Talk:Gustave Whitehead/Archive 9

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Some, many or most

I changed one sentence in the article. The new version is:

Interest in Whitehead's engines is indicated by recollections of his daughter Rose, who said she could barely carry all the mail from the mailbox into the house. Her father received numerous orders for them and had to decline many of them.

The earlier version said that GW sometimes had to decline some of the orders, which gives an impression not consistent with the evidence. His daughter said he received so much mail, of which orders for motors must have been a big part, so she could barely carry all the mail into the house. This gives us the impression that he received hundreds of orders for motors, and he could only build a few. So he must have had to decline many, not a few, orders for motors. So the new sentence reflects much better the evidence we have. The formulation ..had to decline most of them.. would probably even better reflect the evidence, but I didn't want to go too far, so I made a reasonable compromise between "some" and "most" and wrote "many". Roger491127 (talk) 11:30, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I see that Binksternet has reverted the change I describe above, with the reason "we cannot know that all that mail was orders for engines". So what do you think those masses of mail were? GW's correspondance can not have been extensive, he seldom wrote letters and seldom received replies, in those days companies did not send out a lot of advertisements as they do today, so people seldom got any mail at all in their mailboxes, and when they got mail it was one or two letters. The only reason to masses of letters in GW's mailbox could be his ads about engines. And I think his daughter also said that the masses of mail in the mailbox were orders for engines.

If he got so many orders for engines that his daughter barely could carry the mail from the mailbox we must assume that he got orders for something like a thousand engines per month. But he could not produce more than maybe 1, 2 or 3 engines per month, considering how long time it takes to build an engine with his pre-industrial methods, and considering how much else he was occupied with, building and test-flying airplanes often working in a factory during the day and building airplane parts during the night. And he had a family life to handle.

If he got orders for a thousand engines per month and could deliver 3 engines per month, the correct formulation must be that he had to decline most of the orders. I didn't go so far in my formulation, I just changed the formulation from some (which to me sounds like a few) to many, which sounds like a reasonable compromise between some and most. So I can not understand why you reverted my edit. Roger491127 (talk) 13:46, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

More conjecture. The mail's contents cannot be subject to guesswork, it must be sourced reliably or left out. This is not your personal research page. Binksternet (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

If we don't know anything about the content of those masses of letters we cannot assume that he had to decline some orders for engines either, so the whole sentence must be removed. Or we can only say that his daughter said that he got so much mail that she could barely carry the mail from the mailbox into the house, without saying anything about engines. Roger491127 (talk) 15:06, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The subject of the letters is already covered rather clearly in the GW Wikipedia article, in the footnoted blockquote near the beginning of the "Later Career" section. The quote talks quite clearly about letters with orders and payments for engines. So, I don't see a controversy about that, nor any need to write anything more about it in the article. DonFB (talk) 18:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

But there is one more sentence about it, and it is formulated so it gives the impression that had to return "some" of the orders. That sounds like a few to me. If the number from the daughter, 50 returned one day, is a top number, and we can not be sure of that either, we must at least assume that the average number of orders per day was something like 30. Per month that makes 900 orders, and he could hardly produce more than three engines per month. So "he had to return most of the orders" is the appropriate formulation in that sentence, if we should keep the sentence at all. "some", a few, is beyond all reasonable doubt wrong or misleading. That's why I wanted to change it. But as DonFB points out, this is already handled in a direct quote elsewhere, so why should we reformulate and keep the paragraph?

Because there is a section called Legacy, which was created when the quote from Louis Chmiel and Nick Engler was put into the article. This quote is of very questionable value and was, no doubt, inserted to discredit Whitehead, to point out that even if he built and flew motorized airplanes years before the Wright brothers he had very little influence on the development of aviation in USA. From that starting point anti-Whitehead editors and pro-Whitehead editors have built up this section to a certain length. What is missing from that section is the contact GW had with the Witteman brothers, who visited GW and bought engines from him. And the Witteman brothers started one of the earliest aviation industries in USA. Note that Pruckner was asked how he knew that it was the Wright brothers who visited GW, didn't Pruckner confuse them with the Witteman brothers who visited GW? "They had to introduce themselves, was Pruckner's answer.

So there should be a paragraph about the amount of orders for engines GW got, and that he had to return most of them, and his relation to the Witteman brothers and that he sold motors to them and that the Witteman brothers started one of the first aviation industries in USA.

But I still think that the last paragraph in the Legacy section should be deleted. Reason one: it doesn't belong in the Legacy section. Reason two: To relate two people who hardly wanted to be related to each other in this way is wrong. Reason three: That many men are driven by strong determination is so common in this creationist culture so there is no reason to point that out. If it should stay in the article it should be in a section called Spiritual determination, or something like that. If somebody wants to talk about the spiritual determination of Wilbur Wright in an article about Whitehead he should also tell the reader that Wilbur's determination was going very much up and down, just like his airplane. At one point Wilbur had given up his determination completely and said that humans will probably never fly.

To point out utterances of spiritual determination is not common in the modern world. There is no doubt that we could find similar utterances from many famous discoverers, scientists and inventors who lived 100 to 500 years ago, but such utterances are practically never mentioned in modern biographies or encyklopedia entries about these men. It is a religious heritage we want to forget. To create very strong-minded and very determined men out of boys is a creationist social tradition which is harmful to the modern society. It leads to a lot of violence, stubbornness and wifebeatings. Examples of very determined men: Mike Tyson during his most violent years. Fortunately he has cooled down a lot now and likes doves. The Teutul family which had a motorcycle workshop in Orange County http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chopper. Now one son has started his own mc shop because he has realized that he can no longer work with his father who is a mountain of muscles, determination and stubbornness. And you can think yourselves about what strong determination in the islamic world has led to.Roger491127 (talk) 22:18, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

You cannot base article text on conjecture. Saying he got "something like 30" orders per day, and guessing he made about 3 engines per month, is sheer fabrication. Binksternet (talk) 22:54, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Educated estimations based on knowledge of the evidence is better than totally faulty conclusions. And, may I remind you, this is a discussion page, I am arguing for a change from a misleading formulation to a formulation which is more reasonable based on the verifiable evidence we have. To change "some" to "many" seems reasonable based on the evidence. I think "most" is supported by the evidence but I am willing to accept the word "many", which can mean anything from ten and upwards. Roger491127 (talk) 23:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Even if we use that single day as the basis for our calculations "many" or "most" is the correct word to use. It must have taken him at least a week to build an engine, probably two weeks. So if he got orders for 54 engines one day he had to return most of them, 50, because four engines was the most he could deliver within a reasonable time. Roger491127 (talk) 23:47, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

"Basis for our calculations"?! No, we are not calculating what may have been true. That bit about Rose was too much detail in an article of this sort, and putting in such a large blockquote gave it undue gravitas. I removed the blockquote bit and reduced the quote by half. I summarized the rest. Binksternet (talk) 00:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Aren't you, Binksternet, breaking a rule in wikipedia now? I don't remember the name of the rule but the explanation goes something like this: "Remember that it is not YOUR article. You should try to find consensus among the editors."

I changed a sentence yesterday and explained why on the discussion page.You immediately reverted my change without further discussion. Then today you, without discussion change another section, again without any discussion. It seems to me that you do not care what other editors think anymore, you have started to change this article all by your own, ignoring all discussions and reasonable arguments on the discussion page. Roger491127 (talk) 07:35, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Is your goal to do to this article what you and a few other editors did to the section about Whitehead in Aviation history, where the whole section about Whitehead which had been there for years was deleted and Whitehead is now mentioned in two sentences about other early aviation pioneers. If you do that we can expect to see this whole article soon reduced to a few sentences and years of work by other editors will be deleted. Roger491127 (talk) 07:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

After looking at the article history I am glad to see that DonFB is at least trying to stand up against you and is restoring some of the content. I support DonFB's latest changes. Roger491127 (talk) 08:14, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

My only goal is to improve the article, or at least to keep it from bloating into one that proclaims a minority view as The Truth. I use WP:BRD in my editing. Binksternet (talk) 14:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Quotes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BRD

While this essay is not a policy or guideline itself, it is intended to supplement Wikipedia:Consensus

BRD is most useful for pages where seeking consensus would be difficult, perhaps because it is not clear which other editors are watching or sufficiently interested in the page

BRD is not a justification for imposing one's own view, or tendentious editing without consensus.

BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes. Don't invoke BRD as your reason for reverting someone else's work or for edit warring: instead, provide a reason that is based on policies, guidelines, or common sense.

Note that at least two other editors are engaged in editing this article, so BRD is not applicable here, see the second quote above. Roger491127 (talk) 18:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

By the way, "common sense" which is mentioned in this essay, is exactly what I have been trying to apply in the discussions above, for example concerning how many engines Whitehead could produce per month, etc.. It is nice to see that somewhere among the rules of wikipedia there exists a support for common sense. Roger491127 (talk) 19:08, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

If you think that your conjecture is eligible for some kind of mention in the article under the rubric "common sense" then you are mistaken. What takes the place of such conjecture is WP:V and WP:RS. Any number of engines made by Whitehead would have to be referenced to a verifiable, reliable source. Binksternet (talk) 19:20, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I never said that my calculations should be published in the article, but we need to use common sense in the discussion page to decide what verifiable evidence we should publish in the article, and how to formulate it. Try to avoid putting words in my mouth or assuming things I haven't written. Roger491127 (talk) 19:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

When wikipedia handles a minority view it is not the correct way to delete it. Instead, in cases like scientology, for example, the minority view should be presented as it is, and in the same article we also present the criticism of that minority view, so the reader can be fully informed about what the minority view says, and the criticism against that view is represented too. Note that sometimes the minority view is the correct view, something does not have to be wrong just because a majority, often heavily influenced by massmedia with an agenda, or an influential interest group, has convinced the majority to believe in a faulty view.

It is equally important to correct faulty majority views, when the evidence shows that the majority view is wrong. A good example is The Tiananmen Square massacre. Try to look that up in wikipedia and you will be redirected to an article named Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, which shows that there was no massacre in Tiananmen Square, which is the majority view put forward by western news agencies and Hollywood movies. Hundreds of people died on streets outside the Tiananmen Square, for example when demonstrators put fire to a bus full of policemen.

Another majority view which needs to be corrected is that the Wright brothers were the infallible fathers of aviation and there is no mention in most articles about them of the very detrimental effect they had on the development of aviation in USA. Roger491127 (talk) 19:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Wright brothers and Whitehead

That last jab is the exact prejudgment which places you firmly in the minority camp, which in this case is wrong. For some reason, you wish that the Wrights had given their intellectual property away for free, and you are mad that they did not. What a stance! Binksternet (talk) 00:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The constant litigations and patent wars fought by the Wright brothers hindered and delayed the development of American aviation industry by something like 14-15 years? If you deny or hide this fact, you support the faulty majority view. And you protect a popular American myth. When it comes to the Wright brothers you may not mention what kind of effect they had on the development of American aviation industry, but when it comes to Whitehead it is obviously very important to point out the he had very little influence on the development of American aviation industry. Don't you see the hypocrisy in this? Roger491127 (talk) 12:09, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

There are two sides to litigation. Somehow you do not blame those who tried to use Wright intellectual property without paying. Binksternet (talk) 14:13, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

How it happened is a secondary issue, the primary is that what they did had this consequence. And this problem could have continued for many years more if the government had not intervened in 1917 when they ordered all parties to start to cooperate to start producing airplanes for the war.

The basic problem was: The Wright bothers were not competent enough. Had they been competent airplane designers they could have started mass production of airplanes in 1904 and it wouldn't have been a problem. If they had realized that they couldn't create a good airplane design they should have stepped aside and stopped hindering others from producing better airplane designs.

But they spent a lot more energy and time on protecting their patent than producing a working airplane. So time was wasted year after year after year until USA had lost the initiative, and France, Britain and Germany had started mass production of airplanes. For example Voisin started selling airplanes already in 1908. The first woman passenger was Thérèse Peltier on July 8, 1908 when she made a flight of 656 feet (200 m) with Léon Delagrange in Milan, Italy. And he had bought his airplane from Voisin.

During all the years the Wright brothers stubbornly held on to their faulty design more than 10 pilots died and some pilots were badly hurt in Wright airplanes.Roger491127 (talk) 09:26, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

If they had been open and honest people when they met Whitehead in 1901 they could have combined their ideas about steering an airplane with Whitehead's working airplane, which he steered mainly through moving his body weight, and together they could have started mass production of a well working airplane in 1902. But because the Wright bothers were scheming and secretive this did not happen. If they had had the attitude of Octave Chanute, who freely and openly shared his knowledge with everybody the history would have looked very differently. Octave Chanute finally got tired of the attitude of the Wright brothers and ended his friendship with them. Roger491127 (talk) 09:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

That's discussing the article subject and unrelated ones - not how to improve this article. Do you know of an authoriative source has something to say on the effect of a Wright and Whitehead collaboration that was more than wishful thinking? Otherwise Wright-bashing goes in the Wright brothers article. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:21, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The Wrights had absolutely nothing to learn from Whitehead. By 1902, the Wright control system was fully developed. Whitehead could have learned a great deal from the Wrights, such as aerofoils, propellers and 3-axis control, if they ever met. Whitehead's inconsistent methods were his downfall. He would have had everything to gain from the Wrights, and the Wrights would have gained nothing from him. The Wrights did become secretive, because they had a valuable secret to protect. Your pejorative use of "scheming" is simply an emotional and unhistorical canard.

Pilots also died in Curtiss planes. When the U.S. govt banned the Wright model C, a pusher model, it also banned all Curtiss pusher airplanes, because pushers were deemed unsafe. The Wright original design was definitely not perfect, but without the Wrights, aviation would not even have started when it did in the U.S., and probably not in Europe either, because the Europeans became active only when they heard about the Wrights from Chanute and the newspapers. The Europeans had been doing basically nothing since Ader in 1897. All aviation progress after that was due to the Wrights and their influence, not to mention their unequivocal success by 1905. Whitehead's design, whether it flew or not, would never have been the model for aviation. In any case, Whitehead's "incompetence" at developing and marketing what he claimed was a flying machine doomed any potential he might have had.

The geopolitical situation in pre-War Europe encouraged rapid aviation development, whereas the U.S. did not feel the same kind of urgency to develop the new instrument of war. That's a major reason for lack of aviation development in the U.S., not merely the Wright lawsuits. The Wrights were willing, and did, grant a license for building airplanes, as in the case of Burgess, which built Wright-type airplanes, even during the patent dispute period. Curtiss hardly slowed down, even during the patent war. He kept building airplanes, just not warplanes, because the U.S. was not preparing for war, like the Europeans were.

The bottom line is simply that aviation, as we know it, began because of the Wright brothers. Without the Wright brothers, aviation would still have begun, but perhaps not for another 5 or 10 years, or more, and certainly not because of anything Whitehead was doing, technically or commercially.

Your description of the end of the Chanute-Wright friendship is wrong. Chanute gave newspaper interviews, claiming the Wrights' design was not new, and saying they were wrong to sue over it. His mistaken belief about the Wright flight control system, and his public statements about it, led to the breakdown in the friendship. DonFB (talk) 10:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The three-axis control ideas were not new. Most aviation pioneers knew the basic principles for flying, Whitehead controlled pitch with the tail, he controlled roll with his body weight, and yaw by different propeller speeds and later by a vertical tail rudder. And yaw was not so important in the beginning of aviation, you could get far with only pitch and roll. The most important thing about yaw was to avoid it. If you built an airplane which did not yaw you could keep it stable and control the direction with a mechanism for rolling. The Wright ideas about changing the wing ends to control roll, or other ways to roll, was used by other early pioneers too, so Chanute was not wrong in his criticism. And the Wright construction for pitch control was the big problem with all their airplanes. If you can not even control the pitch of your airplane you have built a very dangerous machine. Roger491127 (talk) 11:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

What other pioneer before the Wrights changed wing-end angle to control roll? Please name one. Chanute was wrong. He may have thought Mouillard did it. Mouillard, with Chanute's help, did patent wing twisting. But it was not for roll control. It was for differential drag. If Mouillard had ever flown it, he probably would have been surprised when he started to roll, but that was not his idea. Wenham may have had the idea of differential wingtip lift, but he never flew a machine which could do it. The Wrights were the ones who fully developed the idea and put it into practice. According to Wilbur himself, nothing in Chanute's "Progress In Flying Machines" mentioned roll control by any means, wing-twisting or otherwise. No aviators before the Wrights tried it, or even thought of it. DonFB (talk) 11:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Contrary to what you said, "Most aviation pioneers knew the basic principles for flying," *none* of them knew the basic principles, that's why none of them succeeded the way the Wright Brothers did. Your statement is utterly wrong and without historical foundation. If all those knew it, they would have been "first". They didn't know it, and that's why they failed. DonFB (talk) 11:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

