(AVIATION) [Wright Orville] Sketch of aircraft upright cross

Sale 2207 - Lot 44

Unsold

Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500

(AVIATION.) [Wright, Orville.] Sketch of aircraft upright cross-sections. Pencil sketch on verso of envelope addressed to Miss Wright, 9 x 12 inches; center crease, minor staining outside of sketch area; pencil caption in the hand of John McMahon: "Orville Wright made these sketches at his home in Dayton, O., 1915, to illustrate certain points for Findley & McMahon." [Dayton, OH, 1915]

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Additional Details

This sketch demonstrates the result of wind-tunnel experiments done by the Wright Brothers in January 1903, leading up to their first manned flight at Kitty Hawk. Orville's memory of the experimental data twelve years later was a bit inaccurate in its figures, but was accurate in the main conclusion: rounding the front and rear corners of the uprights reduced their wind resistance by almost two-thirds. For the original 1903 notes on these experiments, see Marvin McFarland (editor), The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, page 297, showing page 7 of Wilbur's Notebook H and his 4 February 1903 letter to Octave Chanute.
Earl Findley had been commissioned to write the authorized biography of the Wright Brothers in 1915. Along with his assistant John R. McMahon, he spent many days interviewing the family at their home in Dayton. However, the Wrights were dissatisfied with the resulting manuscript and forbid its publication. In 1930, McMahon published a highly unauthorized biography of the Wrights based on these notes. This drawing comes from McMahon's archives, now in the possession of collector Stephen White. with--other documents from the McMahon archive to support this provenance.