The Wrights Invented What? Lateral Control and John J. Montgomery

 

           A John J. Montgomery tandem wing glider.

"That sudden thrill of almost horror, something entirely new to me, came just at that moment as I had realized that the balloon had gone and that literally I had to fly for my life....There was an indescribable thrill when I found myself launched on the air and about 4000 feet above the earth. With nothing but those slender and flimsy wings to support me. I was actually flying and I believe that I am the first man on earth who has actually and successfully had that experience...." --1905, Daniel Maloney, 3/4 of a mile up, on his flight of Montgomery's Santa Clara glider.1

  "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace...."-- "High Flight" - John Gillespie Magee.

Illustration of Montgomery's Santa Clara glider, 1905, with Daniel Maloney, pilot. The glider was pulled up 4000 feet by balloon, then released to fly with full control to the earth.

"The most daring feat ever attempted."--Octave Chanute, 1905, after the flight of the Santa Clara glider.

"All subsequent attempts in aviation must begin with the Montgomery machine."--Alexander Graham Bell, 1905

The Wrights vs John J. Montgomery

As demonstrated in former posts, Wright advocates believe that the Wright brothers themselves are the best references for what happened in the earliest development of their flyers.That's regardless of their penchant for truth telling--or not. But why would they believe the Wrights are the best references for anything else that happened in aviation, whether they were there or not? The Wrights were not in the crowd of est. 1500 in the spring of 1905 when John J. Montgomery's Santa Clara glider was released from a balloon 4000 feet in the air and was piloted with full lateral control and inherent stability to a safe and gentle landing on earth. And yet early aviation history accepts the  Wrights as the "expert" final word on Montgomery's pioneering achievements.

It may seem astonishing, but it appears the Wrights became the "experts" on aviation history after they convinced much of the world that their attempt to fly in 1903 was the very first manned, controlled, powered, heavier than air flight in all of history. But as stated before, they didn't convince historians of this with witnesses. There were no official witnesses, just some surfmen, a farmer, and a boy, all of whom Orville Wright said didn't know what was going on. ( See Orville Wright letter to Shea 1928 LOC (Library of Congress) under Subject File, Information Requests). They also produced a questionable photograph in 1908 that probably wouldn't be admitted as evidence in a court today. That's not much.

The truth is, there were no officially observed flights until 1908.  There was an attempt to fly in front of reporters in 1904 after they said they had successfully flown, but the Wrights failed publicly and miserably. There were some friends and family members that advocated for them, some verbally, some in writing. And there was their mentor, Octave Chanute, who had really not seen a successful flight, though they try to say he witnessed one on October 15,1904. That one ended in a crash shortly (420 meters) after being catapulted, because it couldn't be stopped from turning, according to Wilbur's own written notes. See notebook below. So it's doubtful it could be called either a controlled or a sustained flight.

Wilbur's notes about the only "flight" that Chanute observed of the Wrights before 1908
Yet Chanute was their strongest advocate and vouched for their honesty.

(Look for Chanute's actual notes, LOC, regarding this flight. I'm having difficulty finding them since they decided to change their format).* It wasn't until August of 1908, that Wilbur finally went public in Europe with some pretty amazing flying for the day. We are told that observers were astonished by Wilbur's lateral control, his coordinated turns, etc. etc. That was convincing. The lateral control with roll historians claim the Wrights discovered by themselves in a flash of inspiration.

However, as stated before, it's a non sequitur that the Wrights' accomplishments, which were demonstrated in the late summer and fall of 1908, proved they were the first to fly with coordinated turns--or even flew, as questioned in this blog, in 1903. To a reasonable person, that should be obvious. It also doesn't prove when they had achieved sustainability, control, and balance, before 1908. Only that by 1908 they had it. At least, up to a point. However, the planes both Wrights flew in 1908 weren't the same plane they supposedly flew in 1903, and they had engines that were different and more powerful. The Wrights had had five years to improve, using technology that could have been developed by others. Even their claimed lateral control.

By 1909, less than a year after their debut, there were a lot of people flying, using various forms of lateral control. The Wrights claimed they were all copying themselves. (Curtiss used ailerons on his "June Bug" before the Wrights' debut.) In 1909 the Wrights started suing anyone and everyone for infringing on their 1906 glider patent for wing warping. At that point, their chief mentor, Octave Chanute, could no longer support them. To the Wrights' chagrin, he came out publicly that he didn't believe the Wrights had a case in court, indeed, that lateral control was an old art. Chanute had stated so to the Wrights privately before in his letters to them.

Chanute had been aviation's historian for many years and knew most of what was going on in the early development of flight. Was Chanute correct? If he was, we should be able to point to examples of pioneers that Chanute was aware of who had achieved earlier lateral control. We can. The most stellar example is John Joseph Montgomery.

John Joseph Montgomery, 1858-1911, "the grandfather of flight."

Fred E. C. Culick, professor emeritus at Caltech and member of the AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics), admits that Montgomery had developed lateral control, but states that he and the Wrights had developed their "break throughs" independently, parallel discoveries as sometimes happens. It's an easy conclusion to come to, because there was nearly a whole continent separating them, the Wrights in the east, Montgomery in California. The following paragraph is a quotation of Culick from his treatise "What the Wright Brothers Did and Did Not Understand About Flight Mechanics—In Modern Terms" AIAA copyright 2001. Page 2

 "Nearly all of the Wrights’ predecessors and their contemporaries were preoccupied with constructing intrinsically stable aircraft, essentially large model airplanes. Moreover, none progressed far enough to become concerned with maneuverability and hence controllability was not an issue for them. The sole exception was J.J. Montgomery (1858–1911) who, already in the 1890’s, experimented with wing-warping for control in roll (Spearman 1967). His work was not publicized and the Wrights independently invented their method of wing-warping. It’s interesting, but not incontrovertible proof of their independence that Wilbur used a biplane design to incorporate warping whereas Montgomery worked only with monoplane gliders. More to the point, Montgomery apparently never considered constructing a powered aircraft and didn’t face the general problems of three-axis stability and control." (emphasis mine)

But according to Harwood and Fogel in "Quest for Flight," Culick is wrong. He's correct about Montgomery's control in roll. But as for the rest, it's the false mantra of the Wright historians. When Culick wrote that paragraph, according to "Quest for Flight," he must have been unaware of a huge chunk of aviation history. Of course.The Wrights had  helped to write much of that history out, as they did most anything that competed with their version.

John Montgomery was experimenting with a glider equipped with hinged surfaces on the wings for control as early as 1883. According to John and his brother James, they successfully flew his controlled glider at Otay Mesa near San Diego as far as 600 feet, with John aboard. This was nineteen years before the Wrights experimented with their "wing warping" on their 1902 glider. It was at least fifteen years before Wilbur wrote the Smithsonian for information on aviation and began his serious investigations. Montgomery's successes were a result of years of observation of birds in flight, study, scientific experimentation, and even tests with wind and water flow.

It's important to note that John's flights were no secret from the Wrights. In 1893 John attended the historic International Conference on Aerial Navigation in Chicago, organized by Octave Chanute and Dr. Albert F. Zahm, where he gave two talks, sharing information about much of his experimental work. John continued to communicate with Chanute afterwards, even visiting him at his home. They began a correspondence, where he shared  progress in his work. This is all documented.  It is also documented that Chanute shared Montgomery's information with the Wright brothers in their personal correspondence, even at certain points when Montgomery asked him to keep information confidential because he was applying for a patent. 2

 The Wrights were granted their patent for lateral control on a glider in 1906. But in 1905
 Montgomery burst on the scene in California with spectacular public demonstrations of lateral control and what's more, the inherent stability of his gliders. And they were in front of hundreds to thousands of people. At Santa Clara University, John released his tandem wing glider called the Santa Clara from a balloon nearly four thousand feet in the air. Piloted by the daring Daniel Maloney, who had been an aerial performer, the glider somersaulted, pirouetted, banked 45 and 90 degrees, turned in all aspects, including figure eights, and demonstrated amazing lateral control in all dimensions. The news was highly publicized. Papers all the way to England published articles about Montgomery's sensational displays of flight.

One of the many  newspaper articles about John Montgomery's 1905
 public demonstrations of lateral control. Sorry, this is difficult to read.

 

..."one great problem of aerial navigation from the beginning had been that of controlled flight and maintained equilibrium...[which] for the first time in history it was their privilege to witness"--copied from the Los Angeles Times article pictured above.

The Wrights monitored the news about Montgomery. Amos Root reported to them in writing. After the public flights, Chanute wrote for and obtained sensitive information about the gliders that Montgomery in trust shared with him, and he forwarded the information to the Wrights without telling Montgomery.3 One might argue that they had already written up and applied for their patent by 1905. But between 1903 and the time the Wrights received their patent, changes were made in their patent. "Aeronautics" Oct. 1909, p. 122 and123, and 164 "outlines radical changes in the Wright Brothers Application for a Patent on a 'Flying Machine' and their attempts to amend it after the news of Prof. John J. Montgomery's successful flights in March and April 1905.

Chanute's falling out with the Wrights during their lawsuits, that claimed all planes infringed on their 1906 patent, wasn't the only rift. Spratt and Huffaker both testified against the Wrights on behalf of Glenn Curtiss, whom the Wrights were suing. Another lost friend was Dr. Zahm, a witness for Curtiss. Chanute actually consulted with Curtiss prior to the case.

It would seem obvious that for these reasons and others, there were typical Wright attempts to discredit Octave Chanute as well as Spratt, Huffaker, Curtiss, Zahm, and others by the Wrights and their historians, . Today Chanute is called the "old man" in their descriptions, a disrespectful implication that brings to mind a doddering senior who has lost his brilliance, if he ever had any. The Wrights thoroughly discounted any credit Chanute might have received for the assistance he gave them. (Much as in the cases of Huffaker and Spratt)

 In his "historical novel" "The Bishop's Boys," Tom Crouch of the Smithsonian states the following:

  "Then there was this wing-twisting business. Chanute coined the term "wing warping" to describe the Wright technique, but he did not grasp the basic principle. He never would....Chanute's career had limited his thinking."

And on the next page:

"The brothers took Chanute's measure very early on. Technically, they had already gone beyond him."4

(How can anyone believe this nonsense?)

 As for Montgomery, himself, the Wrights, especially Orville later, went all out to prove his work inconsequential or even a collection of fairy tales.The propaganda peaked in 1946 when a movie "Gallant Journey" starring Glenn Ford was made by Columbia pictures about Montgomery's work. The attacks against the filming were orchestrated by Orville. His faithful biographer Fred Kelly, who often served as his lead trumpet, composed a plethora of letters trying to discredit Montgomery and to stop the filming of the movie. He called the Montgomery history "an unscrupulous falsification of history." Earl Findley, Orville's loudspeaker and editor of "U. S. Air Services" magazine penned a 1946 article about Montgomery called the "The Montgomery Myth." Findley had similarly attacked the Langley trials of Glenn Curtiss, as well as the flights of Gustave Whitehead for Orville. (Note: His 1945 published article about Whitehead with Orville as author was called "The Mythical Whitehead Flights.") On the other hand, Orville ironically claimed that Montgomery, like Curtiss, had stolen his secrets. Even though the film was completed and released, the Wrights (Orville at this time), with the power of "experts" associated with their names, were mainly successful in getting John  J. Montgomery written out of history.5

So we add the name of John Montgomery to the long list of aviators whom the "expert" Wrights discredited. Shouldn't this be unacceptable to reputable American historians? Very few appear to have the courage to stand up and tell the truth, or actually back those who do.

For more reading on John Joseph Montgomery, including the Wrights' attempts to defame him, see "Quest for Flight" by Craig Harwood and Gary Fogel. This book is highly documented with many primary sources. It belongs on a shelf of every serious aviation historian.

Award winning book on Montgomery's pioneering contributions to aviation

1. Craig S. Harwood and Gary B. Fogel, Quest for Flight (University of Oklahoma Press, 2012),  100

2. Ibid, 94-97

3. Ibid

4. Tom D. Crouch, The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: W.W. Norton and Co. 1989), 200, 201

5. Harwood,  Quest for Flight, 167-170.

*Thanks to Simine Short, author of "Locomotive to Aeromotive: Octave Chanute and the Transportation Revolution," we have been provided with Octave Chanute's statement regarding the Wright flight of October 15, 1904, in Chanute's own handwriting. The original is on file at the Library of Congress.

I note that the brothers and Chanute agree that the flyer remained in the air about 1377 feet before it crashed. Some might call this a sustained flight, even though it needed the assistance of a catapult to take off, was not in control, and suffered considerable damage when it crashed (a week's worth of repairs). It is interesting that Chanute doesn't mention that the pilot was unable to control the plane. He might not have been told. But Wilbur does state in his notebook entry, reproduced above, that the pilot, some say Orville, was unable to stop it from turning.  I don't believe the 6 mph cross wind is the reason for the crash, because the Wrights, with good control, should have been able to head into the wind after take off, and they weren't confined to a runway to land. 

In contrast to the Wrights' flyer troubles, Maloney affirmed, regarding Montgomery's Santa Clara, "...the aeroplane so perfectly responded to every tug of the cords." page 100, "Quest for Flight," cited above.

This was not the only time that the Wrights' problems with control were mentioned in Wright accounts. Such problems plagued them and is one of the probable explanations why they were unwilling to go public. Please see post "Wright Replicas and Reconstructions" in this blog.



(Note: For more by the author of this blog, please see GlennhCurtiss.blogspot.com.)

To be continued....

Summary of last six posts with comments

 "A lie told often enough becomes the truth."--Vladimir Lenin

 An incredible amount has been written about the Wright brothers. Most is a repeat of a rehash of the Wrights' own story with interpretations and elaborations--something like the game of "gossip." The majority of people and Wright biographers have accepted the Wright myth. So have so called "experts." The Wright story has been repeated so often that anything else actually does sound like "conspiracy theory."  So the question is, do we even want to know the truth? And if so,where do we go to get it?

Check out this quotation from one Wright brothers web site, called Wright Brothers Airplane Company: 

                                                           "Primary Sources"

"When writing an (sic) report on an (sic) historical event, your most reliable sources are eyewitness accounts from people who actually saw or participated in the event. These are called primary sources. The best primary sources for the invention of the airplane are the Wright brothers themselves, who -- fortunately for us -- left behind reams of letters, diaries, photographs, technical papers, and other first-person accounts of their experiments. We also have a good many reports from relatives, friends, neighbors, employees, and associates who knew them well and were part of their lives." (bold emphasis mine)

Of course, primary sources can be the most reliable source of what happened in an event, but the best primary sources will rarely if ever be people who have reasons to manipulate the truth. For an example, if we were in a criminal court, the person who committed the crime would certainly not be the most reliable source of information. Family members and friends wouldn't carry a lot of weight either.

In aviation history from 1899 on, the most reliable sources are not the Wright brothers. At a certain point, probably very early in their career, the Wrights began to prepare for a monopoly of aviation. Their stories would have to back up their claim--in court--that they were the "pioneer inventors" of the airplane.There is far too much evidence that they were not.

With the aim of a monopoly and other probable reasons that seem obvious but must be considered speculation, the Wright brothers systematically promoted themselves and belittled nearly everyone else. Historians bought the story because it was a good one and usually made sense. The Wright story, in my opinion, was a result of a series of fortuitous decisions by the Wrights, sheer luck, and genius (but not so much in invention as in accommodating [for themselves] others' research). And they were amazing at weaving intricate explanations of various events, such as reasons for their secrecy..
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The owners of the Wright Airplane Company website mentioned above might be considered the Wrights' loyal friends.  The huge site demonstrates the length that loyal "Wright friends" will go to in order to convince people that their "Wright story" is correct. Notice below the "Primary Source" quotation on the "Help with Homework page that the books recommended for reading are all accounts by the Wrights or interpretations of their accounts. In addition to authors mentioned in the previous post, it's imperative to add Marvin MacFarland and Peter Jakab as biased Wright historians.

However, regardless of how many times the Wright brothers claimed (and their loyal friends repeat their claims) that they discovered the secret of flight, developed the first viable airplane, and were the first to make a controlled, sustained, powered, manned, heavier than air flight in 1903, it doesn't make it the truth.

Below is a summary of the last six posts of this blog that investigates, among other issues, the veracity of the Wrights and some of the reasons why we can't accept their statements. See former post for a summary of the first six posts. For most of the references and links, see the original posts.

Post #8   Orville Wright's "True" Fiction for the Boy Scouts and for "Very Young People"

 In 1942, twenty eight years after Orville's article came out in Boys' Life magazine, in which he claimed he made Wilbur's 852 feet "flight" at Kitty Hawk" in 1903 , a man named Max J. Herzberg queried Orville about the article. He wanted to use it in an anthology. Orville admitted then that his longest flight claim was in error, but stated he never "got around" to correcting it. Twenty eight years. At nearly the same time in 1942, Orville wrote to Herzberg, complaining about an article written in  a magazine called "The Independent" in 1904  that he said was completely erroneous and attributed to Wilbur. The editor of the article, Orville said, had never openly corrected  the article.  (As a matter of fact, the editor of this article had published apologies in the magazine on two separate occasions.)

Now the editor, Orville said, was teaching young people at a college. By this time, Orville, who was hoodwinking the Boy Scouts of America, had been made an honorary member of the organization. Also, by this time, the Boy Scout article had been republished--with no serious corrections. Ironic that the first law of the Boy Scouts is honesty.

Post #9  More "Errors," "Inaccuracies. and "Whoppers" by Orville Wright in "Boys' Life"

Orville's claim that he made Wilbur's flight of 852 feet in the Boys' Life article is the most glaring fabrication in this article. But a careful read of his story, together with some knowledge of what the Wrights had claimed before 1914, unearths a whole treasure trove of contradictions and exaggerations.

For instance, Orville explains that he never attempted a turn in his (actually Wilbur's) 852 feet flight because the hills got in the way. But we were clearly told by the Wrights themselves in 1903 and later that they took off from level ground.   Did they confront hills after that? A picture that the Wrights claimed was of the last flight shows no hills.

Post #10  Wright "Flyer" Replicas and Reconstructions

Replicas of the Wright Flyer I are virtually impossible to fly. No matter how much time, money, and expertise modern day engineers spend to replicate the Wrights' claimed successes of December 17, 1903, they haven't been able to reproduce that same success, even a 120 feet flight. And there is more than one group building more than one version.

 The AIAA placed at least one small model and full sized version of the Flyer in the wind tunnel at Caltech and came up with serious flaws in the Wright design. The elevator causes stalls, the air foil is wrong, and the plane is so unstable that even modern day pilots can't figure out how the Wrights ever got it off the ground, let alone through the air.

The Wright Experience group tried to demonstrate their replica at the Centennial of Flight in 2003, taking off from level ground, and it flopped.

Comparisons should be made to the Curtiss reconstruction of Professor Langley's 1903 aerodrome.
Langley's manned, powered full sized tandem plane failed to launch twice in 1903, due to failures in the launching mechanism. The plane predated the Wrights' claimed flight in December of that year. An unbiased engineer could probably easily explain what happened, but honest studies haven't been done. Langley couldn't continue his experiments due to lack of money. Note that the Wright planes have failed to launch so many times that most people have lost count, if they ever knew. Nevertheless, Orville Wright and Wright historians deliberately dubbed the Langley plane a failed design. Not a failed launch, a failed design.

 Eleven years later in 1914, Glenn Curtiss put 350 pound pontoons on Professor Langley's 1903 reconstructed aerodrome for the Smithsonian and flew it off the level waters of Lake Keuka in New York with the original engine (original, though disabled). Orville Wright called the trials fraud. He harassed the Smithsonian to death that Curtiss had made changes to the plane with knowledge of the day, knowledge that was unknown in 1903, in order to make it fly. Strange that even with some of the changes by our modern day engineers, over a century later, the Wright flyer can't fly--and/or is still a possible death trap.

Reconstructed Langley aerodrome at Hammondsport , NY.

Wright historians won't tell you that most of the changes Glenn Curtiss made to the Langley reconstruction in 1914 handicapped the plane. Some changes were necessary for the addition of the 350 pound pontoons, such as a change in trussing, and some were for the purpose of saving money, such as replacing ribs that were broken with solid ribs instead of hollow ones. Of course, there had to be some re-balancing due to the pontoons. There is much more to this story and you won't read it from Wright historians.

To try to extract a false admission from the Smithsonian that the Langley aerodrome was "incapable of flight," Orville, maintaining that the original Wright flyer was in existence, sent a "reconstruction" of it to England, calling it the "original flyer." After much publicity about this move and enormous pressure from Orville Wright, his friends, Griffith Brewer (who had concocted the scheme) and Fred Kelly (his biographer), and importantly, from the general public, who wanted what they were told was their "Wright flyer" back from England, the Smithsonian caved in and wrote a public apology. The Smithsonian statement said that Curtiss's tests in 1914 didn't "prove" the Langley plane was capable of flight, but Wright historians omit Secretary Abbott's statement that that they didn't disprove it either.

However, if we apply Orville's reasoning to his own Wright flyer today, modern tests and modifications, so far, at Caltech, as an example, actually do prove that the Wright flyer was incapable of sustained, controlled flight.

The plane hanging at the Smithsonian is Orville's last reconstruction and probably contains even less of the original flyer than we are told, according to a witness statement. As usual, we only have Orville's word over that of his witnesses..

Post #11 The Wrights Discovered What? Was the Wrights' "Original" Research Original?

This post clearly demonstrates that Wright historians credit the corrected number for calculating lift, called Smeaton's coefficient, to the Wright brothers. This is patently false. Professor Langley corrected Smeaton's coefficient to very close to the modern number with his incredibly accurate systems of measurements. The Wright brothers were aware that Langley had corrected the number as shown in a letter they wrote in 1902, before they ever did their wind tunnel tests.

It must also be noted that historians time and time again repeat what Orville Wright stated, time and time again--that the great glider pioneer Lillienthal's tables of lift were wrong. This is not true. According to aero-dynamics expert John David Anderson, Jr., Lilienthal's tables were not incorrect. The tables didn't work for the Wrights in 1901 because they were naively using the old outdated Smeaton's number to calculate lift as well as a wing of a different shape from Lilienthal's.


Post #12 The Wrights Discovered What? Another Chapter

Professor Langley also demonstrated that the aspect ratio of the wing contributes to lift. He published the results of his experiments in his book in 1891. The Wrights owned the book.

Nevertheless, in Fred Kelly's 1948 book, authorized by Orville Wright, he claims that he and Wilbur discovered the function of the aspect ratio of the wing with their wind tunnel experiments.

Kill Devil Hill, 1901, left to right: Edward Huffaker, Octave Chanute, Wilbur Wright,  Dr. George Spratt

In this post Edward Chalmers Huffaker is introduced. Huffaker was a brilliant aviation pioneer who visited the Wrights at Kitty Hawk in 1901, to help them at Octave Chanute's request. Huffaker, much earlier, was lauded by Langley to be the first he knew to realize that the Bernoulli principle for fluids also applies to air. Huffaker stated that the pressure of air, like a fluid, changes with its speed; and the resultant changes in pressure when air travels over and under the curved wing of an airplane are what give the wing its lift. This was a monumental discovery. Huffaker's publication was sent to Wilbur by the Smithsonian in 1899.

What we get from Wright oriented history about Huffaker is that he was "slovenly" and that the Wrights didn't like him. (Huffaker's supposed casual attitude has spread throughout the Wright history, but more than likely was a tale begun by Augustus Herring, who like Huffaker, had worked at the Smithsonian. Professor Langley highly recommended Huffaker but was not so pleased with Herring.) What we don't get in the Wright history is that Huffaker did much of Langley's research on cambered surfaces for him and with his knowledge, was in a position to help the Wrights on that score in 1901, as well as with the movement of the center of pressure on a wing.

Huffaker was not credited by the Wrights for his contributions, except for a short slip by Wilbur that wasn't repeated.



Post #13 Dr. George Spratt--A Letter and a Lost Friend

The Wright brothers turned their backs on the early pioneers who helped them in the first years of development of their Wright Flyer. In the case of scientists' work that predated theirs, they claimed it was all wrong.

Dr. George Spratt, Kill Devil Hill, 1901, from photo above

George Spratt was another early pioneer who, like Huffaker, was asked by Chanute to help the Wrights at Kitty Hawk in 1901 because, as Spratt said, their early glider was a failure. He was free with his help and knowledge from 1901 on, and it was his suggestions that the Wrights incorporated into their wind tunnel tests.

Published in this post is a letter by Spratt in 1922, twenty one years later. A reading of the letter reveals the ingratitude of the Wrights, their failure to credit those who helped them, and their refusal to help others in return. Spratt clearly stated that the Wrights were deserving of censure for claiming that their "invention" was their own work and for manipulating history.

To be continued....

Note: For more information, see Glennhcurtiss.blogspot.com 

A summary of this blog with some additional comments

Aviation history, as presented today, is chock full of liars, thieves, mountebanks, and four-flushers. Aviation pioneers, who in their day were known to be brilliant, such as Gustave Whitehead and John J. Montgomery, are accused of faking flights. One of our greatest pioneers, Glenn Curtiss, is said to have deliberately cheated on a test for the Smithsonian to prove an early pioneer plane was capable of flight when it really wasn't. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Now, if stories, such as these, are questioned by serious researchers, there are those, who seem to have an inordinate interest in preserving the status quo, who accuse them of conspiracy theories, lies, or idiocy. A concerted effort is made to marginalize those who have opposing opinions, much as when this aviation history was originally written.

Are these accusations true? Who is behind these stories? Maybe those most responsible are the two pioneers who come shining through today's "history" as the beacons of honesty, integrity, and expertise.

This blog addresses some of these and other very important issues.

Presented below is a summary of the first seven posts of this blog "Truth in Aviation History," including some additional comments.
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A Wright Brothers coloring book from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
The Wright brothers are promoted by NASM to the point that some call it the "Wright Museum."

              Post #1. The Wright Truth: Undecided

Much of early aviation history is based on statements by the Wright brothers. Unfortunately, many of
these statements are contradictory. Many of their questionable statements can't be
verified at all. If the Wrights are to be used as references, their statements and claims need to be verified with credible, original sources, independent of the Wright brothers themselves.This has not been done. If a conclusion is made from an unverified source, it needs to be so stated.

History ought not to be written on the assumption that particular individuals' claims to knowledge and/or honesty are absolutely unassailable, regardless of opposing claims.

         
               Among the enormous number of Wright references supposed to verify
               aviation history:

                  1. The Wright correspondence
                  2. The Wright diaries
                  3. Wright public statements in and out of court.
                  4. Wright photographs that can't necessarily be verified as to dates.
                  5. Any other documents originating from the Wrights

                 Examples of books derived from the Wright brothers' statements

                   l. "The Bishops Boys" and other books by Tom Crouch
                  2. "Wilbur and Orville" by Fred Howard
                  3. "The Wright Brothers" by Fred Kelly
                  4.  Books by Charles Harvard Gibbs Smith
                  5   Books or publications that use these books as references

 Post #2. The Wright Story: Not So Sure

Wright historians tell us that the Wright brothers were the first to make a manned,
 powered, controlled, sustained, heavier than air flight. Is this true?

The telegram the Wright brothers sent to their father Milton Wright in 1903 gives their version of what happened at Kitty Hawk December 17, 1903. Their statement can't be totally true.They said they took off from level ground with engine power alone against a 21

mile per hour wind. If the wind assisted the take off, it can't have been solely with 

engine power, or "engine power alone"

The telegram the Wrights sent their father Milton on December 17, 1903. It all started with a stretching of the truth. Some might call it by another name.

There were no official witnesses that day, experts on aviation, or reporters. Only five ordinary people who knew virtually nothing about aeronautics--three surfmen, a beach comber farmer, and a boy of eighteen. It is clearly documented that two of the only five witnesses, Daniels and Etheridge, agreed more than once that they placed the Wright plane on the side of the hill to take off. If the plane took off from the side of the hill, it did not take off from level ground--it was assisted by gravity. 

