WRIGHT, ORVILLE. Typed letter signed in full to Lester D. Gardner, President of the Gardner, Moffatt Co., Dayton, Ohio, 10 November 1921. One page, 4to, on Orville's personal imprinted stationery. "I CANNOT HELP BUT ADMIRE [GLENN] CURTISS' NERVE" An interesting letter regarding the bitter journalistic controversy over the experimental flying machine designed and built by Samuel Langley (1834-1906), assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1896, Langley's Model no.5 had acheived a flight of 3,000 feet on the Potomac River; Model no.6 had flown for 4,200 feet, the first successful mechanically powered lighter than air flights, though no pilot was carried. In October and December 1903 (the same time as the Wright's first Kitty Hawk flights), Langley's prototype piloted craft, the "Great Aerodrome," launched by catapault from the roof of a houseboat in the Potomac River, failed to fly. Years later, after "restoration" by Glenn Curtiss and with the use of a new launching system, the craft was flown successfully. The nature of Curtiss's changes in the aircraft and the validity of Langley's claim to having devised a successful flying machine became a bitter issue to the Wrights. "I am returning enclosed the copies of Walcott 's and [Charles M.] Manly's replies to Brewer's paper....[Manly was the pilot in the trials of the "Great Aerodrome" in 1903] I am now in receipt of Mr. Brewer's reply to these papers of Walcott, Zahm, Manly and [Glenn] Curtiss, which will be prnted in the December issue of the Aeronautical Journal. I am seriously considering your suggestion to make some comment....I find that Walcott has fooled even Brewer, who, knowing the character of these men, was naturally on his guard. Walcott does not deny Brewer's statement that only the cost of transportation of the machine to Hammondsport [New York, headquarters of the Curtiss Co.] was paid by the Smithsonian, nor does he say that the Institution paid Curtiss $2,000....This is another case, I think, of very skillful handling of English.... "I must say that I cannot help but admire Curtiss' nerve. Only one with colossal nerve would dare to come out with the flat statement such as Curtiss makes, that the machine he flew at Hammondsport was the original Langley machine without any change except the addition of floats, when Walcott, Zahm and Manly admit and the photographs prove that the changes mentioned by Brewer had been made in the machine. I note what you say in regard to the publication of Zahms reply in the Air Service magazine. I had not heard anything of this...." Apparently unpublished; not in Kelley, Miracle at Kitty Hawk.
WRIGHT, ORVILLE. Typed letter signed in full to Lester D. Gardner, President of the Gardner, Moffatt Co., Dayton, Ohio, 10 November 1921. One page, 4to, on Orville's personal imprinted stationery. "I CANNOT HELP BUT ADMIRE [GLENN] CURTISS' NERVE" An interesting letter regarding the bitter journalistic controversy over the experimental flying machine designed and built by Samuel Langley (1834-1906), assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1896, Langley's Model no.5 had acheived a flight of 3,000 feet on the Potomac River; Model no.6 had flown for 4,200 feet, the first successful mechanically powered lighter than air flights, though no pilot was carried. In October and December 1903 (the same time as the Wright's first Kitty Hawk flights), Langley's prototype piloted craft, the "Great Aerodrome," launched by catapault from the roof of a houseboat in the Potomac River, failed to fly. Years later, after "restoration" by Glenn Curtiss and with the use of a new launching system, the craft was flown successfully. The nature of Curtiss's changes in the aircraft and the validity of Langley's claim to having devised a successful flying machine became a bitter issue to the Wrights. "I am returning enclosed the copies of Walcott 's and [Charles M.] Manly's replies to Brewer's paper....[Manly was the pilot in the trials of the "Great Aerodrome" in 1903] I am now in receipt of Mr. Brewer's reply to these papers of Walcott, Zahm, Manly and [Glenn] Curtiss, which will be prnted in the December issue of the Aeronautical Journal. I am seriously considering your suggestion to make some comment....I find that Walcott has fooled even Brewer, who, knowing the character of these men, was naturally on his guard. Walcott does not deny Brewer's statement that only the cost of transportation of the machine to Hammondsport [New York, headquarters of the Curtiss Co.] was paid by the Smithsonian, nor does he say that the Institution paid Curtiss $2,000....This is another case, I think, of very skillful handling of English.... "I must say that I cannot help but admire Curtiss' nerve. Only one with colossal nerve would dare to come out with the flat statement such as Curtiss makes, that the machine he flew at Hammondsport was the original Langley machine without any change except the addition of floats, when Walcott, Zahm and Manly admit and the photographs prove that the changes mentioned by Brewer had been made in the machine. I note what you say in regard to the publication of Zahms reply in the Air Service magazine. I had not heard anything of this...." Apparently unpublished; not in Kelley, Miracle at Kitty Hawk.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
