Wright brothers' witnesses. Recent discovery!

[simplex]

The letters of Octave Chanute (died in 1910) to the Wrights were the property of the two brothers. Chanute did not keep copies. The same thing is true about the letters of the Wright brothers (the majority are written by Wilbur (died in 1912)) sent to Chanute. They did not keep copies.

 

[tyrodtom]

Getting any meaning out of sentences just by themselves isn't a honest way of trying to find the truth of anything.
Ever hear the term "quoting out of context " ?

 

[Marcel]

Don't bother guys. Simplex' only goal in life is trying to prove the Wright brothers wrong or that corners are straight or something. You cannot have a meaningful discussion with him as his ideas are fixed.

 

[pbehn]

Don't bother guys. Simplex' only goal in life is trying to prove the Wright brothers wrong or that corners are straight or something. You cannot have a meaningful discussion with him as his ideas are fixed.

I thought he was flogging the book.

 

[stona]

I thought he was flogging the book.

Which one? 'Progress in Flying Machines or the two volumes of the Wright brothers papers, which include the correspondence from which he so selectively quotes?
Cheers
Steve

 

[Shortround6]

Actually I have a letter somewhere in my basement that shows the Wright Brothers bicycle shop and airplane company were wholly owned subsidiaries of the International Globe Makers Cartel................

and as a past resident of Connecticut I put forward Gustave Whitehead

Please define "powered" aircraft?

 

[simplex]

That apparatus of Gustav Whitehead, in the picture, was a powered aircraft but unfortunately the engine (that man who towed it) was on the ground so just a part of the apparatus was in the air.

 

[simplex]

I do not quote out of context:

You have here all the letters in full:
Octave Chanute - Wilbur Wright correspondence.

In short, O. Chanute asked repeatedly the two brothers to go and perform flight demonstrations at St. Louis and W. Wright invoked all kind of reasons for not going there while in the same time reported more and more spectacular powered flights at Simms Station near Dayton. The claims of Wilbur were simply ridiculous.

Finally O. Chanute hired Avery (a carpenter and former sailor that worked for him in the past) and this man performed some spectacular flights in front of many people. The glider of Avery was launched by a catapult powered by an engine.

Avery flying at St. Louis in the autumn of 1904.

 

[pbehn]

duplicate

 

[pbehn]

duplicate

 

[pbehn]

duplicate

 

[pbehn]

Avery flying his George. Cayley replica at St. Louis in the autumn of 1904.
from wiki
The model glider successfully flown by Cayley in 1804 had the layout of a modern aircraft, with a kite-shaped wing towards the front and an adjustable tailplane at the back consisting of horizontal stabilisers and a vertical fin. A movable weight allowed adjustment of the model's centre of gravity.[18] Around 1843 he was the first to suggest the idea for a convertiplane, an idea which was published in a paper written that same year. At some time before 1849 he designed and built a biplane in which an unknown ten-year-old boy flew. Later, with the continued assistance of his grandson George John Cayley and his resident engineer Thomas Vick, he developed a larger scale glider (also probably fitted with "flappers") which flew across Brompton Dale in front of Wydale Hall in 1853.

 

[stona]

I could quote from the letters to show that Chanute did have confidence in the Wrights'prospect of achieving powered flight.

"I believe the new machine of the Wrights to be the most promising attempt at flight that has yet been made." (23rd November 1903). This incidentally after the date that the brothers invited him, by telegram, to come to their workshops ("after November 5th") to witness their progress, which hardly implies they were attempting to hide something.

He was also wary of revealing the Wrights' progress to the competition, writing to George Spratt on December 2nd.

"If you get into communication with Prof. Langley, please be very careful that you do not intimate to him that the Wrights are proposing to apply a motor, as they do not want this to be known. You will of course be on your guard as to the other features of their apparatus."

At this time Spratt was collaborating with the Wrights and had not yet had the famous falling out with the brothers.

Most damning for your theory is another letter written by Chanute to Spratt on December 19th 1903.

"I have your letter of 10th... You now know that you were in error in your apprehensions of disaster to the Wrights. It would have been safer to test their new machine thoroughly as a glider before launching it with the motor on board, but they took the risk and won."

My bold.

This from the pen of the man who you seek to argue did not believe that any such flight had occurred.

Spratt was convinced that the propeller shafts would fail, as they had done in testing.

Incidentally, in a later court case (1920) and under oath, Spratt was asked about the break in his correspondence with Chanute which began in 1904. His response is telling

"The Wrights' success threw everything else into the shade."

Anyone who can be bothered to trawl through all the relevant documents will come to a reasonable conclusion, and that is that in December 1903 the Wright brothers made a sustained and controlled flight in what we would now call an aeroplane near Kittyhawk, North Carolina. Whether others had achieved the same feat around the same time is debatable.
For the rest? Conspiracy theory at its worst.

Cheers

Steve

 

[pbehn]

I have two simple objections.

1. Until a powered flight was made no one could claim to have made any substantial progress on G. Cayley who had made a "flyer" 100 years before and a bi plane glider that flew 50 years before. The Wrights problem was not powered flight in itself it was extremely low powered flight, they had to make their own engine to do it. If you were to give them a couple of todays 125cc motorcycle engines they would have no problems at all and neither would anyone else with an interest to make a powered glider.

2 If the letters kept by the Wrights proved they didn't make the first powered flight then they would have burned them not presented them to the world. At the time (even today) stealing ideas and presenting them as your own was common. A G Bell patented the telephone, he didn't invent it. Fleming and his team developed penicillin but didn't patent it.

 

[Robert Porter]

Fleming and his team developed penicillin but didn't patent it.

I agree with everything you said until this, and perhaps I misunderstood you, but Fleming purposefully did not patent his invention as he wanted it to receive the widest possible use and adoption and felt that a patent would restrict its use and development. I sincerely wish his sentiments were shared today...

 

[stona]

It still goes on. Think of the human genome project and John Sulston, who led the British effort and was very much in the Fleming camp, as opposed to Craig Venter, on the US side, who was more in the, shall we say, corporate America camp.
Sulston was determined that no part of the genome should be patented for eventual profit, but that it should be freely available for the benefit of all. Unfortunately some genes are already patented.
Cheers
Steve

 

[simplex]

In 1903 and the first part of 1904, Octave Chanute believed to a certain extent the Wright brothers flew on December 17, 1903. After the Wrights started to claim more an more spectacular flights in the second part of 1904 the attitude of Chanute changed and he became ironic.

Regarding George Spratt, he was a bipolar (mental illness). His letters to the Wright brothers are a total mess. His only historical importance is as a witness. In a letter dated November 18, 1903, he referred to some "shafting" of the Wrights that he expressed at Norfolk. From this we can infer that the two brothers really broke the shafts of their plane while doing ground tests. So they had a plane at Kitty Hawk in 1903. This does not mean the machine was flight capable.

1903-11-18, G. A. Spratt, "Letter to the Wright brothers", November 18, 1903, 4 pages.

Coatesville, Pa Nov 18, '03.

Dear Friends, -

... The Shafting, I expressed at Norfolk and suppose it is on its way to you by this time. ...

 

[stona]

In 1903 and the first part of 1904, Octave Chanute believed to a certain extent the Wright brothers flew on December 17, 1903. .

'To a certain extent'? What is that supposed to mean? Either he believed they made a powered flight, or he did not. The evidence is that he did. By your own admission, it is Chanute who later changed his story. We might well ask why he did so? What incentive did he have for changing his story?

Regarding George Spratt, he was a bipolar (mental illness). His letters to the Wright brothers are a total mess. His only historical importance is as a witness. .

Your 19th century attitude to mental illness, and we certainly don't know from which or to what extent Spratt suffered, are out of place here. We know that the Wrights referred to it as his 'blues'. Somewhere between 7% and 10% of people in western societies will suffer depression at some time during their lives, but this does not make then inherently unreliable witnesses. Spratt told Chanute that the drive shafts failed in ground tests and as far as I can tell you don't dispute this, it's why he feared for the Wrights initial attempts to fly under power, and why Chanute told him that his fears were unfounded. In later years, on oath, he clearly testified that he believed the Wrights flew in 1903.

Winston Churchill suffered from periods of depression throughout his life, the 'black dog' with which he wrestled. Does this make him an unreliable witness to events he reported as a journalist in the Boer war, apart from his self aggrandisement?

Cheers

Steve

 

[simplex]

An example that shows the credibility of Wilbur and Orville is zero:

- Orville Wright claimed 11 flights for May 9, 1908, in a letter to his sister.

- Wilbur Wright mentioned in his diary that the machine remained indoors on May 9, 1908.

1) 1908-05-10, Orville Wright, "Letter to Katharine Wright", May 10, 1908, 3 pages.

Sunday
May 10th 1908.

Dear Sterchens:

... Yesterday we made 11 flights in winds ranging from 10 to 20 miles. The nine flights made in the morning were very short 6 to 20 seconds. The two in the afternoon were better – one of 31 seconds and the other 60 seconds. The 31 second flight was in a wind of 18 to 20 miles. The other about 14 miles of wind. ...
-------

2) 1908-04-06 – 1908-06-27, Wilbur Wright, "Wilbur Wright's Diary T", April 6 – June 27, 1908, pp 1-67.

May 9. Sat.
Clear. 8 AM. W. 10 m.
Noon 9 m. 3 P.M. 17-26 miles.

The wind was high all day, and as we were all sore, we did not get the machine out. Received letter from K. W. enclosing copy of telegram from Berg saying Weiler refused to postpone our French business. Unless we can secure a little time, it will be necessary for one of us to start to Europe within a few days. We mounted the Richard anemometer on the machine and so had to take daily observations with the English anemometer, letting it run 6.8 seconds, and then dividing the number of feet by ten to get miles an hour. Sent telegram to Flint's regarding ten days delay in starting to Europe.
------

 

[pbehn]

I agree with everything you said until this, and perhaps I misunderstood you, but Fleming purposefully did not patent his invention as he wanted it to receive the widest possible use and adoption and felt that a patent would restrict its use and development. I sincerely wish his sentiments were shared today...

They were not even shared at the time, penicillin production processes were patented but the new processes increased production massively. A controversial issue, penicillin is a natural product and cannot be patented but the production processes can, if a company cannot gain any benefit from what may be years of research why should they invest?