The contribution to aviation of the Wright brothers before August 8, 1908 is just NOISE IN NEWSPAPERS
As an example, read the text below, dated October 6, 1905, which talks about a lot of witnesses, including authorities from different towns, admiring, on a daily basis, the Wrights flying. Needless to say that no name is mentioned. The credibility of such SF articles is zero.
With improvements innumerable made to their craft, after months of work, Orville and Wilbur Wright, the youthful Dayton inventors, are making a series of flights in the vicinity of Simm’s Station, on the Dayton, Springfield and Urbana electric road, several miles from Dayton. These trials have been undisputedly some of the most successful expeditions that flying machines have ever made.
Residents of the locality where the experiments have been lately carried on turn out en masse at each ascension, and predict great results from the enterprise of the two Daytonians.
Likewise, many from Dayton and a number of authorities from different towns are daily witnesses of the remarkable flights, and are similarly profuse in their predictions of success.
Thursday afternoon a flight was made, and according to reliable witnesses, the machine soared gracefully for some 25 minutes, responding to all demands of the pilot. At the expiration of this time, fear that the machine could not be sustained aloft much longer, a descent was made by one of the inventors.
Every day this week flights have been made, almost, with equal success.
The expectations of the Wright brothers have been decidedly surpassed by their most recent experiments, and they feel that their craft is in the immediate neighborhood of perfection.
The brothers have been experimenting for the past two years. Their first successes attracted wide attention and were chronicled throughout the country.
Several Dayton people went out to the Huffman prairies Thursday afternoon to witness the trials. Some time ago the Wright brothers, who are both expert mechanics, conceived the idea of building a flying machine. They made some of their drawings in this city and from here they went to South Carolina to build the machine and try it out. They worked diligently to perfect their plans and finally succeeded in building a machine which would fly.
They gave the machine a severe tryout on one of the long stretches of beach in the south, and after a stay of over two years they returned to Dayton and built a shed on the Huffman prairies, where they are giving their machine a thorough test.
Source: “The Flight of a Flying Machine”, Dayton Daily News, Ohio, US, October 6, 1905, Scrapbook – Library of Congress, US.
As you see, the book about which I talked in my first post is for free. I am not trying to sell anything.
1) This is what a witness wrote in 1933:
“They carried the machine up on the Hill“, John T. Daniels, eyewitness
“Manteo NC, June 30 —- 1933,
Dear friend,
I Don’t know very much to write about the flight. I was there, and it was on Dec the 17, — 1903 about 10 o’clock. They carried the machine up on the Hill and Put her on the track, and started the engine … and he went about 100 feet or more, and then Mr. Wilbur taken the machine up on the Hill and Put her on the track and he went off across the Beach about a half a mile …
Sincerely,
John T. Daniels, Manteo NC, Box 1W”
Source: http://wrightstories.com/eyewitness-account-of-first-flight-by-john-daniels
Daniels twice wrote he had seen the machine being carried up the hill before each of the two flights he remembered.
However, the declaration of this man is inconsistent with what the Wrights declared for the newspapers. They said they had taken off from a flat surface. No hill is mentioned.
2) This is what the Wrights stated in January 1904:
“Wright Flyer”, Dayton Press, Ohio, US, January 6, 1904, Scrapbook – Library of Congress, US.
Wright Flyer
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A Report of Late Tests
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Is Given by Messrs’ Wright, Inventors of the Machine.
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Interesting Description of the Trials Made at Kitty Hawk.
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“…
On the morning of December 17, between the hours of 10:30 o’clock and noon, four flights were made, two by Orville Wright and two by Wilbur Wright. The starts were all made from a point on the level sand about 200 feet west of our champ, which is located a quarter of a mile north of the Kill Devil sand hill, in Dare county … “
Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/mwright.05001/?sp=20
3) Here is a detail of the well known picture allegedly taken on December 17, 1903.
The slope going down in front of the plane is clearly visible.
4) Had the Wrights published the above photo (and others they said they had taken between December 17, 1903 and October 5, 1905) immediately then they would have really had strong evidence to support their claims. Unfortunately, the two inventors made their pictures public in September 1908. There is no evidence regarding the true date when each photo was taken.
5) The 852 feet of stable flight, claimed by Wilbur Wright for his best trial of December 17, 1903, is also inconsistent with the 115 feet of chaotic flight which is the maximum the test pilot Dr. Kevin Kochersberger obtained (on December 3, 2003) with a replica of the alleged 1903 Flyer.
The point is this:
“the brothers only “glided” off Kill Devil Hill that day. Their first real flight came on May 6, 1908“, Alpheus W. Drinkwater, telegraph operator
“Wilbur and Orville Wright are credited with making their first powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine on Dec. 17, 1903. But Alpheus W. Drinkwater, 76 years old, who sent the telegraph message ushering in the air age, said the brothers only “glided” off Kill Devil Hill that day.
Their first real flight came on May 6, 1908, he said.” Source: New York Times, Dec. 17, 1951.
see: http://wright-brothers.wikidot.com/
May 6, 1908, is a date well within the aviation age that officially started in 1906 when the first planes were seen taking off.