Pieces of the Wright Puzzle: What Really Happened December 17, 1903. Part I

"My mind is made up; don't confuse me with the facts"!--Oft repeated quote

 "Skepticism is the first Step towards truth." --Denis Diderot

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Harry P. Moore, reporter, who "scooped the Wright story of a "first flight."

"I got in touch with one of the Life Savers by telephone, and he told me that 'at last the nuts had flown. One of those fellows flew just like a bird. The two of them put gasoline in the engine in their contraption and after it glided down a hill on a wooden track, it went up. It was Orville that flew and he came down safely.'"--Harry P. Moore, reporter

Two Brothers, Three Telegrams, Only Two Attempts at Flight?

 December 17,  1903, is celebrated as a milestone in flight for the whole world. It is the day that we are told the "first manned-powered-controlled-heavier-than-air-sustained flight" was made in all of history. The achievement was claimed by Orville Wright of the Wright brothers.

But the Wright brothers' accounts of what happened that day at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, leave us with stray puzzle pieces and bits of information that just don't fit into their story.  For instance, Alpheus Drinkwater, who later became a Coast Guardsman, was operating a telegraph line north of Kitty Hawk that day. He has stated that he relayed a telegram for the Wrights that is not the famous one (pictured below) sent by the Wrights to their father.The telegram Drinkwater relayed actually contradicts that one. What's more, as everyone knows, the Wrights claimed their flyer took off from level ground. But witnesses, John Daniels and Adam Etheridge, signed statements saying they set the plane for the take offs onto the side of the hill. The Wrights also say in the famous telegram to their father that they took off four times, all in the morning. But the witnesses in their affidavits only mention two take offs and don't support that they were all in the morning.

Adding to the puzzle "misfits," a telegrapher in Norfolk, Virginia, named C.C. Grant stated that he received a message from witnesses, John Daniels and Willie Dough, at a little after 11:00 in the morning of the 17th that there had been a successful flight. Daniels and Dough were supposedly assisting the Wrights with their "four flights" between 10 a. m. and noon. How could they have sent a telegram that morning? Especially, since the telegraph office at Kitty Hawk was an estimated four miles from the Wright camp? If we really want to know the truth, every statement by everyone must be seriously considered.

We have expressed concern before that "primary documents" from a single source ( the Wrights themselves) can not always be trusted. So we posed this question in a previous blog post: where can we go to get the facts and assure ourselves of what really happened?

    
For honest and fair answers, we must compare the primary documents and statements that were recorded, not just by the Wrights, but by their witnesses and by any other people who were associated with the events of the day. If we look for them, we can find them.  Let's assume, for now, that these other documents and statements are indeed factual. 

Astonishing as it may seem to those who accept the traditional history, we notice disturbing contradictions with the Wright story almost immediately. Yet the accounts other than the Wrights' more or less agree, even though some people undoubtedly didn't know what the others were saying. We are smack up against the possibility/probability that the Wrights weren't telling the truth about more issues than whether they took off  "with engine power alone" (Note: If you take off into a headwind of 21-27 mph, no one can deny that the wind is assisting your engine.)

Refer to the Wright telegram, below, sent at the end of the day, December 17.

The telegram sent December 17, 1903 by the Wrights to their father Bishop M Wright after their last attempt at flight. According to my research, this was the second telegram they sent that day.

Consider this then. There is another possible scenario that includes the statements other than the Wrights' and is probably more nearly what really happened.  This explanation fits the puzzle pieces together nicely, but we have to practically scrap as factual the Wrights' famous telegram (above) to their father, Milton. To true Wright believers this is totally unacceptable, even heresy. To critical thinkers, it's an interesting possibility.

Alpheus Drinkwater (right), pictured in a later year, who relayed the Wrights' telegram to their sister, Katharine, about Orville's initial attempt  at powered flight on December 17, 1903. The Wright monument at Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina is in the background.

Let's look at Alpheus Drinkwater's story through a quotation taken directly from a United States Coast Guard Web Site. "The Indispensable Men."

          "...a future Coast Guardsman, A. [Apheus] Drinkwater, was working as a repairman for the U.S. Weather Bureau in 1900 out of Currituck Inlet when he first heard about the Wright Brothers. He colorfully recounted that: 'while making repair trips down the coast I heard of those two crazy islanders who were at Kill Devil Hills making attempts to fly. I didn't pay much attention to them, everyone considered them nutty.

         Three years later, on 17 December 1903, Drinkwater was working at a wreck station set up to monitor the stranded U.S. Navy submarine USS Moccasin which had run aground near the Currituck Beach Lighthouse.* He had a telegraph line set up that was linked to Norfolk, Virginia.  The local commercial telegraph operator apparently could not get though to the mainland 'on account of the wire being heavy'** so he asked Drinkwater to send a message for the Wrights. Drinkwater agreed, noting 'The message was to Miss Katherine Wright, Dayton Ohio, and read as follows, as best as I recollect. 'FLIGHT SUCCESSFUL. DON'T TELL ANYBODY ANYTHING. HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. SIGNED ORVILLE.' This message was given to the Weather Bureau office at Norfolk which handled all commercial messages along the coast from Cape Henry to Hatteras."

Note: It would be easy to confuse the Drinkwater telegram with the one received by Milton Wright, the brothers' father, two days before, on the 15th, after Wilbur tried and failed a powered flight on December 14. In his diary entry, below, Milton writes that the brothers stated "keep quiet."

Entry in Milton Wright's diary dated December 15, 1903 after the Wrights' first and only flight attempt on December 14. This attempt, according to the Wrights, was initiated by Wilbur from the hill at Kill Devil Hills

Let's accept for now that the telegram Drinkwater describes was sent to Katharine, the Wright brothers' sister, just as Drinkwater says, on December 17, 1903. How can that be? Would the Wrights send two telegrams on the 17th, one saying "Don't tell anybody anything" and the other saying "Inform press"? (Refer again to the telegram to their father pictured above.) It can be because the first telegram was likely sent to Katharine after the first flight attempt on
December 17 by Orville.

It means that, surprisingly, after Orville's first claimed attempt about 10:35 a. m. that day, the Wright brothers, or at least one of them, hiked, probably to the Kill Devil Hills life saving station one mile away, and initiated the telegram by phone to Katharine by calling the telegraph office four miles away at Kitty Hawk. Then they/he hiked the mile back to camp. Such a round trip, totaling two miles, would have taken at least a half an hour. They wouldn't have gotten back, if we include Orville's flight attempt, the hike, and sending the message, until after 11:15, if not much later (of course, unless they flew!). After being told so many times that the Wrights made four flight attempts in the morning, their claim begins to seem preposterous. Especially if we include any repairs to the plane between flights. But it's only the Wrights, so far as I know, who claim that there was a total of four flights that morning.  Please note that all five assistants plus the Wrights were needed for the flight attempts. It would have taken all hands on deck to move and launch the plane. Imagine lugging it up the hill. It weighed over 600 pounds without the pilot.

What about the telegram supposedly sent in the morning by witnesses Daniels and Dough and received in Norfolk, Virginia, by C.C. Grant? It would also have been phoned to the telegraph operator at Kitty Hawk from the Life Saving Station at Kill Devil Hills.This would have to be after the first flight attempt on the 17th, as well, unbeknownst to the Wrights, of course. To support this theory, we present, below, the primary document that backs that up. It was written and signed in 1929 by C. C. Grant. C. (Charles) C. Grant was on duty at the Weather Bureau office in Norfolk on December 17, sitting in for the regular man, James J. Gray, according to Stephen Kirk in his book "First in Flight."
Transcription of the document at the end of this post**
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A primary document written by C.C. Grant, telegrapher, stating that witnesses Daniels and Dough wired his office the morning of December 17, 1903, to inform Harry Moore, reporter, of the Wrights first attempt at powered flight.

Grant says (above) that shortly after 11 a.m., a message came through signed by Dough and Daniels, stating that the"Wrights made a short flight this morning and will try again this afternoon." Voila! Here we have it! This document backs up the contention that after Orville Wright attempted a flight at about 10:35 a. m., witnesses John Daniels and Willie Dough also hiked the mile from the camp to the Kill Devil Hills station, which would have taken about fifteen minutes. There they telephoned a message to the Kitty Hawk station to be telegraphed to a reporter named Harry P. Moore in Norfolk, who is pictured in later years at the beginning of this blog post. Their message would have been telegraphed by Joseph Dosher in Kitty Hawk to the bureau office in Norfolk and received by Grant, as he says, a little after 11 a. m. This puzzle piece fits into our theory. Beautifully. The Dough/Daniels hike to Kill Devil Hills station would have been made about the same time that Orville and/or Wilbur made their hike and sent their message to their sister Katharine that was relayed to Norfolk by Alpheus Drinkwater.

But what's this about a reporter? Why are witnesses Daniels and Dough telegraphing a reporter after Orville's flight attempt? The story goes that the reporter by the name of Harry P. Moore had heard that the Wrights were planning to attempt powered flight. Moore befriended the surfmen, Daniels and Dough (not called Coast Guard until later), and made them pledge to let him know if there was a successful flight. A reporter like Moore knew a potential scoop when he saw one!

Hint: This is where and how Moore got his information that was printed the next morning in the "Virginian-Pilot" newspaper. The Wrights said he got it from the telegraph operators (that would be Dosher, telegraph operator at Kitty Hawk, and/or Grant) leaking the Wrights' information from the telegram(s) they had sent.The Wrights apparently never knew the real story. Since reporter Moore didn't know enough details, he and other newsmen at the "Virgina Pilot" painted a very elaborate tale to flesh out the story, much of which couldn't be true. But Moore knew quite a bit. He had apparently been at the camp at Kill Devil Hills with his surfman friends Daniels and Dough before and had observed the Wright's flyer/glider. Another piece of the puzzle fits. Again, beautifully.  http://www.virginialiving.com/virginiana/history/the-big-story/http://www.virginialiving.com/virginiana/history/the-big-story/

Front page of the "Virginian-Pilot" newspaper with Harry P. Moore's "scoop"

Daniels and Dough didn't know that the "flight" didn't qualify as a true powered and sustained flight if it was launched down the hill into a 21-27 mph headwind. Neither did Moore. As far as Daniels was concerned, it was a flight, or he was told it was. In a statement on 12 March 1935, Mr. J. T. Daniels, then a member of the Nags Head Coast Guard Station, said "...all he knew about the machine was that, in 1902, the Wrights were using a glider, which they used until 1903, when they made the machine and put power in it." (from a U. S. Coast Guard web site)

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So here is the revised timeline on Thursday, December 17, 1903, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina:

--Before 10:35 a. m. The Wrights flag for help from the surfmen. Five people show up, including three surfmen, Daniels, Dough, and Etheridge, and they set the flyer on the track for take off. (Daniels and Etheridge say the track was on the hill.)

--10:35 a. m. Orville makes his first attempt at flight.

He is in the air for an estimated 120 feet hop. A lever for throwing off the engine is broken, and the skid under the elevator is cracked when the machine hits the ground.

--10:35-11 a.m. The Wrights and witnesses Daniels and Dough hike the mile to the Kill Devil Hills Life Guard Station fifteen minutes one way. Without the Wrights' knowledge, Daniels and Dough telephone that a successful flight has been made to Dosher at Kitty Hawk who mans the telegraph line there. Dosher telegraphs their message immediately to Grant in Norfolk, who takes the message personally to Harry Moore, the reporter. But because there is too much traffic on the telegraph line to Norfolk, Alpheus Drinkwater in Currituck has to relay the message by Orville that announces a successful flight to his sister, Katharine. Drinkwater sends this message on his own line to the central office at Norfolk.

--After 11 a. m. C. C. Grant telegrapher in Norfolk, receives the telegram sent by Dosher for Daniels and Dough to reporter Moore. He walks it over to Moore's residence, arriving about 11:40. The telegram states that the Wrights have made one flight and are going to make another attempt in the afternoon. Moore calls the surfmen at the Life Savers' station sometime after he receives the telegram at 11:40. He gets a confirmation (see the quotation by Moore at the beginning of this post. Moore says he was told that "...The two of them put gasoline in the engine in their contraption and after it glided down a hill on a wooden track, it went up.")

--After 11:40 plus until ?: Daniels, Dough, and Etheridge possibly hike the mile back to the Wright camp, which takes over fifteen minutes. They have very little time left (one minute?) to make three more attempts at flight before noon as the Wrights claim they did in their telegram to their father. It's much more likely that the Life Savers stayed at the Station for lunch (burned pancakes?) and returned in the afternoon for another flight attempt, as C. C. Grant says in his signed document.

--After 12 p. m. Sometime in the afternoon, the last attempt is made after which the "flyer" is blown to pieces by the wind. Then the Wrights hike to Kitty Hawk and send their telegram to their father that states: "Success four flights thursday morning...inform Press"

If the "flights" were made from the hill, it would have taken more time to haul the 600 pound flyer up the hill and to set it up. The hill was 1/4 mile from the Wright camp. I don't yet know how far it was from the Life Guard Station.

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One website claims Wright historians have disputed Drinkwater's claim altogether, essentially calling it "hogwash" as follows: "A convincing and colorful story concocted by Manteo resident and telegraph operator Alpheus Drinkwater about how he had transmitted the Wrights' message, told repeatedly to publications, including Reader's Digest, has since been refuted by historians...It wasn't until decades later, when Wright biographer Kelly contradicted Moore's - and telegrapher Drinkwater's - versions of events that the record changed."

Our readers must certainly know by now that Orville's biography, "The Wright Brothers," plus other publications about the Wrights were written by Fred Kelly with "facts" supplied by Orville, who monitored the writing every step of the way. Orville could not admit that the Drinkwater or Moore stories were true, because they don't fit in with his narrative of what happened. His typical solution to discrepancies from his stories was to claim that everyone else was either a liar, a dreamer, or had a short memory. It was a fairly consistent pattern, that, unfortunately, has been picked up by most contemporary aviation historians.


In "The Wright Brothers" by Fred Kelly, Orville Wright states that Dosher sent the telegram supposedly discrediting Drinkwater.  Joseph J. Dosher was the telegraph operator for Kitty Hawk, the single Weather Bureau employee there, and the chief of the Life Saving Station. Dosher would have had to be the telegrapher who sent the famous telegram by the Wrights to Milton, their father, after the last flight attempt on December 17. That telegram would have gone through the Norfolk hub, then on through the commercial lines to Dayton. It would be Dosher who sent the message to C.C. Grant in Norfolk by Dough and Daniels addressed to Moore. But Dosher most likely initiated the telegram to Katharine, the Wrights' sister. It was this message that would have been relayed by Alpheus Drinkwater from Currituck to Norfolk, Virginia, then on to Dayton.

It's germane to weigh the question, why in the world would the Wright brothers not tell the truth about what happened December 17? I believe they had many reasons to manipulate the facts. Consider that they had left their bicycle business months out of the year for several years and spent their money for a quest that most people at the time thought was a fool's errand. (Including their father, Bishop Wright, as I understand).  Consider that by 1903 they thought that they were in a race with Smithsonian Secretary Langley to be first to build a successful, heavier than air, man carrying plane. Consider, that they had seen an opportunity to make a ton of money--despite what they told Octave Chanute, their mentor. (He found out later.) They were planning a monopoly of aviation with a patent for their flyer, for which they needed primacy.

It's my opinion, too, that by December 17, 1903, the Wrights were running out of time (and probably money). The weather at Kill Devil Hills was turning bitterly cold as winter was setting in. The day of December 17th was a kind of now or never proposition. They wanted to be home for Christmas but they couldn't come home in disgrace..

We believe the Wrights made at least two attempts at flight that day, but possibly only two-- Orville's hop of an estimated 120 feet was made in the morning. At the end of Wilbur's last attempt at flight, the plane was smashed to pieces by the wind. (Witness John Daniels corroborated this event.) This accident dashed any hope to try to fly at Kill Devil Hills again that year.

So the Wrights hiked the four miles to Kitty Hawk  and sent the famous telegram announcing their success with embroidered details.. If they didn't actually meet the criteria of successful powered flight that day, they would announce they did by stating that they took off  "with engine power alone from level ground."

 

. Who would know the difference? Those knowledgeable, Octave Chanute and George Spratt, who had actually been there at the camp at Kill Devil Hills, had left by the middle of November. If they had witnessed the attempts at flight, initiated from the hill, would the Wrights have said Chanute was an old man, losing his memory? Would they have said Spratt had a poor memory, as well? Indeed, they did very nearly that about both of them in regard to other issues.

 Besides, what a feather in their cap. They flew, they said, and Professor Langley with all of his government subsidies had failed in front of many witnesses. (Actually, the Langley plane only failed to launch. There was no money to try again.)

That the 600 plus pound Wright Flyer I with the additional weight of the pilot was even capable of taking off from level ground in 1903 with its 12 hp engine alone has been essentially refuted by any number of experiments. The flyer needed the assistance of the wind and the hill.  Even with today's knowledge and expertise, no one has been able to replicate the claims the Wright brothers made for their flyer at Kill Devil Hills, December 17, 1903. The closest replica was unable to fly 120 feet from level ground, let alone 852 feet.  See Wright flyer replica fails to fly. Also see blog post: Wright "Flyer" Replicas and Reconstructions truthinaviationhistory.blogspot.com 

(On the other hand, Glenn Curtiss indeed flew the reconstructed Langley plane in 1914 from the water at Keuka Lake, NY. The plane was handicapped at the time with 350 pound pontoons, a reduced camber of the wings, and the original engine that they were unable to bring up to full horsepower, yet it completely lifted up out of the suction and drag of the water. There were many highly educated and qualified witnesses who observed these flights.  Moreover, the so called "modifications" of the Langley plane were not "secret," as Orville Wright claimed for years.)

   

* An interesting record about the grounding of the USS Moccasin from the Annual Report of the U. S. Life Saving Service, 1903:

** too much traffic on the line

*** Transcription of statement by C. C. Grant, who was manning the telegraph office, Norfolk, Virginia, December 17, 1903, as follows:

                                                                                         " Norfolk Va., April 11, 1929

            I was bureau telegrapher at he Norfolk weather bureau, located on the top floor of the Citizens Bank of Norfolk, on December 17, 1903.
           Shortly after 11 a. m., a message came through on our wire government owned and controlled, from Kitty Hawk N.C.
            It was addressed to Harry P. Moore and it was signed Dough and Daniels. It stated that the "Wrights made a short flight this morning and will try again this afternoon."
             I delivered the message in person to Mr Moore at his home190 Charlotte street, opposite the Norfolk Academy. It was about 11.40 when I arrived.

                                                                    Very Truly

                                                                    C.C. Grant
For Mr Harry Moore or
any others who may be
Concerned."

This blog post will be continued in Part II of this story in the next blog post of 
truthinaviationhistory.blogspot.com

Please check out glennhcurtiss.blogspot.com for a new post about the Wrights' chief 
competitor and rival.



Scroll down for more posts in Truth in Aviation History!

The Two Wright Brothers and Another Post About Who "Flew" First

"What is truth?"--Pontius Pilate

One of many books that are written for our children. This one targets ages eight to 12 years.

"The first flight lasted only twelve seconds, a flight very modest compared to that of birds, but it was, nevertheless, the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course without reduction of speed, and had finally landed without being wrecked."--Orville Wright, 1908, describing his first attempt at powered flight December 17, 1903

Pages from Century magazine article, published 1908. The byline was both Orville and Wilbur Wright, but it was written by Orville. It is clear that Orville is already beginning to claim the crown as "first to fly." The quotation above was taken from this article, often referred to as the defining statement of the Wright brothers' "invention" of the airplane.

Twenty five years after Kitty Hawk, twenty years after the article, above was written by Orville for Century magazine, the "first flight" is celebrated, below, at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, NC. The plaque in the picture below reads:

"The first successful flight of an airplane was made from this spot by Orville Wright...."

Celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Wrights' attempts at flight. Orville is on the left.  By now he has totally usurped Wilbur's designation as "first to fly." Wilbur died in 1912, sixteen years before this event. Orville lived on to accept many awards and accolades for his claimed achievements, including doctorates from prestigious universities.

But Orville's hop of an estimated 120 feet was originally not accepted as a flight by aviation experts. 

Readers of this blog will have noted that we also have a hard time accepting that Orville Wright actually flew by definition December 17, 1903. We have many reasons, some given here. But the aviation history that is presented to us today as fact is mainly Orville's history. It would probably not be the same as Wilbur's would have been. That's not to say that Wilbur's own history wouldn't have been slanted in its own way, since we can demonstrate that Wilbur was also prone to tamper with the truth. But Wilbur died in 1912, and Orville lived on for another 36 years, directing his own version of the story with the help of many others, including editors and writers, such as Fred Kelly, his "ghost writer" * and biographer, Earl Findley, editor of U. S. Air Services magazine, and Henry J. Haskell, editor of the Kansas City Star, who married his sister Katharine.

If critical thinkers who are interested in the truth examine the brothers' statements over those of their witnesses, we might accept that Wilbur made a "sustained" flight  December 17, 1903, because we are told he took off from level ground and managed to stay in the air 852 feet before inadvertently hitting the ground, thus coming to a sudden stop, and damaging the plane. Wright aficionados don't like to call the end of the flight a crash, so we won't in this particular post, either. But Orville's so called "flight" of an estimated 120 feet just wasn't long enough to be called controlled or sustained.

Let's assume the highly unlikely premise that the brothers took off from level ground like they told their father they did in their December 17 telegram.. Let's look at some primary documents that prove that experts of that time, plus Orville himself (if we can believe his letter to Hammer [below]) did not accept his flight as an actual flight, even if it was from level ground

William J. Hammer, left, and Wilbur Wright

A Chronology of Aviation (link is to digitized reprint of the 1911 version) was published by William J. Hammer and Hudson Maxim in the year before Wilbur's death.

William Hammer's Chronology of Aviation that asserts Orville Wright's "flights" in 1903
didn't prove he had power and control.

Letter( above), from Orville Wright to William Hammer that accepts his Chronology of Aviation
Directly above is an excerpt of testimony by Hammer that demonstrates his knowledge
of the Wrights' flights was second hand. Hammer was paid to testify for the Wrights.

Below, we have clips from Octave Chanute's "Chronology of Aviation." His famous address "Recent Progress in Aviation" was delivered on 20 Oct., 1909, to members of the Western Society of Engineers Lecture and then published together with his "Chronology of Aviation" in the WSE Journal in April 1910.
According to Simine Short, author of Octave Chanute's biography, "Locomotive to Aeromotive," "Both were republished in Scientific American Supplement of 23, 30 July and 6, 13 August 1910. This was also republished in the Smithsonian Report for 1910."

Simine Short also states, "In regard to the World Almanac, published in Chicago, it was a reprint as well. It was originally submitted to E Jones and published in Jan 1909 Aeronautics." ** Chanute died November 10, 1910.

Chanute--friend, teacher, and mentor of the Wrights until 1909

The above Chronology of Aviation was compiled by Octave Chanute.

  
Note that Chanute didn't consider any of Orville Wright's "flights" "memorable" before 1908. Chanute credited Wilbur with "memorable" flights made in 1903, 1904, and 1905, based on the Wrights' claims. As I have stated before, Chanute had great faith in the honesty of the Wrights until later, and had not witnessed any of these claimed flights, so the information before 1908 is second hand information from the Wrights themselves, in a word, hearsay.

No one, including Chanute, knew that the Wrights had taken off from the side of the hill in 1903 except the five witnesses, the three surfmen, the farmer, and the 18 year old boy, because the witnesses had not come out with their first-hand statements. After witnesses averred more than once in written and signed affidavits that they had placed the Wright flyer on the rail on the side of the hill to take off (we might add, into a 21-27 mph headwind), the Wright "damage control" group went into high gear and discarded the witnesses' statements as evidence, saying that narrations that come thirty some years after the event can't be trusted. One might ask how the Wright historians can have it both ways, (1) five witnesses trotted out by the Wrights to prove they flew in 1903, (2) none of whose testimony we can trust?

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I believe we can honestly and safely state that Orville Wright was not the first to make a controlled, sustained, powered, heavier than air flight in a man carrying airplane. We can also discard the so called picture displayed as "the first flight in history," of Orville in a Wright flyer. Both are evidence, not of fact, but of propaganda and misleading information.

The photo the Wrights said was of the "first flight"

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Teachers of history accept what is served to them in their text books, and they will dish up what they are fed. That is not meant to be a disrespectful to the profession, because teachers are generally not required to be historians or researchers themselves.They depend on others to do it for them. They assume, I would think, it is done as honestly as is possible, based on facts that can be verified. If facts can not be verified, and are from one (only) biased source, we all need to be told so.

But served up on our teachers' platters for free, pop over to the Smithsonian website (link) and other Wright websites, and just look at examples of the many lesson plans developed for them by those, such as Smithsonian "experts," extolling the Wright version of history that they want to be taught to our children. Their veneration of the Wrights borders on religion. I, for one, don't want another's bias taught as truth to be accepted on faith, and then delivered to my descendants as "historical fact." It could be called a "brain washing,"since the story has little to do with religion, which is spiritual, and more to do with gigantic egos and profit motives. It is also aimed at the time when our children are the most vulnerable and trusting.

* "Ghostwriter" is not a precise description of Fred Kelly's writing of "The Wright Brothers" for Orville.The "facts" and tales for his biography were provided by Orville; and Kelly wrote, revised, and edited just as Orville dictated. But unlike a ghostwriter, Kelly received the byline. See the letters between the two in the 1940's when the biography was being written, digitized online at the Library of Congress website.- the author

**Many thanks to Simine Short for your corrections and contributions to this document. 

To be continued...

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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..
.
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