be visible in this elevated view, and, in compensation, the road will seem to rise more steeply to meet its pre-ordained vanishing point. The maintenance man will see more road than his ground-level assistant, because he is looking down from higher level.

    North Carolina being part of the Universe, the same rules apply at Kitty Hawk. This is demonstrated by Wright-related pictures kindly made available by the US National Park Service (NPS). The Wright Brothers National Memorial includes a full-scale, three-dimensional diorama of the First Flight; and a paved pathway to show the claimed 852-foot flight of December 17, 1903, marked with placarded monoliths to show the shorter sorties of earlier that day.

    Nor are forgotten in the diorama the Life Savers who assisted with maneuvering the Wright Flyer on the ground, and who were named by the Wrights as witnesses able to verify their claim that great events took place that day. Specially depicted is John Daniels:

John Daniels, Life Saver, depicted as taking the "first flight picture."

Orville Wright later (unaccountably, only some two decades later) made it known that it was Daniels who took the world-famous First Flight picture. When interviewed for a magazine article, following his naming, Daniels “could not remember” having operated shutter on the Wrights’ Korona V plate-camera, but also recalled that his job had been to hold the wingtip, on, presumably, the opposite side to the camera. That curious episode has been debated previously on this blog and, anyway, for present purposes, it matters not who squeezed the bulb to take the picture. Suffice it to say that Daniels is immortalized standing beside a standard 4-foot camera tripod, which means that the lens of the apparatus that took the renowned photograph was about 4 feet 3 inches above ground level.

Recent photo of visitors in perspective at Kill Devil Hills event.

An appealing picture taken at a recent commemorative event by the NPS photographer shows a child standing about half-way along the replica of the 60-foot launch rail used by the Flyer. For compositional reasons, the picture is taken at slightly below the height at which Daniels’ tripod picture would have been taken. Even so, this (about 3½ feet, maximum) is slightly greater in height than the child (3 feet, or under), so her head appears to be below the horizon.

More of interest, is an enlargement of the figures in the middle distance.

Enlargement from picture above, illustrating horizon (or eye level).

The horizon — that is the edge of the flat plain of land, ignoring any trees or hills in the distance — is level with the navel of the nearest man (in a black jacket) on the path. In other words: lens height (3½ feet). The man to the right, is only 40% of the apparent height of the first man because he is farther away, but the horizon is level with his navel, too.

    Back on the path, a third man, farther away still, is only 20% the height of the first gentleman and, yes, the horizon and his navel are level. A couple of figures can be discerned even more distant; again the horizon is in the same place on their, yet smaller, bodies.

    It seems to be a rule of perspective that anything the same height as the camera appears to be level with the horizon when all is on a flat surface. To double-check that, the NPS offers another picture of the Wright Brothers’ “Runway” from an interesting perspective.

To record the scene, the photographer is standing behind the crowd, with the camera held high above their head (about 7 feet above ground level). From this elevated vantage point (recall the trolley wire maintenance man), everybody’s head is below the distant horizon.

That goes for the same, tall man in that black jacket. He needs to stand on a foot-high box if his cap is to touch the horizon — making his new “height” 7 feet: the same as the held-aloft camera. To reiterate: Anything at camera lens height looks level with the horizon.

Inventing an airplane: simple! Bending light is the clever bit.

            Let’s now check this new-found knowledge against the original photograph of the Wright Brothers’ “runway." The shifting sands have moved the Kill Devil Hills some 450 feet since 1903, so they are not at precisely the same co-ordinates, but around them is still flat ground, and that’s all that matters.

    The best-quality version of the iconic First Flight picture can be downloaded from the Library of Congress website. For authenticity, image 00626 is preferred because, even though it has a corner of the glass plate missing, it shows the near-end of the launch rail, and the sand-anchor for restraining the "Flier" before launch.  

Other versions of this picture one normally sees have been photo-shopped by way of repair but, although this has not been undertaken with any ulterior motive, the original, yet damaged, copy serves its purpose adequately. However, that high quality version is necessary reference for some of the analysis which follows. The reader is enjoined to download it, because it includes some very interesting things on the far left which are trimmed off most printed reproductions of this picture.

Iconic picture claimed to be of the first fight in history.

    One of the world’s best-known images (above) needs no further introduction. Therefore, attention can be directed immediately to Wilbur Wright (below), as this enlargement shows.

Enlargement of figure of Wilbur in the "first flight" picture.

Wilbur Wright was 5 feet 10 inches tall (for example, the US Federal Aviation Agency teachers’ guide

www.faa.gov/education/educators/curriculum/k12/media/K12_Wright_Brothers_Curriculum_Guide.pdf  page 21: “Wilbur Wright was 5 feet and 10 inches tall and weighed 140 pounds. Orville Wright was shorter by an inch and a half and was 5 pounds heavier”). John Daniels’ camera lens was 4 feet 3 inches above ground level.