So wing twisting was Chanute's idea, not the Wright's? When did the Wright brothers really succeed? Before 1917? Lilienthal succeeded in basic flying many times many years before the Wright brothers got anything up into the air. Lilienthal's and Cayley's and Whitehead's designs with a tail stabilizer were much more correct than all Wright constructions. With a tail stabilizer you can avoid unwanted pitch and yaw problems, and that is the basic requirement of successful flight. Roger491127 (talk) 11:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Chanute paid for Mouillard's wing-twisting patent. But the purpose was *not* roll-control; it was for yaw control. All pioneers before the Wright Brothers put their attention on pitch and yaw. Yes, some of them had tail assemblies that were more "modern" than the Wrights. But it made no difference. *None* of those pioneers designed roll control, or even conceived of the idea. As late as 1908, when Farman flew the first circle in Europe, he did it by making a flat turn using only yaw control. His airplane had no mechanical apparatus for roll control. As late as 1908, *none* of the Europeans had a clue about roll control. That's why they were so amazed and shocked when Wilbur flew and showed them what a true airplane does when using 3-axis control. None of the Europeans had ever even seen an airplane making a banking turn. It was an idea that was not even in their heads and in none of their airplanes. DonFB (talk) 12:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Too bad that they didn't see Whitehead bank around a bunch of trees in the morning August 14, 1901, or even read about it in any of the newspapers which described it. Roger491127 (talk) 12:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Roger, you are disproved by history. Wilbur Wright's flying was considered wildly successful by Europeans who were amazed in mid- to late-1908 by the demonstrations he repeated around France. The French gave him the Michelin Cup for it, and 20,000 francs. 1908 was the year that shocked European aviation, such as it was, out of inaction, all because of Wright's clearly advanced ability to fly. Binksternet (talk) 12:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It might have impressed people when the Wright brothers who had trained a lot to control that unstable airplane. But over the coming years more than 10 pilots died in Wright airplanes, because they were so unstable that all pilots risked their lives every time they tried to fly a Wright airplane. And none of their planes went into mass production, because they were too unstable and dangerous. Roger491127 (talk) 12:56, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The Europeans had two years from the time of Santos Dumont's flights in 1906 to get their act together and learn how to really fly. But they didn't. Their airplanes were hardly any better than Santos' crude 14-Bis, which had no roll control. Santos, like everyone else, except the Wrights, knew nothing about roll control. Even though the Wright patent had been published by the period 1906-1908, the Europeans still failed to understand roll control, or use it. The Wrights did that first, and that's why they are the inventors of the airplane. DonFB (talk) 12:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Roger wrote, "Too bad that they didn't see Whitehead bank around a bunch of trees in the morning August 14, 1901". Maybe Whitehead actually did that. I don't know, and neither do you. There's certainly no proof. Even if he did it, using weight control was not the solution to "the flying problem" (as Wilbur called it). Lilienthal used weight control for five years, long before Whitehead ever claimed to do it, and how did that end? It was hardly the solution for controlled, powered flight. DonFB (talk) 12:37, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, you said that nobody had seen an airplane bank, so I felt it appropriate to point out that Whitehead banked, and rolled, whatever method he used. No proof? Wikipedia isn't about absolute truth, it is about verifiability, and Howell's article describes the banking. The solution wasn't an airplane without a tail stabilizer either. Roger491127 (talk) 12:56, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I said no European had ever seen an airplane banking. Sure, you're right, Wikipedia is not about proof, but about verifiable sources. But we have not been talking about the GW article. We have been debating aviation history, which is actually inappropriate for us to do on a Discussion page. And of course, as you know, the Herald article is cited and quoted in the GW article, not to prove what GW did, but to give readers information from the historical record. I don't know what you mean by "without a tail stabilizer". DonFB (talk) 13:13, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, you must mean the early Wright Flyers had a horizontal stabilizer in front, not in back. Well, again, you're wrong: it was the solution. It was the solution when Wilbur flew nonstop circles for 5 minutes in 1904, when he flew nonstop circles for 39 minutes in 1905, when he flew nonstop circles for 2 hours and 23 minutes in 1908 in France, and when in 1909 he flew a circle around the Statue of Liberty, and then an exhibition near Manhattan Island in front of a million people. DonFB (talk) 13:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It was definitely not a good solution in the 1903 Flyer, which was practically impossible to control. Even after the re-design in 1905 the airplane was still so unstable that more than 10 pilots died, and Orville crashed badly twice. The Wright design was not aerodynamically stable enough for mass production anytime before 1917. The main problem was that the Wright brothers were secretive, wanted to achieve a monopoly on airplanes, and refused to cooperate with others, and refused to change the design for fear that this could endanger their patent. They would have made a lot more money if they had cooperated with others and shared their ideas openly like Octave Chanute, because 50 or 30% of mass production of thousands of airplanes would have made them a lot more money than 100% of very few airplanes. And that different attitude would have made USA the world leader in production of airplanes many years before 1918.

If they had openly shared their ideas and cooperated with Whitehead when they visited him in 1901 they could have started mass production of aerodynamically stable airplanes which could be rolled with wing bending or ailerons in 1902. Whitehead had all knowledge needed to produce an aerodynamically stable airplane, but lacked resources, was not businessminded, and had not thought much about wingbending or ailerons, because he had not needed it. The Wright brothers had more resources and ideas about wingbending or ailerons. The Wright brothers knew a lot more about how to negotiate with institutions like the Smithsonian and the army and how to build up a business. Together they could have started mass production of very safe and well working airplanes in 1902. The single big problem that hindered and delayed the development of American aviation history was the way the minds of the Wright brothers worked. The people at the Smithsonian also behaved in secretive and strange ways visavi Whitehead, so they are also responsible for the way Whitehead was ignored and forgotten. Roger491127 (talk) 11:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Without a source saying this, it can't be used in the article and is going off topic. Do any of those who've written on Whitehead say that he and the Wrights would have advanced aviation if they had worked together? GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

In 1903 the Wright "solution" was better than anyone else's and produced an airplane that could fly and be controlled, even if control was not perfect. Whitehead's weight-shifting, if he ever did it, was a complete dead-end (literally, in Lilienthal's case). Your idea that the Wrights and Whitehead should have cooperated to mass-produce airplanes is just...silly and irrelevant. You appear not to know that the Wrights deliberately avoided designing an inherently stable airplane. They were explicitly interested in hands-on control, not inherent stability. They would not have cared at all that GW's airplane was supposedly inherently stable. You probably don't know that they were very well aware that different amounts of wing dihedral or anhedral would create different amounts of stability, or lack of it, and they experimented, in flight, to find a suitable compromise. To correct your misleading statement: Orville's crash in 1908 at Ft. Myer was caused by a defective propeller, not by what you would like to think was the airplane's instability. To correct another of your many misstatements: mass production of Wright airplanes began in 1910, and in ensuing years included more than half a dozen different models; only the model C suffered more than its share of crashes. Wright airplane production had ended by 1917, after Orville retired and the company was sold.

You're right: the Wrights were secretive, because they had discovered the extremely valuable secret of how to fly with mechanical control. They had no desire, or need, to share or give away that knowledge. Perhaps this debate illustrates a cultural-economic difference between Europe and the U.S. regarding capitalist ideas and socialist ideas. DonFB (talk) 20:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Back to Whitehead

I found an article at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-equivocal-success-of-2003-12, which contained this sentence: "German-born Gustave Whitehead was adept at fabricating stories about flying in the U.S., but he never built a workable airplane." I wonder why the author of that article chose to ignore all the witnesses. The author should have written about all the liars who supported Whitehead's flights, like Dick Howell and around 30 others, and explain why they all fabricated stories which supported each other. It sounds like the author had only read what Whitehead himself wrote, and was totally unaware of all others who supported his "stories". Roger491127 (talk) 11:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Whitehead himself and practically all of the witnesses were simple and honest working class people who did not know how to lie. They did not have the kind of patent-lawyer minds which easily could lie when a lie would serve their purpose better than the truth. The few exceptions were Dickie, who was full of hatred because he thought Whitehead had not paid his father, Stanley Beach who was rich and angry because Whitehead had said that Beach's airplane design was faulty, and Dvorak who designed an engine and Whitehead told him that the design was faulty and would never work. Roger491127 (talk) 12:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

To explain how all these people told "stories" which supported each other you must assume that at least 30 people and Whitehead and the journalist Dick Howell met in a secret meeting in the spring of 1901 and agreed to partake in a historical hoax. They must have agreed to fabricate lies about many events, and to put a very sophisticated twist to the hoax they decided to not say anything about this fabricated myth about Whitehead's flights and airplanes until they were approached by journalists, authors, professors or historians some time in the future, no matter if it took 35 years or 65 years until they told these stories they invented in the spring of 1901. To make these "stories" more believable Whitehead also had to fabricate a false airplane which he could show at an exhibition in Atlanta, and take photos of on the ground, etc.. Roger491127 (talk) 12:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

This elaborate conspiracy must also have involved a bunch of very young children. Like the boy who witnessed many years later that he and other young boys liked to hold on to the tail of Whitehead's airplane until they were lifted off the ground and had to let go before they came too high up in the air. Roger491127 (talk) 13:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

"Did not know how to lie" is only so much wishful thinking on your part. There is no reliable source that says this about the witnesses and Whitehead. In fact, the mainstream view is that Whitehead lied all the time as a matter of course, that he was a dreamer who imagined reality to be what he said it was. Binksternet (talk) 14:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

reinserted (why did you delete this, I guess you had no reasonable answer):

The problem with your view is that you must also say that a number of witnesses "lied all the time as a matter of course" to be consistent. If you can find an authoritative source which says that Whitehead and many witnesses "lied all the time as a matter of course" you can, of course write that in the article. Roger491127 (talk) 15:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

To Binksternet: You wrote above that:"the mainstream view is that Whitehead lied all the time as a matter of course". Can you give a reference to an authoritative source for the view that the mainstream view is that Whitehead (and the 5-10 most important witnesses) "lied all the time as a matter of course", or is that your subjective view? Roger491127 (talk) 23:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I think your question is trolling; you know the answer. Whitehead is described as an inveterate liar by Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith and Orville Wright. I don't need to cite my own talk page quote as I am not trying to insert it into the article. Regarding 5 to 10 witnesses, I did not say they lied all the time as a matter of course, so I don't know what you're after. Binksternet (talk) 01:59, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

New editing

Note that the external link Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company is now dead.

In wanted to give the reader access to the text of Richard Howells article, easier to read than the photocopy so I intended to give the reader a link to this text, but when I tested the link I found that Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company has now removed it. Does anybody know another source which can be used? Roger491127 (talk) 13:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Can we copy the article text from Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company with the help of the wayback machine and insert it in the article so it is accessible to the reader? It is a very central text, referred to many times in the article, so what other alternative do we have? Roger491127 (talk) 16:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Affidavits

I reverted the recently added affidavits per WP:PRIMARY. Secondary sources are best! Primary sources should only be used with care, not used to make the article so long that nobody will ever read it all. This is an encyclopedia article, not a full length book. We summarize. Binksternet (talk) 14:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

"Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source."

I have not made any interpretation of the affidavits. I have not made any statements based on the affidavits. So WP:PRIMARY does not prevent me from presenting the affidavits to the reader, who can interpret them as he likes.

I move this discussion to the talk page of the article, where it belongs. Roger491127 (talk) 14:58, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

As we have a section called Witnesses we should present a few of the most important witnesses and show the reader what they said. Give the reader a chance to study the witness statements and make his own mind up about how to interpret the witness statements. That seems to me to be the most reasonable way to give the readers an impression of what the witnesses say. The Witnesses section is of primary importance to this article, so I see no reason it can not be a little longer.Roger491127 (talk) 15:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

No, not at all. We should not post primary statements and let the reader decide, rather, we should summarize the mainstream thought regarding the witnesses. You are following the writing style of a book, not the summary style of an encyclopedia. Please write your book and maybe we can refer to it in this summary article, if it becomes notable. Binksternet (talk) 15:19, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

There is also WP:LONGQUOTE and WP:QUOTEFARM which say "Using too many quotes is incompatible with the encyclopedic writing style" and "Consider minimizing the length of a quotation by paraphrasing, by working smaller portions of quotation into the article text, or both". GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:44, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

So if you can not use WP:PRIMARY you want to try to use WP:LONGQUOTE and WP:QUOTEFARM instead, to prevent those affidavits to be used in the article?

Note that the affidavits are already very short and condensed, it is hardly possible to "minimizing the length of a quotation by paraphrasing, by working smaller portions of quotation into the article text, or both". The affidavits also gives an element of original, unrevised, un-interpretated view to the reader. Any interpretation can be questioned and does not give the reader the possibility to read the original and make his own interpretation, which is invaluable.

I would not like to read an interpretation written by some wikipedia editor, I want to read the source text and make my own interpretation and draw my own conclusions, and that is a general view I have followed all my life. Roger491127 (talk) 16:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should not shorten any affidavit. They simply should not appear. There are too many problems with how they were collected and with the believability of the person talking. We can only relate to the reader how these affidavits have been interpreted, especially since they have been interpreted differently by different observers. Binksternet (talk) 16:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The believability of the affidavits and Richard Howells article and the texts written by Whitehead himself is greatly influenced by the number of statements made by these people which support each other. If 6 or 12 or 20 people give witness statements which support each other the probability of the events described is greatly increased, and becomes a lot harder to discredit.

That's why those who believe Whitehead flew want at least 4-5 original, un-interpretated, witness statements to be included in the article. And those who want to discredit Whitehead will do practically anything to prevent that to happen. The situation is similar to a gangster accused of murder. If there are 5 witnesses who saw him kill the victim he will do anything to prevent those witnesses to witness against him. He can threaten them or their families, or have them murdered. One witness can be questioned and discredited, but two witnesses is a lot harder to discredit. And if 5 witnesses make it to the court room he has no chance. Roger491127 (talk) 17:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Uh, no. There are those here who wish to have an encyclopedia, and those who add material as if they are writing a book. Which group is helping Wikipedia? Binksternet (talk) 17:28, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome to seek a third opinion by another editor, it's more likely to bring in a outsider with a fresh viewpoint than, say, asking at wp:aviation. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I do not object to quoting from the affidavits. However, as GraemeLeggett points out, Wikipedia policy says quotations should be minimized and/or incorporated into general text. I have emphasized this point many times in previous discussions, when overlong block quotes from various sources were dumped into the article. In the interest of readability, and in keeping with Wikipedia policy, I will not agree to the addition of long, numerous, unconstrained quotations from the affidavits. Binksternet says, "There are too many problems with how they were collected and with the believability of the person talking." While this may be true, it is clearly the subjective opinion of an editor and is not, in my opinion, sufficient justification to impose blanket censorship of the affidavits. If a reliable secondary source questions the accuracy of the affidavits, such a statement could be included and referenced in the article. DonFB (talk) 21:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Are any of you interested in giving the reader the chance to see the most important verifiable facts from both sides so he can decide for himself what to believe? I think the best way to handle this is to give the reader the most important verifiable facts from both sides, the most important witness statements for Whitehead and the verifiable criticism of those statements and facts that show that he could not have flown and all these witnesses must have lied or be mistaken, and leave it to the reader to decide what he wants to believe about it. Roger491127 (talk) 23:11, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

We hope that the reader is intelligent enough to decide, but we give the reader the expert's opinions regarding what is the mainstream thought and also what are significant minor views. There is no way that Wikipedia's guidelines indicate an equality between accepted mainstream thought and significant minor views, so, no, we will not simply show the main facts and let the reader decide. We will summarize and explain as best we can. Binksternet (talk) 23:16, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

For years I have seen DonFB as the most impartial and neutral editor of this article and judging from his text above he is at least partially on my side in this issue. He writes:

"Binksternet says, "There are too many problems with how they were collected and with the believability of the person talking."

While this may be true, it is clearly the subjective opinion of an editor and is not, in my opinion, sufficient justification to impose blanket censorship of the affidavits. If a reliable secondary source questions the accuracy of the affidavits, such a statement could be included and referenced in the article. "

And I agree. Roger491127 (talk) 23:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The beginning of Witnesses section

I don't like how the beginning of Witnesses section has been changed. It now reads:

Witnesses

The Sunday Herald of Aug. 18, 1901 explicitly named two witnesses to Whitehead's reported early morning flight of August 14, 1901: "Andrew Cellie, and James Dickie, his two partners in the flying machine."[6] The Herald newspaper article was written as an eyewitness report, but was unsigned. Stella Randolph named Dick Howell as the author.

This is putting Cellie and Dickie as the first mentioned witnesses.

Earlier versions:

The aviation event for which Whitehead is now best-known reportedly took place in Fairfield, Connecticut on August 14, 1901. According to an eyewitness newspaper article widely attributed to journalist Dick Howell of the Bridgeport Sunday Herald, Whitehead piloted his Number 21 aircraft in a controlled powered flight for about half a mile up to 50 feet (15 m) high and landed safely.

The journalist Dick Howell of the Bridgeport Sunday Herald, who was present in the morning of Aug. 14, 1901 and wrote the article about the event in the 'Sunday Herald of Aug. 18, 1901.

These versions put Richard Howell as the first mentioned witness which is more correct as he was the only journalist witness, he was present at the first flight August 14 1901, and no authoritative source has ever questioned that he was the author of the article and the artist who made the drawing. Stella Randolph, o'Dwyer and Kosch all name him as the author of the article or the artist who made the drawing.

So there is no reason to delete the version which begins with something like this:

The journalist Dick Howell of the Bridgeport Sunday Herald, who was present in the morning of Aug. 14, 1901 and wrote the article about the event in the 'Sunday Herald of Aug. 18, 1901.

The first witness mentioned should be Richard Howell. He was a journalist, he was present and described the first flight of the day in an article in Bridgeport Sunday Herald. Sulli died before he could be interviewed and only his relatives and friends could confirm that he had always said that he was present when Whitehead flew August 14 1901. Dickie later developed a strong anger towards Whitehead and refused to talk about that morning when interviewed by phone by O'Dwyer. So neither Sulli nor Dickie are suitable as first mentioned witnesses. Roger491127 (talk) 12:18, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

A few notes about the article text and Howell's article: Note that nr 21 was driven like a car to the place where the flights started, it is described in detail by Howell. Whitehead and Cellie (Sulli) were riding in the airplane/car, Howell and Dickie followed on bicycles.

Howell writes about Cellie and Dickie as "partners" in the airplane. We know from later sources that Howell was mistaken about this. Sulli was a very good friend and closest neighbor to Whitehead. Dickie was just somebody who liked to loiter around Whitehead's workshop and he and his father sometimes helped Whitehead to move his airplane with Dickies father's horse. Dickie was in no way a "partner" in Whitehead's airplane.

Even if Howell wrote that Sulli and Dickie were "partners" in Whitehead's airplane we should not write that in the article when we know that Howell wrote this by mistake. If Whitehead had any partners in building and testing his airplane they were people like Harworth, Pruckner, Darvarich, etc.. Roger491127 (talk) 13:09, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Your opening sentence about Howell was ungrammatical. It did not have a proper subject and verb. More importantly, the "Connecticut" section of this article already explains that the Bridgeport Herald report was an "eyewitness newspaper article widely attributed to journalist Dick Howell". Repeating that information in the "Witnesses" section is clearly unnecessary and will just add clutter to the article. When editing this (or any) article, it's important to check what has already been written and not just add text without regard to what the article has previously explained. I don't object if the article simply names Sulli/Celli and Dickie as the reported witnesses without quoting the Herald saying they were partners. DonFB (talk) 15:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

That some of my examples above are ungrammatical has a simple explanation. I looked at and copied the start of the Witnesses section we have had before, not necessarily complete sentences.

Other people who are eyewitnesses have been mentioned elsewhere in the article, but it is essential that the Witnesses section becomes complete and is written as well as possible. Can't we simply move the sentence about Howell from the Connecticut section to the Witnesses section, leaving behind a simpler formulation like "According to the Bridgeport Sunday Herald Whitehead flew a quarter of a mile August 14 1901", and give a more detailed description of what the journalist and eyewitness Howell wrote in the Witnesses section?

I tested to insert two very short affidavits in the Witnesses section, and it seems to have been accepted now. But I would like to add the slightly longer affidavit from Harworth, which contains a lot of important information.