The definition of powered, sustained flight excludes a take off from the side of a hill, or a gravity assisted take off.

We have a choice whether to accept the Wright version or the version of the witnesses. (In court today the Wright version would have no validity.)


 Post #3.The Wright Photo Shoot: 1903 or 1908 ?

The iconic photograph represented as of the first flight in history and supposed to be proof of the first flight in history poses some serious questions.

We have only the word of the Wright brothers that John Daniels took this picture December 17, 1903.

John Daniels, who the Wrights claimed took the picture, said he didn't remember taking the picture. If he didn't, he certainly wouldn't/couldn't remember it! The date the picture was taken has not been proven. The photo didn't make its appearance until the year 1908. It could have been taken in 1908 when the Wright Brothers went back to Kitty Hawk with their later Wright flyer. It would be difficult to tell the planes from each other, as we are told the flyers were virtually the same. 

There is absolutely no proof that this photo was taken in the year 1903 by witness John Daniels or anyone else that year.


Post #4 The First Flight Picture: Puzzling Questions

There are many anomalies in the "first flight" picture. For instance, the shadows aren't consistent as they would have to be if the picture was taken outdoors with a single light source (the sun). The sun would be the light source outdoors even if the day was overcast as it seems to be.To repeat, John Daniels, who the Wrights claimed took the pictures, said he didn't remember taking the picture. (He was glad to take credit, though).

The position of the elevator in the photograph shows from modern day Caltech wind tunnel
tests that the plane is in full stall. A plane can't recover from a full stall as close to
the ground as it's shown to be in the photo.

 Post #5  Did the Wrights Really Fly in 1903? An Expert Opinion by Tom Crouch.

Oops! A letter surfaced written by Tom Crouch, head of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, stating to Leo Opdyke* that the so called flight shown in the picture that we are taught is the first flight in history was not long enough to be considered a true sustained flight. The flight was only an estimated 120 feet over the ground. Crouch states that the last flight by Wilbur of 852 feet could be considered a true flight. Of course, that would be true assuming it took off from level ground.

Common sense would conclude, then, that if the picture of Orville supposedly making the flight of 120 feet doesn't represent the first flight in history, because Wilbur's flight was the only true flight, then we have been sold a story, regardless of the authenticity of the picture..


 












    





  *Leo Opdycke was editor of the "World War One Aero" magazine, a publication that he developed  from a newsletter into one of the main sources of information for those interested in aviation from the time of its birth to the end of WWI."


  Post #6. Didn't the Wright Brothers Always Tell the Truth? Part 1


This post demonstrates that the Wright brothers were very adept in using the news
and publications to establish their versions of history, including what happened at Kitty
Hawk in 1903.They monitored the news, and if they saw an account that didn't coincide
with their stories, they were very aggressive in demanding that it be corrected--to
their version. In January 1904, they sent out a news release contradicting an account
that was apparently mostly fictitious about the Kitty Hawk "flights" and corrected it to
their agreed version.


Post #7 Didn't the Wright Brothers Always Tell the Truth? Part 2

In a 1914 Boys' Life article with Orville Wright's name on the byline (as told to Leslie W. Quirk), we find proof positive that Orville Wright was "loose with the truth," as writer  Jack Carpenter asserted in  "Pendulum I" and "Pendulum II," http://www.amazon.com/Pendulum-II-Americas-Aviation-Pioneers/dp/product-description/0960073620 . Orville claimed that he made the longest flight of 852 feet at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Wilbur had died and couldn't correct the article.

Cover of Boy' Life,  Sept. 1914. The Boy Scouts teach and advocate honesty.

Until Wilbur's death in 1912, it was accepted that he made the first flight (except for a 1908 claim written by Orville that he was the one who made the first flight, Century magazine).

After Wilbur's death, Orville stole the crown and even wrote the 1914 article for young people that it was he who made the longest flight of 852 feet. The article has been republished more than once, but never corrected.

Since the Wrights closely monitored articles published about themselves and made great efforts to change what they didn't like, we must assume that the so called "error" about who made the longest flight was not an error, but was intentional on Orville's part. He personally made no attempt to correct the article after it was published. In the next post we show that Orville was aware of the article--for years.

To be continued with summaries of these posts:

Post #8   Orville Wright's "True" Fiction for the Boy Scouts and for "Very Young People"


Post #9  More "Errors," "Inaccuracies. and "Whoppers" by Orville Wright in "Boys' Life"


Post #10  Wright "Flyer" Replicas and Reconstructions

Post #11 The Wrights Discovered What? Was the Wrights' "Original" Research Original?


Post #12 The Wrights Discovered What? Another Chapter


Post #13 Dr. George Spratt--A Letter and a Lost Friend

 

Dr. George Spratt--A Letter and a Lost Friend

One More Chapter on the Wrights Invented What?

"After having for twenty years capitalized upon this as your own work I do not see how you can give a correct account of this without bringing yourselves into open censure"--Dr. George Spratt to Orville Wright, 1922, on the development of the Wright flyer.

Dr. Spratt as an Inventor

A control wing aircraft built in 1939 by Dr. George Spratt's son, using the doctor's designs

The concepts behind Dr. Spratt's amazing control wing invention were beyond Wilbur Wright's understanding, as is clearly revealed in his letters to the doctor. Contrary to what we are taught, it was Spratt's ideas that the Wrights used to build their wind tunnel. Link here to great Youtube videos of Spratt's control wing in flight and a few derivations of his invention.

Dr. Spratt's Relationship with the Wrights

An early friend of the Wright brothers, Dr. George Spratt wrote his last letter to Orville Wright in 1922. See it below. Was it it an expression of sour grapes or a statement of the betrayal of a once loyal friend? You be the judge. I've emphasized some of the copy, so it's obvious where I stand. As you read today's Wright "history," as it was carefully pruned and shaped by the Wrights, look for the explanations and rationalizations they write for primary documents, such as this letter. It would seem that Dr. Spratt was wrong when he said "It makes little difference what you write, history writes itself."

Dr. George Spratt was another of the pioneer aviators, who like Edward Huffaker, came to Kitty Hawk in 1901 to help the Wrights, at the request of  Octave Chanute. Like Huffaker and Chanute, Spratt freely provided the Wrights with suggestions and help.

Wilbur publicly admitted early on that both Spratt and Huffaker had educated him on the movement and reversal of the center of pressure as a plane changes its angle of attack. But neither Wilbur nor  Orville repeated that admission any time later.*

 In 1901 at Kitty Hawk, the Wrights had warmed to Spratt, unlike Huffaker (see previous blog post), and they invited him back in 1902 and 1903. A lively correspondence sprang up between Wilbur and the doctor and information was exchanged. However, when the Wrights began their insults to early aviation by suing anyone they thought infringed on their 1906 glider patent, Spratt's response began to cool. Further, Spratt requested recognition for his important contributions to the Wrights' wind tunnel tests and later asked for help in building his "control wing" plane.Wilbur wrote back that it was enough that he had sent Spratt tables from the wind tunnel tests and shared information of his own. They were square and he owed him nothing.(What?)  It is now established that the Wrights wanted the world to believe that their research was theirs and theirs alone--a myth that came to prevail..

Eventually, the friendship with the Wright brothers soured to the point that Spratt no longer would answer their letters.

 Dr. Spratt's Stinging Last Letter to Orville Wright

Much later, in 1922, Orville Wright wrote Spratt for copies of the brothers' letters they had written to him over the years-- (he also tried to acquire Wilbur's letters to Octave Chanute that were in the possession of his daughters after his death.) Orville was apparently compiling his version of the early history of aviation.

 The following letter is Dr. Spratt's response to Orville's request in its entirety. Those who are interested in truth in aviation history need to read this letter carefully:

Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.**

Dr George Spratt's last letter to Orville Wright. Emphasis is mine.

 For much, much more about the Spratt/Wright saga and Dr. Spratt's contributions to the Wright flyers, go to this link: http://www.gustave-whitehead.com/history-of-whitehead-critics/wei%C3%9Fkopf-verkannter-erfinder-oder-scharlatan-gibbs-smith-luft-raumfahrt-jan-1982-pp-8/don-paulson-on-wright-spratt/

* I have been since informed that Orville admitted some twenty years later Spratt's and Huffaker's educating the Wrights about the movement of the center of pressure. I will have to research this.

**This letter can be found in "The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers" under Series, General Correspondence, Items 214, Images 16 and 17.

To be continued...

The Wrights Discovered What? Another Chapter

Was the Wrights' "original" research original?

The aspect ratio of the wing

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”-Galileo Galilei 

"There are no secrets." Glenn Hammond Curtiss

Gull in flight. Credit NOAA

Wilbur Wright became seriously interested in aeronautics after Otto Lilienthal, the great German aviation pioneer, lost control of his glider and died from the crash in 1896. Lilienthal's glider experiments had brought him just to the point, it's said, that he planned to attempt manned, powered flight.

Otto Lilienthal in flight. Credit: National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Apparently, Wilbur saw the opportunity to continue where Lilienthal left off. Accordingly, he stated his intention, when he wrote to the Smithsonian for information in 1899, to take the level of aviation at that point in time and "add his mite." To read aviation history, however, and the court battles the Wrights instigated in 1909 to establish their intended monopoly, the Wrights pioneered the "secret of 
flight," starting when Wilbur began his aeronautical investigations.

 Research in aviation history is difficult at the very least. It's full of complicated aeronautical concepts and mathematical formulas, and it's a whole lot easier to accept the Wright version of history. "First to fly, did all their own research with their wind tunnel, Kitty Hawk, 1903, geniuses, etc"--fairly easy to learn sound bites. Advertisers and politicians use sound bites all the time if they want to sell you something, or worse, to make you believe something that might not be totally true. By the time Wright biographies exploded in vast numbers, most people believed that the Wrights' sound bite version was gospel, anyway. In fact, maybe it was the sound bite that the Wrights discovered! It certainly wasn't the "secret(s) of flight." The corrected Smeaton's coefficient, the function of the aspect ratio of the wing, and the travel forward and reversal of the center of pressure were studies  pioneered before the Wrights by Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley. See John David Anderson, Jr.*

The aspect ratio of the wing is the length of the wing in proportion to the width. Professor Langley's experiments published in 1891 showed that a longer narrower wing ( high aspect ratio), as opposed to a shorter, wider wing (low aspect ratio)' is more efficient in lift. The long, narrow gull wing pictured below, lower right, is designed by nature so that the bird can efficiently soar and glide long distances.

When Wilbur, who determined to learn aviation, wrote the Smithsonian in 1899 for information about the state of the art; the Institution promptly sent pamphlets and recommended books on the current published knowledge in aeronautical research. Among them were two publications by Professor Langley and one by Edward Chalmers Huffaker. See letter and notes below.

From the Library of Congress digital collection

Notes on the back of letter "copy" above. From the LOC digital files

In the "copy" of his thank you letter, above, we can see that Wilbur orders Professor Samuel Langley's 1891 publication called "Experiments in Aerodynamics" for one dollar. I have provided you with the link that will take you to Langley's publication, complete and digitized online, which is a primary source of Langley's early experiments,  Here we have, fully documented, Professor Langley's experiments and conclusions on the aspect ratio of the wing in chapter V, page 26, "The Plane Dropper."--These are the plane dropping tests that John David Anderson refers to on pages 171-173 of "A History of Aerodynamics." *  Selected quotations from Anderson's book as follows:.

   "Another novel device designed by Langley was his plane dropping apparatus....The most important finding from Langley's plane-dropping tests was that a wing with a high aspect ratio would produce more lift than a wing with a low aspect ratio..."Anderson page 171

 "Wenham had preceded Langley in appreciating the aerodynamic efficiency of high-aspect ratio wings, but Langley was the first to produce an organized set of experimental data clearly showing the superiority of such wings." Anderson page 172

         " An irrefutable demonstration that high-aspect ratio wings were superior to low-aspect ratio wings, and by approximately how much, was good enough for Langley, and that determination was one of his major contributions to applied aerodynamics." Anderson page 173

But in the 1943 Fred Kelly biography "The Wright Brothers,"** authorized by Orville Wright, we have a description of some of the discoveries the brothers claimed they made from their wind tunnel tests in 1901--ten years after the publication of Langley's report. Among them, see below:

On page 76 from "The Wright Brothers" by Fred Kelly***
 

The trials of the 1902 glider p 79 of The Wright Brothers by Kelly

Success of the 1902 glider, Kelly p. 80

With changes to their 1902 glider, particularly the aspect ratio, we see that the Wrights achieved more successful flights than in the disappointing trials of 1901. As noted above, they attributed their success to their wind tunnel tests and their discovery that the higher aspect ratio would provide more lift.

However, at least one of the aviation pioneers who was at Kitty Hawk in 1901 knew better. It was Edward Chalmers Huffaker.The Wrights ignored or downplayed input by Edward Huffaker and Dr.George Spratt in 1901 whereby they very likely would have been informed of the need to remodel their glider.

  Edward Chalmers Huffaker had worked for Professor Langley at the Smithsonian and conducted Langley's experiments on cambered (curved) wings. Anderson pp 188-190. Even if the Wrights didn't read or understand Professor Langley's treatises, which they had in their possession, or trust his conclusions, as some say, Edward Huffaker would have shared knowledge with the Wrights in 1901 when he was with them at the Wright camp near Kitty Hawk .

Wrights also downplayed Langley's research by saying that Langley's studies were only on flat planes, so his experiments didn't help them.The truth is that Langley's published work at that time was on flat planes, so they could later get away with that statement (and historians believed them). But it's a little known fact that they had access to Langley's unpublished work on curved surfaces and other research through Huffaker. 

  Before the Wrights' secrecy, it was quite common for pioneers to share their knowledge. Also, Huffaker was a brilliant theoretician, and he had explained the Bernoulli principle regarding flight--how the flow of air over a wing provides lift--even to Langley. This is arguably one of the most important concepts leading to flight by man. See "The Unwelcome Assistant" by Hensley.

It wasn't the Wrights who originated the early knowledge regarding the function of the shape of the wing.They might have used their wind tunnel tests late in 1901 to verify for themselves much of what was already known, but verifying earlier discoveries is not the same as making the discoveries--as they claimed. 


 

Borrowed from the Tennessee Aviation Network. Thank you

 

 http://tennesseeaviation.net/HallofFame.htm

 













A reader of Fred Howard in "Wilbur and Orville"*** needs to take note of his unacceptable insults and belittling of Edward Huffaker per the Wrights in chapter 8. In fact, they sound like those of a fishwife in a spiteful marriage.  Huffaker was shiftless, unconscientous, and sloppy, they said. He spit tobacco and read with his feet on the desk. What's more, he never changed his shirt. Who cares? Does anyone know whether Newton chewed tobacco or Galileo changed his underwear? But many readers of this Wright "per-version" of history (some might call it) then, will tend to dismiss Huffaker, and many aviation pioneers other than the Wrights, because, as I can demonstrate, the Wrights verbally assassinated their competitors in one way or another, discredited them, their knowledge, and their contributions to aviation. They did it in a way that it sticks. It even crept into John David Anderson Jr.'s book. Sound bites.
 
Further, in his book "Wilbur and Orville,"*** Fred Howard, states on page 132 that Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley's only contribution to aviation was the flights of his models in 1896. This is  a complete contradiction of the facts. But it is the version of history that the Wrights wanted you to believe. (See previous post.) Like many/most Wright historians, Fred Howard didn't do his due diligence. He simply accepted the Wright statements, seriously neglecting his homework on the Wrights' fellow aviators, including Langley.

Launching Langley's model aerodrome
Edward Huffaker was likely there.

Aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley

To conclude this post, the Langley history has been perverted by the Wrights, as has the history of many, many other pioneers, including Edward Huffaker and Dr. Spratt (see future post) who were both at Kitty Hawk in 1901. Why? It seems obvious that the true contributions of these pioneers clashed with the Wrights' desire to be remembered as the primary inventors of the airplane and as the first to fly. Note that when Judge John Raymond Hazel's court awarded the Wrights victory in 1913 in their patent infringement lawsuit against Glenn Curtiss, the Wrights were declared by Judge Hazel to be "pioneer inventors" and thus entitled to a broad interpretation of their 1906 patent. This meant that the Wrights" system of warping the wings for lateral control could be equated with Curtiss's system of ailerons because both systems achieved basically the same function, even though the Wrights never thought of ailerons to control their airplanes and didn't mention them in their patent. Therefore, even though ailerons were a vast improvement over wing warping and they have been adopted by planes ever since, and even though planes as a rule have discarded wing warping altogether, Curtiss was declared an infringer of the Wright patent of wing warping.

To be continued.... 

 *Anderson John D., Jr., "A History of aerodynamics and its impact on flying machines," Cambridge University Press, 1997. Page numbers provided are from this edition.

 **Kelly, Fred, "The Wright Brothers," Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1943

***Howard, Fred, "Wilbur and Orville" Ballantine Books, 1987