    Discounting the distant hills, the horizon of the “Level in all directions” plain reportedly surrounding the launch site intersects Wilbur’s body at his upper lip, which is 5 feet 5 inches above the ground, and not at his solar plexus (the 4 feet 3 inches camera lens height) where the law of perspective says it should. The alignment depicted is impossible if all is on level ground.

    Setting aside any notion of darkroom manipulation, two possible explanations present themselves. Pick one.

1. Wilbur’s impressively large and hyper-active brain is distorting the space-time continuum around his body, making it appear to be where it is not.

2. Wilbur is standing on ground that is at least 1 foot 2 inches below the ground on which the camera tripod is resting. That is to say: The launch rail is pointing downhill and the hill continues downwards some way beyond the far end of the rail.

    Readers choosing "2" may consider the drop of little significance, but this is a minimum figure. The movement of the apparent horizon is difficult to calculate without knowing accurately how far up the slope the rail is positioned, so 1¼ feet is the smallest figure that is absolutely provable. Thus, the actual rate of drop is likely to be 2 to 2½ degrees. That’s not steep in driving or walking terms, but it should be commented that, in aviation, 3 degrees is the standard descent path for landing.

Interestingly, the National Park Service life-size diorama at Kitty Hawk attempts to overcome the tricky problem of perspective by depicting Wilbur in a semi-crouching position and raising the whole scene slightly above the general level of the memorial park, so the horizon is “wrong.” That is of no account, because reference to the old picture of Wilbur and the Flyer demonstrates that the apparent size of his body exactly fits between the upper and lower wings, which gap is 6 feet 2 inches. So, he is a few feet behind the aircraft and standing at his full height.

I don’t believe in physics. Please provide more proof.

            Despite the clear and compelling evidence for a downward launch angle, it must be conceded that there are many who prefer to believe the unsupported statements of the Wrights, even when they are in conflict with the laws of physics, with witness statements, and what they see with their own eyes. In that case, corroborating evidence might be helpful to dispel lingering doubts. And it is not difficult to find.

A. John Daniels (the “photographer” and airplane ground-handler), letter to a friend June 30, 1933 [spelling errors as per the original]:

“it was on Dec the 17, — 1903 about 10 o’clock. They carried the machine up on the Hill and Put her on the track, and started the engine, and they through a coin to see who should take the first go, so it fell on Mr. Orval, and he went about 100 feet or more, and then Mr. Wilbur taken the machine up on the Hill and Put her on the track and he went off across the Beach about a half a mile or more before he came Down.”

B. John Daniels, 1927 interview with W.O. Saunders for Collier’s Weekly, quoted in The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright: [regarding second flight]

“We got it back up on the hill again and this time Wilbur got in.”

C. Adam Etheridge, Daniels’ colleague, interviewed simultaneously, added, “I saw the same as Daniels”.

D. The left side of the First Flight photograph shows a land feature indicative of downward-sloping ground. This is on that section of the photograph which is cut off most printed versions of the picture.

The launch rail is in the foreground and a descending ridge is marked with three arrows. The camera lens is higher than the ridge (because the ridge is below the horizon line); the ridge is some 100 feet away and, therefore a substantial feature, rather than a quirky scrape in the ground at the photographer’s feet; and that ridge leads down to even lower, flatter ground.

E. The right side of the photograph shows an abrupt change of surface shade/value, (indicated by an arrow).

The Kitty Hawk Park land has been stabilized with planted vegetation since 1928, but its original condition is reflected a couple of miles south, at Nags Head. There, it can be seen that vegetation (darker shade) can gain a foothold on the level ground, but the constantly shifting sand of the dunes is a lighter shade. In other words, a lighter color often indicates higher ground — and it is on that lighter ground that Wilbur is standing. That said, there are slight variations in sand color according to light/shade and the moisture it contains, so only the more distant color variations should be considered indicative of vegetation.

Sand Dune at Nag’s Head

The higher you are, the more you see.

This combination picture of ancient and modern shows, on the left, Wilbur at the end of the launch rail, pictured from a camera just past the rail’s back end. A distance between the two of some 65-70 feet. On the right is a modern visitor to the memorial park, standing some 20 feet farther from the rail’s far end, but with the camera about the same distance along that rail. So, again, about 60-65 feet between the two.

    The images have been adjusted to make both figures the same height. As noted already, the background landscape extends from Wilbur’s feet to the level of his upper lip. However, the horizon comes only to the waist of the modern, black-jacketed gentleman.

    Why is there half-as-much-again landscape behind Wilbur? Simple: In that photograph, we are looking down on the landscape from a greater height than the “sub-tripod” vantage point of the color picture.

    And in this comparison, the changes in camera lens technology over a century are of no consequence. Wide angle or telephoto, it is the elevation above ground level which is the determiner of how much is seen, not the quality or magnification of the lens. On the African plain, the man may view more of the land than the slithering snake; but the giraffe sees more than the man. It is all down to (up to?) elevation.

Where on Earth...?

