The Wrights was (solution ...world's energy...)[long]

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

At 17:30 9/13/99 -0800, John Mallinckrodt wrote:
> ... just what *was* it that they finally did to overcome
> the ability of people not to see them flying?...

> John Mallinckrodt

According to Fred Kelly's authorized biography, "The Wright
Brothers", the October 5th '05  Dayton Daily News carried an
article with the Wrights making sensational flights...

The Cincinnatti Post's stringer at Dayton reported it, so
it appeared in the Post next day.

The Dec 16th 1905 issue of Sci American carried an ambivalent
editorial, "Retrospect for the Year":
 ..."the most promising results (with the airplane) to date were
those obtained last year by the Wright Brothers,
one of whom made a flight of over half a mile in a
power-propelled machine."

Kelly says that earlier in that editorial was the assertion that the only
'successful' flying that had been done this year - must be
credited to the balloon type.

Sci American also mentioned them skeptically in the following two
 months and addressed a query letter to them.

 It's best to say that they were quite prickly to the press...

Three years earlier, Alexander who was a member of the Royal
Aeronautical Society had called on them at Dayton with a letter
of introduction from Chanute, and as early as 1904, a foreign
government rep from the Royal Aircraft Factory, Capper visited them
with his wife after the St Louis Exposition.

 He made a request for a proposal from the Wrights. They in turn
approached their Congressman, Nevin with a letter describing the
plane.
 Sadly, the US government did not take the Wrights request for
financial aid at all seriously. '...not been brought to the stage
of practical operation..."

 In turn the British government havered with the Wrights proposal
for a scout over the course of 24 letters on the topic.

Part of the reason for European interest was the French visit paid
 by Chanute (who originated in France). He talked about his own
flying machine of 1896 and the Flyers of 1901 and 1902 at a meeting
of the Aero Club de Paris and published an account of the 1902
Wright glider in the magazine, L'Aerophile ('Air Enthusiast')
of August 1903 and again in Revue des Sciences, November 1093.

 The French Army also became interested in the person of Louis Ferber who
had read a piece by Wilbur Wright in the Illustrierte Aeronautische
Mitteilungen about the 1900 glider and later pieces from a New York stringer.

But it was a major public demonstration, not visits, not letters, not
Congressmen, that really set the ball rolling, as Bill has already mentioned.


brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK