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The Wright Brothers were Wrong!
Compiled
by G. Edwin Lint, MA
© 2004 DiskBooks Electronic
Publishing
Updated May 21, 2007
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This site is dedicated to students and teachers everywhere who have learned [and are teaching] some slanted facts about the history of public, powered, and piloted heavier-than-air flight in America
The Wright brothers were right when they made persistent experiments until they got the Flyer into the air in December, 1903. However . . .The Wright brothers were wrong. . .
When they tried to keep the invention of the airplane to themselves with a sweeping patent
When they included the dangerous wing-warping lateral control technique in their patent [wing-warping caused the wings to twist in correlation to the plane turning]
When they persisted in clinging to wing-warping even when the use of ailerons, as developed by Bell, Curtiss, and the Aerial Experiment Association [AEA] were proven to provide safer flight with superior lateral control
When they sued Curtiss or anyone else who flew, exhibited, manufactured, or sold airplanes without their approval
When they wasted the time and resources of Curtiss and other forward-thinking inventors with their pestiferous patent suits
The entire history of aviation can't be told on this page but we must include mention of Professor Samuel P. Langley.
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Professor Langley's 1903 flying machine, mounted on a catapult atop a houseboat in the Potomac River. | Langley had long dreamed of flying through the air. He built several versions of what he called an Aerodrome, first powered by steam, and then by a radial internal combustion engine. The final trial in October 1903 nose dived into the waters of the Potomac River. The newspapers had a field day! If Langley's plane hadn't snagged on the catapult at liftoff, he might have beat the Wrights in the race to be first into the air. [Langley died before he ever saw his dreams of flying come true.] |
The Wright Brothers had been working on flying for some years and got their Flyer briefly into the air December 17, 1903. However, they were very secretive about everything they did. Perhaps they were made more skittish by Professor Langley's recent and very public failure that Fall.
Meanwhile, another aviation pioneer was waiting in the wings, building and racing motorcycles, of all things. Enter Glenn H. Curtiss, of Hammondsport, New York.
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Curtiss on the cover of Time Magazine, October 13, 1924
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Curtiss was a true inventor, cast in the same mold that created Alexander Graham Bell [telephone] and Henry Ford [assembly line; Model T]. In fact, the three became close associates and collaborators. While the Wrights were secretive and wanted to profit from their accomplishments, Curtiss was willing to expend his creative genius to improve aviation in general.
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Glenn Curtiss, 35, and Henry Ford, 50, with a Curtiss flying boat at Hammondsport, NY, 1913 | Henry Ford had won a patent battle of his own. When he heard of the Wright-Curtiss legal struggles, he put the legal resources of the Ford Motor Company at the disposal of Curtiss. This included Mr. W. Benton Crisp, Ford's favorite patent attorney. Now we have the Wrights with their dangerous wing-warping on one side and Curtiss, Bell, Ford, and all thinking aviation experts on the other. And in the middle, are judges and patent attorneys who know next to nothing about the infant science of aviation. What a mess! |
Dr. Bell and the AEA realized that some form of lateral control was necessary but they didn't want to infringe on the Wrights' wing-warping patent. Since both Bell and Curtiss were accomplished inventors in their own right, they came up with movable flap-like devices for use on the wings. They came to be known as "little wings" [ailerons in French].
To everyone's delight [except the Wrights], ailerons accomplished lateral control even better than wing-warping! Curtiss was open and sharing and would have gladly shared ailerons with the Wrights. However, they were were secretive and very litigious and wanted nothing to do with ailerons.
| In 1904, Wilbur describes a launching derrick they built to compensate for the lack of North Carolina winds when they weren't testing at Kitty Hawk. A 1600-pound weight is hoisted to the top of the derrick. When the weight drops, the plane is catapulted down 60 feet of track and becomes airborne. The rest of the aviation world of the early 1900's treated the Wrights' launching derrick the same way as they did wing-warping: they found a better way. They put wheels on their planes instead of skids, revved up their engine, taxied down a runway, and took to the air!
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There was one thing the Wrights couldn't hide from the world. Wright planes, with their outmoded wing-warping, were death traps!
In 1914, Grover Loening, an early Wright follower and then working with the military, spoke for the Army:
"We decided to change the old-style warping wings to the more modern trailing edge aileron…on planes used by Curtiss for six years, since 1908".
Jack Carpenter says in Pendulum II, "In effect what Loening did was modify the Wright planes by incorporating features long standard on Curtiss machines." Carpenter goes on to say that in 1935, Loening wrote about the reign of death: "The series of deaths that took place in Wright planes was shocking."
The parade of unfortunate pilots who were to be sacrificed on the Wright brothers' altar of intransigence began with Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge who died in a nose-dive crash on September 17, 1908, with Orville at the controls. [Ironically, Selfridge was really a member of the Bell/Curtiss AEA group and was just along for the ride as an observer for the Army.] It is this author's layman's opinion that this was the first of many unnecessary deaths caused by the Wrights' clinging to their patented wing-warping means of lateral control, when ailerons as developed by Bell and Curtiss were in successful use on all new Curtiss planes and were clearly superior to wing warping. Selfridge was the first aviation fatality but the list goes on and on:
Billingslee, Call, Ellington, Gill, Hazelhurst, Hein, Herbster, Hoxsey, Johnstone, Kelly, Lefebvre, Lillie, Love, Parmalee, Post, Rich, Rockwell, Rodgers, Rolls, Scott, Towers, Waterman Welch.
And this was happening while airplanes usually carried no more than one passenger plus the pilot!
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The Curtiss version of Langley's 1903 Areodrome that had crashed into the Potomac River. | In an attempt to prove that Professor Langley really invented the airplane in 1903 and pervert the Wrights' patent suit, Curtiss salvaged Langley's old Aerodrome and fitted it with pontoons and various other enhancements such as a new engine. [Curtiss was always into faster and better engines.] Curtiss was able to get his version of the Aerodrome off the water and into the air. But that was 1914. |
Return
to the Top Curtiss Jenny JN4 | The World Wars brought an end to the litigation. Curtiss and the Wrights combined forces to fight the enemy instead of each other. The Curtiss Jenny JN4 helped defeat the Germans in World War I. Curtiss flying boats put the big hurt on many German U-Boats, too. |
Sadly, Glenn Hammond Curtiss died July 23, 1930, at 52. He had a heart attack in connection with appendicitis.
 A Curtiss P-40 with the paint job of a Flying Tiger |
Claire L. Chennault and the American Volunteer Group used 100 Curtiss Pursuit-40 Flying Tigers to help the Chinese Air Force hold off Japan, before we actually got into World War II. The Curtiss P-40 is perhaps the most famous fighter of World War II. |
Glenn H. Curtiss Timeline
1901 | Curtiss builds his first motorcycle, mounting a mail-order engine on one of his Hercules bicycles. By 1902 he begins building lightweight, high horsepower engines of his own design. He sells motorcycles and engines under the Hercules name. | |
1903 | May 30 | Curtiss sets a world speed record by riding a mile in 56.25 seconds (64 MPH) on one of his Hercules motorcycles during a championship tournament in Yonkers, NY, sponsored by the National Cycle Association. He would set several more speed records in the following few years. |
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1904 | Early summer | Curtiss unwittingly sells his first engine for aviation use to Thomas Scott Baldwin, who would mount it on a hydrogen-filled dirigible |
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1905 | October 19 | Curtiss and four other directors incorporate the G. H. Curtiss Manufacturing Company, Inc. |
| 1906 |
May 16 | Curtiss writes the Wright brothers to suggest they purchase one of his motors for their aircraft. Curtiss meets the Wrights three months later. They did not buy an engine. |
| 1907 | January | Curtiss earns the title, "fastest man in the world" by riding a large, custom-made motorcycle, with an eight-cylinder engine, at 136.3 MPH in Ormond Beach, Florida. No human being travels faster until 1911, when a race car made 141.7 MPH. |
| 1907 | June 28 | Curtiss flies for the first time, [as a passenger] aboard a Baldwin dirigible in Hammondsport, NY. |
| 1907 | October 1 | Curtiss joins Alexander Graham Bell and others in the founding of the Aerial Experiment Association [AEA] in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The association appointed Curtiss "director of experiments." |
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1907 | December 30 | Curtiss writes the Wright brothers again, offering to give them one of his engines for their aircraft. They decline. |
1908 |
May 21 | Near Hammondsport, NY, Curtiss makes his first airplane flight, in "White Wing, the longest public flight to date in America (1017 feet)." |
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June 21 |
Near Hammondsport, NY, Curtiss makes his first flight in "June Bug," an aircraft of his own design. He sets a new record for longest public flight in America (1266 feet). |
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| July 4 | Curtiss wins first leg of three-legged “Scientific American” trophy by making first public flight of one kilometer or more, in “June Bug.” |
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November |
Curtiss tests “Loon” (“Junebug” with floats); it does not rise from water. |
| 1909 | August 29 | Curtiss flies at 47 miles per hour to win Gordon Bennet speed trophy at Rheims, France. |
| 1910 |
May 29 |
Curtiss flies from Albany to New York City in the “Hudson Flyer.” |
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November 14 |
Curtiss makes first take-off from a ship. |
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1911 | January 18 | Makes first landing onto the deck of a ship |
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January 26 |
Curtiss' hydroplane rises from water |
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February 17 |
First hydroplane flight to a ship |
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February 23 |
Curtiss flies world’s first amphibian aircraft. |
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May |
Curtiss returns to Hammondsport, NY, rents part of North Island to the Army as a pilot training base |
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May 8 |
Navy orders two Curtiss hydroplanes |
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1916 | |
Curtiss builds second “canoe machine,” rises from water. |
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1920 |
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Curtiss leaves the aviation business, moves to Florida. |
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1930 |
May | Curtiss makes his last flight as a pilot, in a Curtiss Condor transport plane, from Albany to New York City [recreating his famous flight of 20 years earlier] |
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July 23 | Curtiss dies in Buffalo, New York, from complications after appendix surgery. |
| If
you find the contents of this page to be out of step with your beliefs regarding
American aviation history, use the resources listed below and come to your own
conclusions. GEL |
Carpenter, Jack. Pendulum II, © 2003, Aradalen, Bosch, & Company, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693
http://www.curtisswright.com/history.asp#early
http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/
http://www.earlyaviators.com/ecurtiss.htm
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Explorers_Record_Setters_and_Daredevils/Curtiss/EX3.htm
http://aviation-history.com/early/curtiss.htm
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