Earlier the Witnesses section was very much about the unreliability of Dickie. As he refused to give a statement to O'Dwyer and his affidavit was about a big stationary machine he doesn't belong in the Witnesses section at all. The Witnesses section should contain the best witness statements, and possible criticism of them, and Howell, Whitehead himself and Harworth should be among the main witnesses. If their statements support each other it is very difficult to discredit Whitehead's flights.

For example, both Whitehead and Harworth have written that the longest flight August 14 1901 was one and a half mile. Whitehead mentioned this when he wrote something like this: I made four flights August 14 1901 and the longest of them was one and a half mile. Roger491127 (talk) 20:43, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

We are not hear to make a case for or against Whitehead. We are here to record what others have said on the subject. Including some of the affadavit text where it has already been quoted in a work on the subject is reasonable as it illustrates their testimony. Making judgements on which witness statements to include because the build up a body of "evidence" to support an idea is to my mind a case of synthesis or OR.GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:58, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I could not have said it better, Graeme. Only previously quoted bits should be brought here; ones that reliable observers considered relevant. Binksternet (talk) 21:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

With "reliable observers" you mean Gibbs-Smith, don't you? If it was up to you this whole article would consist of summarized statements from Gibbs-Smith's book, isn't that right? Roger491127 (talk) 21:48, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

As this is a very controversial issue, and the establishment of academic authors on aviation has sided with Orville Wright and the Smithsonian whose arguments and behavior can easily be refuted and questioned we can not rely on the academic literature, the Smithsonian or Orville Wright and his supporters in this issue. It is more fair to the reader to present the available material and let the reader draw his own conclusions.

To accomplish this I think it is right to present affidavits and other material un-interpreted and un-summarized. I know that it is recommended that we summarize texts in most cases, but this is not a normal case. In this controversial issue, where it can be shown that the Smithsonian has lied and tried to deny the existence of important documents, where Orville Wright wrote a very faulty attack on the credibility of Whitehead, and the academic authors have backed up the Smithsonian and Orville Wright for a very long time, ignoring all evidence to the contrary, wikipedia should try to give readers the source material, and the view of academic authors, and give the reader the possibility to draw his own conclusions. Roger491127 (talk) 21:41, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Considering what I have heard about Gibbs-Smith's book it is obvious that he totally ignores all the research made after 1960. Maybe it was written approximately 50 years ago. When Gibbs-Smith is quoted in this article, please inform the reader about when the book was written. And I am not talking about the date it was last re-printed but when the author actually wrote it. Roger491127 (talk) 22:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I also agree with Graeme's remarks above. You are still trying to "prove" the case for GW, as shown by your comment about the affidavits: "If their statements support each other it is very difficult to discredit Whitehead's flights." You also wrote: "...Orville Wright and the Smithsonian whose arguments and behavior can easily be refuted and questioned..." I think you need to get a copy of History by Contract. It is an acceptable source and could be quoted and cited to give some of the arguments you're talking about.

I am probably more lenient than the other editors regarding quotations from the affidavits. I think selected excerpts from the affidavits are appropriate. But I can see that you'd like to load up the article with full quotations from the affidavits, and probably as many as possible.

Already, I think the Ratzenberger quote is much too long. It can be shortened to read: "I recall a time, which I think was probably July or August of 1901 or 1902, when this plane was started in flight on the lot between Pine and Cherry Streets. The plane flew at a height of about twelve feet from the ground, I should judge, and traveled the distance to Bostwick Avenue before it came to the ground." You may believe that all the other verbiage is important, but I don't agree, and I'm pretty sure the other editors do not think it's needed either. I think the Schweibert quotation is an acceptable length. I would not object to a Harworth quotation, but it should be edited to be about the same length.

Remember, it is against policy to try to overload the article with text and quotations that represent the minority viewpoint, even if you believe the minority view is more accurate than the majority. Attempting to control the tone of the article because you personally favor the case for Whitehead is absolutely contrary to the fundamental principles of Wikipedia. DonFB (talk) 22:37, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with most your suggestions, DonFB. I support you if you summarize the affidavits of Ratzenberger and Harworth.

But note that I am not on either side, I just want to give the reader the best possible material to base his conclusions on.

I am not trying to control the tone of the article, but I think the article should be as neutral as possible and give the reader all the most important information needed to draw his own conclusions.

Dickie is not a good witness, and Gibbs-Smith is not a "reliable observer", in fact he was nowhere near Whitehead between 1899 and 1902, so he is no observer at all. Roger491127 (talk) 23:14, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Because we have section called Witnesses it should also contain the most important witness statements, which include Whitehead's own statements, Howells statements, Ratzenberger, Schweibert and Harworth, the friends and relatives of Sully which O'Dwyer interviewed, etc.. Roger491127 (talk) 23:29, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I do not object to moving the details about Howell from the "Connecticut" section to the "Witnesses" section. However, I do care about how it is worded. Something like this: "The article in the Sunday Herald of August 18, 1901 explicitly named two witnesses to Whitehead's reported early morning flight of August 14, 1901: Andrew Cellie and James Dickie. The name of a third witness, the newspaper reporter, was not printed with the article, but he is widely believed to have been Richard Howell."

I disagree with your attempt to downplay Dickie's historical importance. You wrote: "Dickie is not a good witness"; and, "The Witnesses section should contain the best witness statements". What you really mean, but did not say, is that the Witnesses section should contain "the best witnesses to prove Whitehead flew." It is not up to you to decide who is a good witness and who is not. We are summarizing history, as we know it from the sources. We are NOT playing the role of a jury in a court of law. The Witnesses section should contain the available known information about the witnesses, NOT your personal filtering of the information. Dickie was named in the newspaper as a witness. Dickie later said he was not there. Those are the historical facts, as shown by our sources. Accept it. If you're unhappy that Dickie disclaimed knowledge of the flight, you will have to learn to live with that fact. Please be assured I will make sure that the information about Dickie remains prominent in the article and is not hidden, suppressed or displaced to support your personal judgement about "the best witnesses". DonFB (talk) 23:54, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind you writing about Dickie, but then you should also tell the reader that he hated Whitehead, because he believed that Whitehead owed his father a lot of money, and would never say anything which could support Whitehead. And that he refused to talk about what happened that morning. In other words, include the story about O'Dwyer's phone interview with Dickie. That should clarify the situation with Dickie as a witness to the reader. Roger491127 (talk) 00:13, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be forgetting, or are not looking at, the content of the article. The information you mention regarding Dickie's attitude about Whitehead is already contained in the Witnesses section. Read it again, if you are unsure. DonFB (talk) 00:21, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see that. But the content changes so often so I wanted to clarify my view on Dickie anyway.Roger491127 (talk) 00:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I have now read through the Witnesses section. Don't you think this paragraph:

"Discrepancies in statements by witnesses about different flights they said they saw on August 14, 1901, raised questions whether any flight was made. The Bridgeport Sunday Herald reported a half mile flight occurred early in the morning on August 14. Whitehead and Harworth claimed a flight one and a half miles long was made that day."

should be followed by the text written by Whitehead which says: "I made four flights August 14 1901 and the longest of them was one and a half mile."

That would explain the "Discrepancies in statements by witnesses about different flights they said they saw on August 14, 1901" by explaining that Whitehead made four flights that day, with different witnesses. It would also point out that Whitehead and Harworth gave the same length of the longest flight of the day. Roger491127 (talk) 01:37, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I realize now that at the end of the paragraph it is actually said that Whitehead and Harworth gave the same length of the longest flight of the day, but it is said in such a compressed way that even I didn't see it. It would be better to get Harworth's affidavit summarized, followed by the text by Whitehead which I talked about above.

In general the Witnesses section is very confusing, mostly because it starts with the least important witness, Dickie, and all the complications around his refusal to witness.

To make the Witnesses section easier to read it should start with the most important witnesses, Howell, Sulli, Harworth, Whitehead, Ratzenberger, Schweibert, etc..

Dickie should come last, if the reader has the energy to read the whole section. Or he should be dealt with in another section, like the Controversy section, because he refused to witness, so he is not a witness, and because he has been used as reason of controversy. Roger491127 (talk) 03:37, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I wrote above:

"Please be assured I will make sure that the information about Dickie remains prominent in the article and is not hidden, suppressed or displaced to support your personal judgement about "the best witnesses".

And then you fulfilled my expectation when you wrote:

"Dickie should come last, if the reader has the energy to read the whole section."

Thus, you perfectly confirm my perception that you want to "bury" Dickie somewhere in the article, and hope that people might not notice the serious discrepancy raised by his comments. In short, your bias remains unbounded, and you continue to look for ways to slant this article in a way that will express your deep-seated POV.

You may think Dickie is the "least important witness," but that is only because he challenges your tenacious POV, which you remain determined to push in this article. Dickie's name was published in what is probably the single most important document about GW's alleged flights. And yet you want to pretend he is of minor importance and should come "last" in the article's discussion of witnesses. I understand your logic, but it fails to rise above the kindergarten level for sophistication.

I suggest you spend your time editing/condensing the Harworth affidavit if you want it to be added to the article. I will be shortening the Ratzenberger quotation myself, along the lines I already suggested, unless you do it first. Also, the article already explains that neighbors of the other witness named by the Herald, Celli, said that he stated that GW flew. DonFB (talk) 04:19, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

It makes me sad to hear that you think that my POV is to bury Dickie because he is the only witness who denies, or refuses to witness, that Whitehead flew. My POV is actually to make the Witnesses section readable for the wikipedia user and reader of this article. As it is now the reader is forced to start with the most complicated and self-contradicting witness, and the complicated and difficult to understand research and explanation about him. I think most readers will get so confused by this start of the section that they will not read the rest of the section. Can't you understand this from a literary perspective? If you would write a book and start the book with the most confusing and complicated chapter you would scare off most potential readers and buyers of the book already in the bookstore. People would pick up the book, read the first page, give up and put it down again.

Anytime you write a text you should start with something readable and introduce the subject to the reader and put the most complicated and confusing issues later in the book.

Also, please consider what level of importance Dickie has. Howell is a much more important witness, he was a journalist with a good reputation, he was there to witness what happened. He could express himself with words, and drawings, he represented the mass media. Dickie was there because Whitehead needed somebody who could hold on to a rope or because Dickie wanted to hang with interesting people.

Harworth is a much more important witness than Dickie, because he was working with Whitehead and was present very often when Whitehead built, tested and flew his airplane.

After reading all the available documentation my understanding is that Dickie and his father got involved with Whitehead only because they owned a horse, which Whitehead needed sometimes. The documentation says that Dickie used to loiter around Whitehead's shop. It gives me the impression that Dickie's father was a farmer or had some other occupation which consisted of driving a horse and Dickie learned that work from his father. But that was rather boring so Dickie wanted to hang with more interesting people, Whitehead and the people who worked with him. But he wasn't fully accepted in that circle and this was why somebody used the expression about Dickie that "he used to loiter around Whitehead's workshop". Because Dickie and his father were only accepted in the circle around Whitehead when horse power or muscle power was needed it is understandable that Dickie slowly developed a hatred against Whitehead. Roger491127 (talk) 14:40, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Majority-Minority view situation

Is this really a Majority-Minority view situation?

If we exclude wikipedia editors, which is correct if I have understood the wikipedia rules correctly, we must count the authors who have written pro-Whitehead texts and authors who have written anti-Whitehead texts. I doubt that the anti-Whitehead authors are significantly more numerous than the pro-Whitehead authors, including both paper book authors and web authors. In fact, it could be the other way around.

Maybe the few authors who wrote about Whitehead before 1970 were more anti-Whitehead while authors after 1970 are more pro-Whitehead and more numerous. Roger491127 (talk) 00:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Since when does "numerous" sources trump scholarly sources? Binksternet (talk) 01:11, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

How many "scholarly sources" do you have, and when did they write their texts? Roger491127 (talk) 01:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Just for "fun", I'll point out that last December I bravely commented on the issue of "majority-minority" opinion and the scorecard of "pro" vs. "anti" Whitehead sources. My post appears in a Discussion section titled: "Removal of technical details and important quotes". Here is a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gustave_Whitehead/Archive_8#Removal_of_technical_details_and_important_quotes

My comments can be quickly located by searching on the page for the word "heretical" (without quotes). DonFB (talk) 03:36, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Kudos to you for daring to write essentially the same as I am thinking. I can not stop myself from quoting you here and add a little to it:

"In thinking about the issue of "proportion," I offer a slightly heretical idea, based on my layman's knowledge about Whitehead. Namely: It appears that more has been written by researchers supporting his claims than has been written against his claims. The orthodox view held by the aviation "establishment" (like the Smithsonian and Gibbs-Smith) is that his claims are untrue or unproven, or both. From what I've seen, it appears that the establishment has actually not written a lot about him, nor done as much original research about him as the opposition--the establishment has simply dismissed him. Yet, that orthodox view remains ascendant and is considered to be the "majority" view, even though pro-Whitehead published material may well be more voluminous than skeptical or dismissive material. My thoughts here could lead to abstruse debate about Wikipedia's rules on Fringe theory and so forth--a debate I'm not eager to dive into. I simply want to point out that, when looking at what we are using as "references" for this article, and in the annals of aviation literature generally, there appear to be more sources supporting Whitehead than opposing him. In this article, we have Randolph, O'Dwyer, Kosch and Crane (maybe) on the "pro" side. On the "con" side, we have the Smithsonian, Gibbs-Smith and Engler/Chmiel. Furthermore, I think the article does a reasonably good job of pointing out that the Smithsonian position is somewhat compromised by its agreement with the Wright estate. As currently written, the GW article does not, in my view, present an especially convincing picture that "anti-Whitehead" arguments constitute the majority view, while the "pro-Whitehead" arguments comprise the "minority" view. I think a bit of circular reasoning may be at work: It seems to be a "given" that the anti-Whitehead position is the majority view, even though not a great deal of referenced material in the article shows that to be the case. But "given" that orthodox view, the reasoning seems to be that the article should be sure not to present the opposing view out of its proper "proportion". To sum up, if the article does not do a better job of presenting and referencing the "majority" view, claims here on the Talk page about "proportionality" may ring somewhat hollow. DonFB (talk) 02:32, 6 December 2010 (UTC)"

I read German as well as English, and if we add all that has been written in German, both as one or two paper books and many web pages the number of pro-Whitehead texts increases even more. Roger491127 (talk) 03:58, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, note that "scholarly sources" tend to be politically correct, to increase chances of advancement and higher paid positions, and people in universities and other establishments, like the Smithsonian or as editors of respected scientific or technical magazines do not want to throw their careers away by writing something against the general consensus in their circles. We can find an example of that in this article, actually, when it comes to Stanley Beach:

"That analysis by O'Dwyer was contained in the Aviation History article, which asked, "Why did Beach, an enthusiastic supporter of Whitehead who liberally credited Whitehead's powered flight successes of 1901, later become a Wright devotee?" The article quoted O'Dwyer offering an answer: "Beach became a politician, rarely missing an opportunity to mingle with the Wright tide that had turned against Whitehead, notably after Whitehead's death in 1927." The article said Beach's statement, "almost totally at odds with his earlier writings," was quoted by Orville Wright and was also used by Smithsonian "as a standard and oft-quoted source for answering queries about aviation's beginnings—because it said that Gustave Whitehead did not fly."[15]

Aviation historian Gibbs-Smith also quoted Orville's refutation of Whitehead flights, which Orville based partly on the Beach statement." Roger491127 (talk) 04:11, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

You cannot try and puncture the mainstream viewpoint by pointing to lesser authorities who question the scholars, or by snide remarks about the mainstream having to be politically correct. The mainstream viewpoint is assumed to be neutral because it is peer-reviewed and scholarly. That's the foundation we must build upon. Binksternet (talk) 04:49, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Editing the witnesses section

It said that Dickie helped Whitehead in his aeronautical work, as if Dickie was an engineer and helped design and build the airplane. This formulation is obviously wrong and gives a faulty impression. Dickies father owned a horse and was sometimes engaged by Whitehead to pull the airplane. Dickie used to loiter around Whitehead's workshop. So I changed the formulation to better reflect the available documentation. Roger491127 (talk) 16:16, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

After inserting a summarized and very much shortened witness statement from Howell, and a summarized affidavit from Howarth I think the Witnesses section has become much more complete and readable. Roger491127 (talk) 18:07, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Your addition of long selections from the Herald article to the Witness section are improper and unnecessary, in my opinion. The selections needlessly repeat some excerpts that already appear in the "Connecticut 1901" section, which summarizes the newspaper article quite satisfactorily, in my opinion. Putting additional long selections from the Herald article into the Witness section of the GW Wiki article is burdening the reader with too much detail and not making the article more readable, as you claim to desire. Of course, your action also reflects your known POV to do everything possible to legitimize GW's alleged flights. You can add the complete newspaper text to Wikisource if you want to, but I don't agree with overloading the GW Wiki article with the Herald text, as you have attempted.

Using the phrase "the witness Howell" is a strange formulation. He was a newspaper reporter and should be described as such. The Herald article is "widely attributed" to him, as the Wiki article explains, but as Carroll Gray reminded us, there never has been any documentation from the newspaper itself that he wrote the article. So I do not support using the "witness" terminology you've chosen and will delete it. Other people (Harworth, etc.) claimed to be witnesses and signed their names to statements they gave. Howell's name is not on the article and he did not give a witness statement.

I am going to revert your additions of the Herald newspaper text blocks from the Witness section.

I can agree with your description of Dickie's role in helping Whitehead.

Your "summary" of the Harworth affidavit contains too much detail. I will shorten it and the Ratzenberger quotation to the essence of their flight descriptions. DonFB (talk) 22:32, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I inserted a short line from Whitehead, to break up the text between Howell and Harworth, and clarify that 4 flights were made, and Harworth is talking about another flight. Roger491127 (talk) 22:41, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Response to DonFB: I selected parts from Howell's article which are not mentioned anywhere else in the article, like how the four men traveled to the flight place. That shows how nr 21 worked as a car, and what speed it could reach, which is an important fact when it comes to how Whitehead got his airplane to lift off. If he could reach a speed of 30-40 mph he could maybe lift off using just the speed the wheel motor gave the airplane. Or he came very close to lift off speed using the wheels, and needed only a little more speed from the propellers to lift off.

I made a calculation of the speed of nr 21 in the air based on Harworth's 2400m in 4 minutes, that gives us 36km/h.Roger491127 (talk) 22:53, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any problems with inserting Howell as witness or journalist. Nobody has been able to prove that he was not the author of the article, or even put forward serious arguments suggesting he was not the author, but several, O'Dwyer, Stella Randolph, Kosch have supported the view that he wrote the eyewitness article and that he was a truthful person who wouldn't lie about such an event. Roger491127 (talk) 23:00, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Quoting DonFB: "Using the phrase "the witness Howell" is a strange formulation. He was a newspaper reporter and should be described as such. "

Do you mean that a newspaper reporter cannot be a witness to an event, or do you just want to call Howell a newspaper reporter instead of a witness? In any case he is the most important witness and should be mentioned in the list of witnesses in the Witnesses section. Roger491127 (talk) 23:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of the Witness section is to discuss the people who were reported or claimed to be witnesses. The summary of the Herald article, purportedly by an eyewitness reporter, is in the "Connecticut 1901" section. DonFB (talk) 00:15, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

If the Witnesses section is there to mention and discuss the most important witnesses I cannot see how we can avoid to at least mention Howell, even if his story is summarized somewhere else in the article.

And, by the way, it doesn't matter if it was Richard Howell or another journalist who wrote the story in Bridgeport Herald, whoever it was was an eyewitness and wrote the article. We could even forget about his name and call him "the journalist from Bridgeport Herald.Roger491127 (talk) 00:47, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, it wouldn't matter who the reporter was. Nevertheless, the Herald article is adequately summarized in the "Connecticut 1901" section. Justification is lacking to dump huge additional verbatim sections of the Herald article into the Witnesses section. DonFB (talk) 01:07, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Using the link to the photocopy to the Bridgeport Herald I have started studying that issue and other issues available to try to find other articles written by Howell so I can see if he ever signed his articles with his name. The search is complicated, because all illustrations in Bridgeport Herald are drawings. And after looking at several hundred articles in several issues I have still not found a single article by any journalist which is signed with the author's name.

So it is not an exception but rather the rule that the journalists who wrote the Bridgeport Herald did not sign their articles with their names. I have found several sports articles, all without an author name. Roger491127 (talk) 00:21, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Once again you are performing original research. Please stick to what the sources say, or put your research into a book and get it published. This is an encyclopedia article, not a research paper. Binksternet (talk) 00:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I have no plans to write in the article about what I found out studying the Bridgeport Herald. I am just informing other editors, especially those who have questioned that Howell was the author of the article, because it was not signed, that no articles in the Bridgeport Herald are signed by an author. Roger491127 (talk) 00:54, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

It's interesting that you apparently take the lack of reporter bylines as proof of Howell's authorship. DonFB (talk) 01:32, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I have never said that the lack of reporter bylines is a proof of Howell's authorship. In fact, I have pointed out that it doesn't matter who the author was, so why would I be interested in proving who the author was? I just informed the other editors that there was nothing strange about the fact that the article lacked a byline, no articles in the Bridgeport Herald are signed by an author.

I think this text should be included in the article, for several reasons: it gives a detailed description of how nr 21 performed as a car, on different types of ground. It shows what speed it was capable of, which is very important for its ability to lift off.

"Howell describes how Whitehead and Cellie travelled in the airplane, which worked as a car when the wings were folded along its sides, and Dickie and Howell followed on bicycles.

The machine rolls along the ground on small wooden wheels, only a foot in diameter, and, owing to their being so small, the obstructions in the road made it rock from on side to the other in an alarming fashion at times when the speed was fast. After reaching the Protestant Orphan asylum at the corner of Fairfield avenue and Ellsworth street there is a clear stretch of macadam road the the flying automobile was sent spinning along the road at the rate of twenty miles an hour. For short distances from then on the speed was close to thirty miles but as the road was not straight or level for any distance this rate of speed could not be maintained. There seems no doubt that the machine, even with its present common board wheels of only a foot in diameter, can reel off forty miles an hour and not exert the engine to its fullest capacity.The location selected to fly the machine was back of Fairfield along the highway where there is a large field and few trees to avoid in flying the air ship." Roger491127 (talk) 01:50, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

We have both independently inserted the same text into the article about the four flights GW claimed for Aug 1901. My preference is for keeping it in the "Connecticut 1902" section, instead of the Witness section. I'll leave it to you to decide which one to delete.

Regarding your proposal above, summarize the point about the machine's speed in two sentences, maximum, and put it in the "Connecticut 1901" section. DonFB (talk) 01:55, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Done, and done. Roger491127 (talk) 02:32, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Trying to find a copy of Howells article

I tried to use the wayback machine to find a copy of Howell's article which www.wright-brothers.org has deleted, to no success yet.

During my search I found this interesting text:

"Despite rumors of an agreement between the Smithsonian and the Wright estate, an actual contract remained elusive. O'Dwyer noted that during a 1969 conversation with Paul Garber, then the NASM's curator of early aircraft, Garber denied that any such agreement existed, adding that he 'could never agree to such a thing.'

Then came, as O'Dwyer expressed it, 'a whole new ball game.' On June 29, 1975, at an annual dinner meeting of international museum directors at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, CAHA officers overheard a loud argument between Louis Casey, then a NASM curator, and Harold S. Miller, an executor of the Wright estate. During the argument, Miller used the word 'contract' three times. Casey had mentioned that the wording of the label on the Wright Flyer was to undergo a change. Miller heatedly insisted it could not be changed 'by contract.' Miller won."

This shows 1: Garber (Smithsonian) denied the existence of a contract. 2: The word contract was used by Miller, something which has been marked with "reference needed" in the article. Roger491127 (talk) 18:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I suspected that they would delete that page a year ago so I made a copy of the web page. It may not exist on the web anymore but I found this copy on my hard disk:

deleted article text Roger491127 (talk) 11:12, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have overlooked my correction of this problem. In the article History entry of 14:34 on May 25, you will see that I changed the URL to the correct one, which links to the page of the "Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company" website which contains the Bridgeport Sunday Herald article about GW's reported flight. Thus, the article continues to exist on the worldwide web, as it has for years. DonFB (talk) 04:52, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I was talking about the external link at the bottom of the page, which was dead, I used your url to fix it now. I now delete the article text which I had placed above this discussion, because it is now unnecessary. Roger491127 (talk) 10:57, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the November 23, 1948 contract, Douglas Malan writes that the Smithsonian and the executors of the Wright estate put the contract in place because of the previous Langley business, the expensive and ultimately failed effort spent on trying to prove Langley's claim to priority flight, not at all because of Whitehead. Our article here should mention this. Binksternet (talk) 15:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

List of our best sources

Scholars & historians

• Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith, British aviation historian renowned for his research on aviation pioneers. Active from WWII through to 1979 as the first holder of the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History during which he researched the Wright papers. Gibbs-Smith determined that Whitehead did not fly; he called the 1901–1902 claims "mere flights of fancy" (imagination). Gibbs-Smith wrote an unpublished manuscript titled The Flight Claims of Gustave Whitehead, which Tom D. Crouch used for a source. In 1970 he wrote "The Sorry Affair of Gustave Whitehead and His Alleged Powered Flight", a journal article published in Aeronautics and Astronautics.
• William F. Trimble, aviation historian, professor and scholar at Auburn University. Wrote High frontier: a history of aeronautics in Pennsylvania; on pages 57–58 he describes the supposed steam-powered flight in 1899 as the result of "overactive imaginations".
• Tom D. Crouch, PhD in history, senior curator at NASM. Crouch wrote a biography of the Wright brothers and a history of early aviation. In 2002's A dream of wings: Americans and the airplane, 1875–1905, he researched a wide swath of early news and magazine accounts of Whitehead, and he studied Stella Randolph and William O'Dwyer's work. Crouch says "not a shred of evidence" supports the 1899 claim. He says the affidavits are a confused and contradictory mess and "cannot be accepted as evidence for the flight." After detailed debunking, Crouch points to the fact that Whitehead turned his back on the supposedly successful aircraft designs and instead regressed to building gliders designed by other men. "The story is one of press agentry and wishful thinking triumphant." Crouch belittles the effort to build a modern "replica" of the Whitehead No. 21 due to the absence of any original plans or engineering data. In 1990 he wrote that nothing further has "materially strengthened" the pro-Whitehead argument since 1937. "The story was not true then and it is not true today."
• John B. Crane, Harvard professor of economics in the 1930s and '40s. In 1936 he investigated the Whitehead claims and found the evidence "inconclusive".
• I.B. Holley, PhD in history at Duke University. Holley reviewed Crouch's book for Air University Review and found one niggling mistake, where an episode from 1936 was sourced from a 1901 account. Otherwise, Holley calls Whitehead's assertions to being first in manned, powered flight "highly dubious claims".
• Walter Boyne, NASM director, wrote The influence of air power upon history. "Gustave Whitehead made fanciful claims that could never be corroborated about an aircraft of dubious strength and lift that had one mysterious engine for ground run, and another mysterious engine for flight." He wrote that no one but the Wright brothers "had a development line" which could lead "in a reasonable time to a controllable, man-carrying aircraft."
• Fred Howard, early aviation historian who co-edited the multi-volume Wright brothers' papers for the Library of Congress. In Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers, he uses Gustave Whitehead as the leading example of a group of "fraudulent" claimants who are "sometimes self-deluded experimenters, mountebanks, and outright fakers and liars". He says that the affidavit asserting the Wright brothers visiting Bridgeport was false, that neither brother ever set foot in Bridgeport.
• Biographiq, an organization that composes standard biography texts: The Wright Brothers: Beyond the First Flight, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC, 2008. "Those who promote the legacy of Gustave Whitehead now accuse the Smithsonian of refusing to investigate claims of earlier flights."

These sources stand as the mainstream viewpoint because they are at the top level of WP:RS. Binksternet (talk) 04:44, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Great research job, Binksternet.

Perversely, some might say, I do find a "they protest too much" tone to the high-level debunking of Whitehead. I have two of the top level sources: Crouch's Bishop's Boys, and Howard's Wilbur and Orville. They both exhibit this tendency. Their debunking is a combination of innuendo, sneering and entitlement. In none of the sources that I have read do I see hard, factual data or testimony that could obliterate the GW claims as thoroughly as the debunkers would like to think they are doing. Crane, of course, played both sides of the fence, as this article documents. Anyway, this is my personal opinion. But it does inform my attitude regarding the affidavits.

I might be incorrect, but I think the affidavits stand at equal height with the Herald article as primary sources, although technically I suppose the newspaper article is considered a "secondary" source. That is why I have favored inclusion of some representative snippets from the affidavits in the article. And to give credit where it's due, at least the people who gave affidavit testimonies put their names on the documents, which is more than can be said for the Herald article.

Having said all this, I would encourage you, if time and interest allow, to add some of this mainstream stuff to the article, because I think the material is still too thinly represented in the text and the references. The Introduction and the Legacy sections would be good places, most likely. DonFB (talk) 05:38, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Other people, non-scholars, who write against Whitehead:

• Nick Engler is a woodworker, an airplane builder, a model builder, an "aviation archaeologist", a writer, a pilot, and the founder and director of the Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company (WBAC), a non-profit group which runs a virtual museum website. Engler does not have university credentials; he has "followed his passion" in studying the Wright brothers and early aviation.
• Louis Chmiel, researcher at the WBAC and co-builder of a 1905 Flyer replica, is often called a "Wright historian". Author James Tobin calls him "a tough and tireless detective on the trail of the Wrights." I don't know what Chmiel's scholarly credentials might be, but I suspect they are similar to Engler's.
• Stephen Kirk, Wright brothers author, earned a masters degree (MFA) at University of North Carolina-Greensboro. He wrote First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina, in which he says Whitehead changed his story of 1901 from flying a half mile to flying a mile and a half. Kirk describes the historiography of the dispute, with Whitehead dead and almost forgotten in 1927, then revived with national coverage of his claims in 1935, '37, and '45. He writes that if Whitehead had succeeded and the Wright brothers failed, "the dream of powered flight would have been just as distant from the people of their time as if they never existed"—it was the Wright brothers who made aviation a commercial success.
• James P. Harrison, pilot who became an avid lay historian and writer, author of Mastering the Sky: A History of Aviation from Ancient Times to the Present. Harrison says of Whitehead that "few have accepted the veracity of his tales." Also, "...inconsistencies in the claims have so far left most unconvinced."
• Martin Caidin, famous aviation writer not known for his accuracy or scholarship, in 1979's Kill Devil Hill (co-written with novelist Harry Combs) repeats Gibbs-Smith's phrase "flights of fancy" regarding the unconvincing "accumulated evidence" of Whitehead's supporters.
• Otto Johnson, mechanical engineer and publisher of the series Information Please Almanac, writes in his 1997 almanac "The current opinion of the Smithsonian is that none of Gustave Whitehead's planes actually flew and the controversy remains." Binksternet (talk) 13:49, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Why does the article depend so heavily on Georg K. Weissenborn's "Did Whitehead Fly?", on Frank Delear's "Gustave Whitehead and the First-Flight Controversy", and on Douglas Malan's "The Man Who Would Be King: Gustave Whitehead and the battle with the Smithsonian"? Who are these guys Weissenborn, Delear and Malan? I cannot discover their aviation credentials. Binksternet (talk) 01:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Early Smithsonian support of Whitehead against the Wrights

Why does the article fail to discuss the earlier position of the Smithsonian Institution against the Wright brothers, in favor of claims by Whitehead, Curtiss and Langley? Smithsonian staffer Albert Francis Zahm in 1914 toured Europe and was aghast at the ascendancy of European aviation compared to the U.S.—he determined that the Wright brothers fighting to defend their patents was a national disgrace, keeping the U.S. behind in technology while the Europeans moved ahead. Zahm, as far as I know, never accepted the Wright brothers' prominence. As late as 1945, in Early Powerplane Fathers: Henson, Goupil, Ader, Zahm wrote that "Whitehead accomplished: (1) the first high flight, (2) the first long flight, (3) first closed-circuit flight, (4) first flight over and landing on water, (5) first with passenger, (6) first with internal-combustion engine."

The disagreement was so serious that, for two decades, the Smithsonian did not want to have the Wright Flyer exhibited in their museum. Here in this article, we skip over this part and make the Smithsonian appear to be entirely against Whitehead. It should be made clear that the Smithsonian position shifted 180 degrees in 1945–1948. Binksternet (talk) 14:11, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Wright_Flyer#Debate_with_the_Smithsonian reads as a Curtiss/Langley problem rather than anything to do with Whitehead. GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:17, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

That's true. Smithsonian support for Whitehead appears to have come only after 1935, from Zahm. I don't know what the Smithsonian official position was regarding Whitehead before the Stella Randolph book. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the Smithsonian has not always been doggedly defensive as they are described in this article regarding the Wright's claim to being first. Binksternet (talk) 15:43, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Replies to the entries above

"William F. Trimble, aviation historian, professor and scholar at Auburn University. Wrote High frontier: a history of aeronautics in Pennsylvania; on pages 57–58 he describes the supposed steam-powered flight in 1899 as the result of "overactive imaginations"."

Note that he is ignoring the flights in 1901, and talks about the Whitehead flight which has the least support in sources. Whitehead himself never mentioned it, maybe because he saw it as a failure because it ended in a crash, maybe because it never happened. Only Darvarich has described this flight, and it gets some support from fireman Devane.

To choose the least documented flight to discredit Whitehead is a really cheap shot.

"John B. Crane, Harvard professor of economics in the 1930s and '40s. In 1936 he investigated the Whitehead claims and found the evidence "inconclusive"."

This entry totally ignores that Crane reversed his position a year later, after more research, and as late as 1945 repeated his support for Whitehead's flights. This is a direct lie about Crane's position, if written after 1936.

"Fred Howard, early aviation historian who co-edited the multi-volume Wright brothers' papers for the Library of Congress. In Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers, he uses Gustave Whitehead as the leading example of a group of "fraudulent" claimants who are "sometimes self-deluded experimenters, mountebanks, and outright fakers and liars". He says that the affidavit asserting the Wright brothers visiting Bridgeport was false, that neither brother ever set foot in Bridgeport."

If Whitehead was a liar he must have had many co-conspirators who backed up his lies, at least 20 people of very different ages must have been participating in this big conspiracy.

"Biographiq, an organization that composes standard biography texts: The Wright Brothers: Beyond the First Flight, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC, 2008. "Those who promote the legacy of Gustave Whitehead now accuse the Smithsonian of refusing to investigate claims of earlier flights.""

Yes, that is right. The Smithsonian has acted in very strange ways visavi Whitehead for more than a hundred years. One of the earliest examples is how the Smithsonian secretly sent an assistant to find out as much as possible about Whitehead's airplane, especially the motor, at an exhibition in Atlanta instead of approaching Whitehead himself and ask him about his airplane. Some of the latest examples are Garber, who denied the existence of a contract forbidding the Smithsonian to mention any motorised flights before the Wright brothers, and it took O'Dwyer many years, senatorial clout and the Freedom of Information Act to release it, and Dr. Peter L. Jakab, chairman of the Aeronautics Division at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (NASM), who said:

""How strange, having solved one the world's oldest scientific/engineering problems with such spectacular success, Whitehead would neglect to mention it to his wife?"."

which is either a direct lie or a sign of flagrant incompetence, as The Bridgeport Sunday Post reported, in a 1940 interview, that Mrs. Whitehead said her husband's first words upon returning home from Fairfield on August 14, 1901, were an excited, "Mama, we went up!"

Louis Chmiel and Nick Engler choose an alternative way to discredit Whitehead, they don't try to deny that he actually flew, instead they say that "Even if someone someday produces a photo of No. 21 in flight on August 14, 1901, it will be nothing more than a footnote, a curious anomaly in the history of aviation."

"Stephen Kirk, Wright brothers author, earned a masters degree (MFA) at University of North Carolina-Greensboro. He wrote First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina, in which he says Whitehead changed his story of 1901 from flying a half mile to flying a mile and a half."

It is obvious that Stephen Kirk does not understand that more than one flight was made August 14, 1901.

"Martin Caidin, famous aviation writer not known for his accuracy or scholarship, in 1979's Kill Devil Hill (co-written with novelist Harry Combs) repeats Gibbs-Smith's phrase "flights of fancy" regarding the unconvincing "accumulated evidence" of Whitehead's supporters."

A lot of people have repeated Gibbs-Smith's judgement which was based on the Smithsonian and Orville Wright who based part of his text on Stanley Beach who was angry at Whitehead because Whitehead told him that Beach's airplane could not work.

Dickie's statements, who obviously had built up a lot of anger towards Whitehead over the years, because he thought that his father had not been paid for the occasions when his father used his horse to help Whitehead, have also been used often to discredit Whitehead, until O'Dwyer's phone interview with Dickie revealed Dickie's anger and refusal to say anything which could support Whitehead. Roger491127 (talk) 17:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)