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Outstanding Orville Wright typed letter signed, with important content on the invention of the airplane. Wright reflects on why the Wright Brothers' 1908 flights caught the public imagination more than their 1903 flights, credits the men who inspired them during the early days, and corrects the record about what scientific research they used -- debunking the ''myth'' that it was the work of their nemesis Samuel Langley. Dated 17 June 1926 on his personal letterhead, Orville Wright here writes to journalist Mark Sullivan for Sullivan's 6-volume compendium ''Our Times: The United States, 1900-1925'', for which an excerpt of this letter was published in the second volume, ''America Finding Herself'', published in 1927.
Lengthy letter reads in full, ''You ask why it was that the public took so little notice of our 1903 flights and not until 1908 awoke to the fact that human flight had actually been accomplished.
I think this was mainly due to the fact that human flight was generally looked upon as an impossibility, and that scarcely any one believed in it until he actually saw it with his own eyes. Only a few, probably less than a dozen, saw these first flights of 1903. In 1904 and 1905 the number of witnesses was increased to a hundred or two; in 1908, to thousands.
Hundreds of people have told me that they saw the first real demonstration of mechanical flight. But as hardly any two of these had seen the same flight, I have come to the conclusion that almost no one ever really believed who had not himself actually seen a flight.
It amuses me that practically every one now thinks he has always believed in its possibility and that many think that before 1903 they had predicted its early accomplishment! At the time we couldn't find a half dozen such.
This inability to believe without seeing probably accounts for the slowness of the general public to become interested, and also for the fact that today, after twenty years have passed to dull the edge of the novelty of it, the interest in aviation is greater than it ever has been before.
You state in your letter that it is your intention to treat the invention of the airplane rather fully. I hope you will investigate fully a myth prevalent in America so long that now by many it is considered history. This is the myth that [Samuel] Langley was the author of the scientific data upon which the first successful man-carrying flying machine was based. This myth had its inception in publications put out by the Smithsonian in which a quotation from a personal letter written by us was artfully used to produce such an impression.
The quotation referred to was from a letter written by us to Mr. [Octave] Chanute, at the time of Professor's Langley's death, in which letter we expressed our appreciation of the inspiration Professor Langley had been to us when we were first seriously taking up aeronautical study and experiments. The quotation is as follows:
'The knowledge that the head of the most prominent scientific institution of America believed in the possibility of human flight was one of the influences that led us to undertake the preliminary investigation that preceded our active work. He recommended to us the books* which enabled us to form sane ideas at the outset. It was a helping hand at a critical time, and we shall always be grateful.'
*These books were: Chanute's 'Progress in Flying Machines', Langley's 'Experiments in Aerodynamics', Means' 'Aeronautical Annuals' for 1895, 1896 and 1897. Mouillard's 'The Empire of the Air', Lilienthal's 'The Problem of Flying and Practical Experiments in Soaring', Langley's 'Experiments in Mechanical Flight', Huffaker's 'On Soaring Flight'.
You will notice it makes no comment whatever on Professor Langley's scientific work, for we had already told Mr. Chanute many times that Professor Langley's scientific work in aerodynamics was not on a par with his work in other lines, and that we had no confidence in it whatever. That this was really the opinion we had of it at that time and not one formed later is shown by a paragraph from a letter written to a friend of June 28, 1903:
'You were inquiring, some time ago about Langley's Experiments in Aerodynamics. We do not think it would pay you to buy this. In fact, we place very little confidence in the work. Lilienthal's Der Vogelflug, Chanute's Progress in Flying, and the Aeronautical Annuals of 1896 and 1897 contain most of what has been published that is of much value. Mr. Chanute might be able to tell you where you could get these works.'
We never used any data from Professor Langley's work in the calculation and design of our first machine; nor has any one since, so far as I am aware. Langley had never published any data on cambered surfaces such as we used and such as are used to-day. His published work was confined entirely to plane surfaces, and his measurements of these were merely a confirmation of the published tables of some previous experimenters.
Langley's chief contribution to aerodynamics was supposed to be the 'Langley Law' which was that, for an aeroplane, 'the more rapid the motion is the less will be the power required to support and advance it'. This law was a most startling statement, and was eagerly seized upon by students as a sort of supernatural law that might explain flight. 'Scientists' at the time could demonstrate mathematically that flight under the natural laws was impossible! Every one to-day knows that this law is just the reverse of the fact.
Langley published this as having been demonstrated by his experiments. As a matter of fact his actual experiments showed just the reverse. (See Fig. 11, page 64 'Experiments in Aerodynamics'). But he assumed, without making actual tests, that if the plane he measured had had 'fair shaped edges' (page 65) instead of square edges, as actually measured, the results would have been different. He then built his law on results he assumed he would have secured, if the experiments had been made with 'fair shaped edges'.
Although we could not set a high value on Langley's 'scientific' work in aerodynamics, yet we have never failed to feel and express an indebtedness for the inspiration he had been to us in those early years.
Otto Lilienthal was our actuating inspiration. His work was a much greater contribution both in scientific value and in inspiration. There were several others to whom we owed more than we owed to Langley, to whom I hope to give proper credit when I write the account of our own work. / Sincerely yours, [signed] Orville Wright''.
Three page letter on three sheets measures 7.25'' x 10.5''. Folds, small bit of foxing, and rust from paperclip impressions. Overall very good condition. A fascinating letter giving historians Orville Wright's reflections on the early days of human flight.
Outstanding Orville Wright Letter Signed -- ''...human flight was generally looked upon as an impossibility, and that scarcely any one believed in it until he actually saw it with his own eyes...''
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