          The next, logical question concerns the location of this raised ground. One site offers itself with all the effusion of a young “teacher’s pet” with heart thumping and arm raised high. Three days earlier (December 14), the Flyer had been taken to the greater Kill Devil Hill, where Wilbur made an attempt at flight which ended in slight damage after 105 feet because of (as the telegram home reported) a “Miss judgement.”

Orville’s diary records, “We took machine 150 ft uphill and laid track on 8º 50´ slope.” In other words, as deduced from simple geometry, the launch was made from an elevation of 25 feet above the level ground which surrounded the hill. That’s a generous helping of free height to assist an airplane take-off and flight, but it seemed not to concern the Wrights at that point in their experiments.

The assisting Life Savers, their children and a dog posed for a couple of group photographs just before the flight attempt was made on the 14th. It is scarcely necessary to draw attention to the slope of the hill, or to ask whether, from their 25-foot vantage point, the assembled party was enjoying the same, enhanced view of the land as was allegedly captured by the camera, standing where they were, three days later.

Why was not the downward view of December 17 as obvious as the uphill one of December 14th? In part, the answer lies in the fact that one stretch of black-and-white ground looks pretty much the same as another, unless looked at critically and most discerningly. Told it is flat, most people will take that as fact, without checking.

And cameras can be persuaded to play other tricks, too. Take this photo of the 1905 Flyer at Kitty Hawk in May 1908, after it had been modified to carry a passenger.

          And, especially, take pity on this poor man, suffering severe curvature of the spine.

             However, a miracle cure is effected when Orville’s diary entry is recollected. Give the horizon a 8º 50´ slope and not only is all in better proportion and posture, it can also be seen that even in 1908, a hill start (or a falling weight) was needed to get a Wright airplane off the ground under normal circumstances. By accident, or design, the photograph, as originally composed, does not make this clear.

If you can’t persuade the camera to lie....

           This blog has previously published its findings on three other pictures also taken by the Wrights in December 1903. All were found to be tainted by anomalies which strongly imply that they do not show what they claim: Wilbur’s “misjudgement” photo of December 14 is a crudely-faked re-enactment that fails to convince; the “sidle” incident on the third flight of December 17, contradicts the same-day entry in Orville’s diary; and the puzzling “852-foot” fourth-flight picture shows less than 300 feet from the launch rail, as well as what appears to be an entirely different airplane. Now, we add a fourth Wright picture to this catalog of dubiousness.

    The First Flight picture has been questioned before, but over details which can be argued back and forth ad infinitum. Photography experts have pointed out that certain shadows are not as dark or light as they ought to be; the focus in certain areas is not as sharp or fuzzy as expected; or that the picture could be a superimposition of two photographs (which was perfectly possible with the technology of the day).
    Some have reasoned that it would have been impossible to take a sharp photograph of a moving object with a bulky plate-camera (even on a tripod) in a wind of between 24 and 27 MPH. Yes; but can those allegations be easily, yet convincingly, proved to the satisfaction of a layman of average intelligence? Perhaps not.

    Therefore, the above analysis has been conducted, simply and directly, by reading-off numbers from a ruler laid on photographic prints. The basis of the proof is understandable to any child who can crayon a believable picture of trolley-car wires disappearing into the distance. There is no latitude for quibble that the sun “might have been shining over there, but not over here,” to produce the effects which cause the experts doubt; or that the wind might have suddenly dropped sufficiently to stop the tripod — standing on sand, remember — from shaking.

    Bottom line: It is impossible for the iconic First Flight picture to have been taken from a 4-foot tripod on level ground, as has been claimed over the last century. The rules of perspective (a.k.a. the laws of physics) prove it could not be so. Period.

    Perspective shows the flight taking off from a hill; named witnesses who, puffing and panting, carried the airplane up there, also say it flew from a hill; features in the land show the launch rail and adjacent camera standing on a hill that is higher than the ground in the middle distance. Which part of the word “hill” didn’t the Wrights understand? Below is a simple contour map, showing how all these three self-reinforcing sources infer the scene should be interpreted. 

             To encompass the extra land area visible behind Wilbur in the 1903 picture would require a vantage point significantly higher than 4 feet 3 inches above mean ground level. But there is no way that John Daniels manufactured a giant tripod to create a false position for the horizon, because the perspective in any image is either all correct, or it is all wrong. As is now obvious, other things in the First Flight picture are inconsistent with each other.

    Forgive the tripod-related triple leg-pull, good reader, for it is made with a serious purpose. The “super-size tripod” is a joke — and so is the claim that the Flyer “Started from Level”.

 How the picture would have looked if taken on level ground with a tripod camera. Note that the horizon (discounting the dunes protruding above it) is lower on Wilbur’s body, and level with the Flyer’s bottom wing.

In this picture, the horizon is shown level in relation to the picture plane, demonstrating that in the published original (below) the camera was tilted to the left. 

The original picture again for quick comparisons to the adjustments shown above.Note again where the horizon is in relation to Wilbur's head

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Note: "Kitty Hawk: A New Perspective" is a contribution to our blog by one of our most valued editors. He is an expert on aviation history. Comments are always welcome.