In article ,
(Marc Reeve) writes:
Mary Shafer wrote:
So, at a glance, Irish Linen could, in fact, be considered a type of
canvas, or, perhaps a cotton twill. IIRC, the Wrights used a Sateen,
which is a cotton with a treated surface.

Nope. Sateen is a weave, just like twill. It's not treated and it's
not necessarily cotton. Rather, it has floating threads on the
surface, just like satin. In fact, the difference between sateen and
satin is whether it's the warp threads or the woof threads that float.

Anyway, sateen can be made from any fiber, although some of them
aren't as practical as others. So can twill and satin, for that
matter.

I had a vague memory that the 1903 Flyer was covered with cotton muslin.
So I googled around and discovered that while the 1900-1902 gliders were
indeed covered in "French sateen", the 1903 Flyer was covered in "Pride
of the West" brand muslin, a very fine weave commonly used for
petticoats.

Once they went into series production, they used waterproofed cotton
cloth (rubberized) for the wing coverings.

I'd like to express my belated thanks to Steve, Mary, adn Marc for teh
information. I'd like to say that it's more than I ever wanted to
know about early aircraft covering materiels, bit I found that there
was more to it than I thought. It was darned interesting, actually.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster