I want to see a film about Glenn Hammond Curtiss, the real Father of Flight. He was building airplanes that a modern pilot could fly while the Wright were suing him into bankruptcy.
The film could have the scene where Curtiss visits the Wrights, offering his engine; Curtiss’s work with Alexander Graham Bell and the Aerial Experiment Association; the various lawsuits by the Wrights; Curtiss flying in competitions where the Wrights refused to compete and the death of his friend Lt. Thomas Selfridge in the crash of a plane piloted by Orville Wright. The climax of the film would be his triumphant flight along the Hudson from Albany to New York City, where he landed in Harlem, borrowed some gas, took off again and flew the length of the island before circling the Statue of Liberty and landing on Battery Park.
Just don’t know if the American public is ready for a film where the Wrights are the bad guys.
The Wright Bros. Never claimed they were the first to fly. They never claimed they were the first with a heavier than air, powered machine that flew. Their claim and documented fact is that they were the first to fly a heavier than air,powered, CONTROLLED , flight in a machine that left the ground under it’s own power at an elevation that was equal to an elevation it landed on…the key word is control…something that appears to elude previous claims of flight, not mentioned by Wright detractors and not understood by people who are not pilots . They used experimentation and documentation in a scientific,step by step approach to the problems of flight which no one else had done.They discovered lift tables that were inaccurate , and with their invention of the wind tunnel (another first) rewrote those tables that would enable them to build their machine…No one would have ever made a machine to fly under control without those tables that are still in use today…
They invented the propeller…not the flat, inefficient, almost useless,canted slabs of wood that others just stuck on their motors…but propellers whose efficiency is barely surpassed by current props of today…another fact never recognized by Wright detractors…and another vital piece of successful flight that would have not occurred without this discovery by the Wright bros…
The Wright’s were also business men who understood the potential of the airplane before anyone else and had every right to defend their patent against those that would take advantage of their discoveries and try to use them for profit for themselves as Mr Curtiss so blatantly tried to do…funny that the courts eventuality ruled in the Wright’s favor,another fact never mentioned by Wright detractors…and the Wright’s and Curtiss eventually formed a company together…
Documentation…that’s right. The Wright’s understood that without that, they would have no proof. So once again,they proved their intelligence by planning ahead of time for that process…Don’t make a claim that can’t be substantiated ( like these others that claim first flight)…whose only defense is to mangle and slur the Wright brother’s name…
I knew there was an earlier one I saw! Must have been for the 75[sup]th[/sup] anniversary in '78.
The above TV movie does include pretty much all of these scenes but, as you’d suspect, it solidly portrays Curtiss & Bell as the ne’er do well villains! And the finale of the movie is Wilbur triumphantly flying a long, controlled flight (though not that down the Hudson) right after a humiliated Curtiss crashes first!
It should be set in Surrey, the Wrights should be staid, respectable English Edwardians who learned everything they know from the playing fields of Eton and who were threatened with ruin by Samuel Cunard if they didn’t stop trying, but with British pluck won the day.
Since this thread has deviated from the original intent…I’ll play
So the Wright's forced Selfridge to fly, made him climb aboard, and, in some miracle fashion , in front of hundreds of witnesses, secretly caused the propeller to fail, and, in another secret fashion , enabled Selfridge to die while a Wright of course purposefully escaped death
I thought this site was called straight dope......so every pilot that has had a major mechanical failure throughout history is responsible for ... as you say... killing their passengers........indeed...
John Stringfellow’s your man. Undeniably built a heavier-than-air propeller-driven monople (!) ages before anyone else. Buuilt his own miniature steam engine to power it (NOT rubber bands, no matter what Flight of the Phoenix said)
Yes, it was. The crash they show Curtiss having is at the end of the film (and undoubtedly apocryphal). Curtiss and Wilbur are finally going to have a ‘fly-off’ if you will and Curtiss goes first and crashes on take-off (its a minor crash and he’s not shown as being injured). Wilbur then flies triumphantly for over an hour as the final narration sums up the story. I also remember an earlier scene where Curtiss & Bell, who have been trying to steal the Wright’s technology, approach a damaged Wright Flyer at an airshow that’s concealed by a tent and guarded by a soldier (may have been the Selfridge crash). Bell introduces himself to the guard who is awestruck be his celebrity while Curtiss sneaks inside and gets a look at the Wright’s ‘wing-warping’ mechanism. Again, total bullshit.
Don’t wanna speak for him, but I don’t think gaffa was implying any deliberate action or conspiracy by saying, “…were the Wrights killed Selfridge”. He’s merely stating that he ***was ***killed by a crash in their plane.
I missed the five minute window to rewrite that. If that movie implied that Curtiss had any interest in the Wrights wing warping nonsense, that is tantamount to slander.