for the Wright brothers’ first airplane — 50 hp compared to 12 hp. The engine, mostly the technical work of men other than Langley, was probably the main contribution of the project to Aviation. However, the American aerospace community did not benefit from this advanced engine since there was almost no information exchanging among the aviation pioneers.
The piloted machine had wire-braced tandem wings (one behind the other), a Pénaud tail for pitch and yaw control but no roll control, depending instead on the dihedral angle of the wings, as did the models, for maintaining roughly level flight.
In contrast to the Wright brothers’ design of a controllable airplane that could fly against a strong wind and land on solid ground, Langley sought safety by practicing in calm air over the Potomac River. This required a catapult for launching (Fig. 14). The craft had no landing gear, and the plan was to descend into the water after demonstrating flight. Langley gave up the project after two crashes on take-off on October 7 and December 8, both in 1903.
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According to their own report, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers flew on flyer I biplane (Wright, 1988). This machine was equipped with two counter-rotating propellers, which were driven by a single 12-hp four-cylinder reciprocating engine. Many historians recognize this flight as the first manned one. The following flyer II was fitted with a 16-hp engine and had a takeoff weight of 408 kg, which resulted in a weight-to-power ratio of 25.5 kg/hp. About 30 reporters showed up at Huffman Prairie on May 23rd, 1904. However, the Wrights could not get the flyer II motor to run properly, and everyone went home disappointed. A handful came back on May 26, but the Wrights were only able to manage a flight of about 8 m. Indeed, flyer II was not able to takeoff if strong wind conditions were not present. However, there are some photographs of alleged flights with flyer III at Huffman Prairie, in 1905. Flyer II was fitted with a 20-hp water-cooled engine and presented a takeoff weight of 388 kg. Even flights that covered a distance of astonishing 12 miles were said to be performed (Fig. 15) with this type. Surprisingly, the Wright brothers did not fly in 1906 and 1907, and many air enthusiasts said that they were all the time busy applying for patents.
In 1901, the Frenchman Ferdinand Ferber heard of the Wright brothers’ work from Octave Chanute, therefore he began to correspond with them. Two years later, Ferber built a copy of a Wright glider and fitted an engine to it. He attempted to fly the machine tethered to a crane but without success. In December 1905, Ferber published the letters he had received from the Wright brothers. They had some allegations that the two Americans had performed 18-miles flights in a closed circuit. Ferber had a special interest in disclosing such kind of information: he intended to convince the French Army to purchase the brothers’ creation. Most French people interested in Aviation did not believe that the Americans had obtained success in flying a powered machine. Archadecon challenged the Wright brothers to come to France to display their aircraft. He even offered cash for that. However, he got a single replay form the Americans.
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