One interesting thing about Langley's Aerodrome was that it's engine weight
was about the same as the Wright's but it produced roughtly 90 horsepower.
Imagine Langley's engine on Wright's aircraft! Too bad the Wrights didn't
accept Langley's offer to listen to his speech at the SI. I believe the
Wright's response was "we appreciate the offer however we feel that we will
be much too involved with other projects to attend." Lesson #1: Never be so
busy that you fail to accept an invitation into the world of your
competitor, you never know what you may find.

My personal opinion of the Wrights is much less than what will be created by
the press in the up coming weeks. I think that the 2 greatest things that
they gave aviation were "controllability" and the efficient propeller, after
that I honestly don't know if they contributed much.

Several Austrailian websites claim that it was the Aussy's who made the
first powered flight, who ever it was doesn't even interest me, so many
people were working on the same basic idea at the same time that it was
bound to happen.

One area that I feel that the Wrights could of acted better was with their
lawsuits with Curtiss. I will grant you that if you invent something, you
should have the right to patent and protect it, then ultimately profit from
your efforts. I feel like they kind of acted like a dog in the manger after
their initial success while others picked up the ball and made advancements.
I would be prouder of the Wrights if they would have continued to work for
the pure advancement of aviation. If they had maybe they would have
actually realized their goals of profitting from their achievements such as
Curtiss ultimately did.

The basic idea of sustained, powered, and controlled flight, in my mind, was
more of a discovery than an invention. A discovery that should have been
not only shared with the world, but a discovery that should have been freely
encouraged to grow and expand. Although at the time "wing warping" was new
age rocket science, thank god we weren't limited to it and it alone. Maybe
the Wrights biggest accomplishment was indeed their patents and lawsuits
surrounding "wing warping" for it allowed the world to move on to bigger and
better things while one brother withered and died and the other let his mind
go idle.
--
Jim Burns III

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