Beschreibung:

1. Some Aeronautical Experiments. December, 1901. 489-510 pp. 11 half-tone illustrations, 8 after photographs of the Wright brothers' glider, and 2-line diagrams in text. Upper wrapper and following 2 leaves repaired at extremities, spine restored. 2. Experiments and Observations on Soaring Flight. August, 1903. 400-417 pp. 8 illustrations after photographs. Top edge of lower wrapper repaired, spine restored. Both in: Journal of the Western Society of Engineers. Chicago: the Society. Volume VI, no 6 and volume VIII, no 4. 9 x 6 inches. Original gray printed wrappers. Together in custom solander box. The first item being the FIRST EDITION OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS' FIRST PUBLISHED REPORT of their trial flights with motorless gliders at Kitty Hawk. Wilbur Wright gives an account of the brothers' achievements up to that point, the most recent being the successful flights of a manned glider at the Kill Devil Hills, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, in the summer of 1901. The paper was read to the Western Society of Engineers on September 18, 1901, at the instigation of its president Octave Chanute [1832-1910]. The French-born Chanute's own gliding experiments in 1896 and 1897 paved the way for the Wrights' later successes. Chanute, the brothers' earliest and most important patron, introduced Wright's paper with remarks on advances in motor design. The plates in the first essay show "The 1900 Machine," "Kite Soaring," "A Bottom View," "Starting a Flight," "A High Glide," "A Low Glide," "Soaring," and "Landing." Within six months of the publication of the second article, the brothers would achieve a successful motorized flight.