The Wrights and their impossible 1904 flights
The case of the Wright brothers as the firsts who built and flew a heavier-than-air man carrying machine (an airplane in today's terminology) is closed. The two inventors simply lied about their 4 flights of December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and those 105 made in 1904 near a streetcar station at the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio.
The book below is based only on primary sources, mainly documents of the period 1903-1905, in majority letters of the two brothers and the answers received by them, plus newspaper articles (all quoted in full).
After reading the letters and articles you start to ask yourself how is it possible that so many authors credit Wilbur and Orville Wright with building the first plane that ever flew when, in fact, the two inventors just tried to fool the newspapers (especially those of Dayton), Octave Chanute (a personality of the aeronautic world of the time), Georges Spratt (a fellow aviation enthusiast), Carl Diesentbach (the New York correspondent of the German journal "Illustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen") and both the US War Department and British War Office, by pretending they had performed no less than 105 flights in 1904 and, in many instances, describing aerial trips that are physically impossible, like the ones of August 13, 1904, when the plane, Flyer II, got energy from the headwind, which accelerated the apparatus.
"The Press", the only newspaper that, on May 26, 1904, furnished a list of witnesses (friends of the Wright family and an unnamed reporter) who saw the alleged flight of the same day, later in the year, on December 17, 1904, acknowledged that nobody had ever seen the two inventors flying powered planes.
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Source: The Wrights and their impossible 1904 flights
The work above, at page 38, draws the conclusions you can read below (each of them is based on original documents, fully quoted in the book).
"Final conclusions
Question: What are the most important arguments that the Wright brothers did not fly in 1904?
Answer:
• In a letter to O. Chanute, dated August 28, 1904, but also in his 1904-1905 Logbook E, at page 8, Wilbur furnishes precise details about a series of flights which show that the groundspeed of the plane increased with the headwind intensity. The alleged trials are physical impossibilities and could not have happened. They were invented on paper based on wrong beliefs.
• People who claimed they saw flights in 1904 but in reality lied:
- O. Chanute did not witness the 420-meter aerial trip above the ground of October 15, 1904, but pretended he saw it.
- Amos Ives Root did not see the circular flight of September 20, 1904, made by Wilbur, but maintained, till the end of his life, he was its spectator.
• The unreliable 1904 diary of Milton Wright:
- The contradictory statements in the Dec. 1st entry. The first paragraph says the old bishop was at home all day and the second that he left for Simms at 12:00 and saw Orville flying at 4:00 PM.
- M. Wright strongly implies he saw a few other flights but without saying it explicitly.
- The records in his journal, regarding the flights at Huffman’s field, show mainly numerical values, without any kind of personal impressions a father would have written had he seen his sons flying a heavier-than-air apparatus, a feat no one had accomplished before.
- The logbook G of Orville (kept on the machine) does not mention witnesses at all for the 1904 flights and that of Wilbur (labeled E), also it contains the names of a few bystanders, does not say anything about the presence of Milton Wright.
• The only newspaper, the Press of May 26th, which identified by name a number of people who saw the short hop of the same day and specified that one of its own reporters (unnamed) was also present, made a conflicting statement on Dec. 17, 1904, revealing that the brothers had not made any public trial, and had no intention of making any in the near future.
• The absence, from the 1904 newspaper articles, of identifiable spectators of the inventors’ 105 starts at Huffman Prairie (except in the May 26th number of the Press).
• Flyer II could not be No. 2 because Flyer I, 1903, had not been completed as of May 1904, according to the Wilmington Messenger (Wilmington, NC, May 26, 1904, col. 1, p. 6).
• The general attitude of O. Chanute. He repeatedly wrote ironic passages, in his letters to W. Wright, expressing his surprise that the brothers could have flown so many times without being remarked by the entire press in the US.
• The absence of O. Chanute from the list of 1903-1905 witnesses communicated by the Wrights to C. Dienstbach, in a letter dated November 17, 1905.
• The dubious technical characteristics, of the three aeroplanes built between 1903 and 1905, which closely follow a simple theoretical relation, Speed·Weight / Power ~ ct. , used in elementary aeronautical calculations.
• The absence from the publications of 1904 of any technical drawings or pictures showing Flyer I or II. In fact, the Wright powered machines started to have a clear face for the public only on August 8, 1908.
The flights of 1904, all of them, remain just pure claims of low credibility, made by the Wrights, without being backed by any reliable independent confirmation. On the contrary, all the existing evidence, the main subject of this book, demonstrates that no powered flight took place that year at Huffman’s field, or at Kitty Hawk, in December 1903. What the brothers had was, at most, a device unable to take off, either unaided or accelerated by a catapult. The two Daytonians, mainly Wilbur, sent dishonest letters (to Chanute, Spratt, Dienstbach, Root and others) pretending aerial trips of various lengths and durations, and they also communicated similar lies to the newspapers."
The case of the Wright brothers as the firsts who built and flew a heavier-than-air man carrying machine (an airplane in today's terminology) is closed. The two inventors simply lied about their 4 flights of December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and those 105 made in 1904 near a streetcar station at the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio.
The book below is based only on primary sources, mainly documents of the period 1903-1905, in majority letters of the two brothers and the answers received by them, plus newspaper articles (all quoted in full).
After reading the letters and articles you start to ask yourself how is it possible that so many authors credit Wilbur and Orville Wright with building the first plane that ever flew when, in fact, the two inventors just tried to fool the newspapers (especially those of Dayton), Octave Chanute (a personality of the aeronautic world of the time), Georges Spratt (a fellow aviation enthusiast), Carl Diesentbach (the New York correspondent of the German journal "Illustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen") and both the US War Department and British War Office, by pretending they had performed no less than 105 flights in 1904 and, in many instances, describing aerial trips that are physically impossible, like the ones of August 13, 1904, when the plane, Flyer II, got energy from the headwind, which accelerated the apparatus.
"The Press", the only newspaper that, on May 26, 1904, furnished a list of witnesses (friends of the Wright family and an unnamed reporter) who saw the alleged flight of the same day, later in the year, on December 17, 1904, acknowledged that nobody had ever seen the two inventors flying powered planes.
Source: The Wrights and their impossible 1904 flights
The work above, at page 38, draws the conclusions you can read below (each of them is based on original documents, fully quoted in the book).
"Final conclusions
Question: What are the most important arguments that the Wright brothers did not fly in 1904?
Answer:
• In a letter to O. Chanute, dated August 28, 1904, but also in his 1904-1905 Logbook E, at page 8, Wilbur furnishes precise details about a series of flights which show that the groundspeed of the plane increased with the headwind intensity. The alleged trials are physical impossibilities and could not have happened. They were invented on paper based on wrong beliefs.
• People who claimed they saw flights in 1904 but in reality lied:
- O. Chanute did not witness the 420-meter aerial trip above the ground of October 15, 1904, but pretended he saw it.
- Amos Ives Root did not see the circular flight of September 20, 1904, made by Wilbur, but maintained, till the end of his life, he was its spectator.
• The unreliable 1904 diary of Milton Wright:
- The contradictory statements in the Dec. 1st entry. The first paragraph says the old bishop was at home all day and the second that he left for Simms at 12:00 and saw Orville flying at 4:00 PM.
- M. Wright strongly implies he saw a few other flights but without saying it explicitly.
- The records in his journal, regarding the flights at Huffman’s field, show mainly numerical values, without any kind of personal impressions a father would have written had he seen his sons flying a heavier-than-air apparatus, a feat no one had accomplished before.
- The logbook G of Orville (kept on the machine) does not mention witnesses at all for the 1904 flights and that of Wilbur (labeled E), also it contains the names of a few bystanders, does not say anything about the presence of Milton Wright.
• The only newspaper, the Press of May 26th, which identified by name a number of people who saw the short hop of the same day and specified that one of its own reporters (unnamed) was also present, made a conflicting statement on Dec. 17, 1904, revealing that the brothers had not made any public trial, and had no intention of making any in the near future.
• The absence, from the 1904 newspaper articles, of identifiable spectators of the inventors’ 105 starts at Huffman Prairie (except in the May 26th number of the Press).
• Flyer II could not be No. 2 because Flyer I, 1903, had not been completed as of May 1904, according to the Wilmington Messenger (Wilmington, NC, May 26, 1904, col. 1, p. 6).
• The general attitude of O. Chanute. He repeatedly wrote ironic passages, in his letters to W. Wright, expressing his surprise that the brothers could have flown so many times without being remarked by the entire press in the US.
• The absence of O. Chanute from the list of 1903-1905 witnesses communicated by the Wrights to C. Dienstbach, in a letter dated November 17, 1905.
• The dubious technical characteristics, of the three aeroplanes built between 1903 and 1905, which closely follow a simple theoretical relation, Speed·Weight / Power ~ ct. , used in elementary aeronautical calculations.
• The absence from the publications of 1904 of any technical drawings or pictures showing Flyer I or II. In fact, the Wright powered machines started to have a clear face for the public only on August 8, 1908.
The flights of 1904, all of them, remain just pure claims of low credibility, made by the Wrights, without being backed by any reliable independent confirmation. On the contrary, all the existing evidence, the main subject of this book, demonstrates that no powered flight took place that year at Huffman’s field, or at Kitty Hawk, in December 1903. What the brothers had was, at most, a device unable to take off, either unaided or accelerated by a catapult. The two Daytonians, mainly Wilbur, sent dishonest letters (to Chanute, Spratt, Dienstbach, Root and others) pretending aerial trips of various lengths and durations, and they also communicated similar lies to the newspapers."
