Classic Mr. Simplex. You take a 53 page paper about the "the first successful airplane" (opening paragraph), find one section that can be interpreted negatively if viewed wildly out of context, and then belch it out to argue that the Wrights' 1903 aeroplane didn't fly at all. It's laughable.
Something he does all the time unfortunately, so obsessed is he with the claim that the Wrights didn't fly until 1908. Evidence abounds otherwise.
A section from "No Longer an Island" which proves beyond doubt that the Wright did what they said they did, unless Octave was in on the deception.
As soon as they were able the Wright brothers flashed word of their success, by telegram, to their family in Dayton; and when the news was received there Katherine Wright at once sent a telegram to Octave Chanute in order to inform him. Meanwhile, a local newspaper in the vicinity of Kitty Hawk, the Norfolk Virginia-Pilot, published an account of the flights in its edition for 18 December 1903. The account was incorrect in many of its details. It claimed, for example, that the Wrights had flown a distance of three miles when the fact was that the longest of their flights was only eight hundred and fifty two feet. This report in the Virginia-Pilot was copied by some newspapers in the United States and in Europe, but it was ignored by others. Major Baden-Powell, far away in London but ever vigilant in the cause of British aviation, reacted almost at once. On 23rd December 1903, he wrote to Chanute:
….What is this I read in the daily papers about the brothers Wright having made a machine fly 3 miles? Is there any truth in this?
When Octave Chanute learned of the success of the Wright brothers he sent them his congratulations. He also enquired about when they would be ready to make the details of their achievement public knowledge. Wilbur sharply told him, in reply, and for good reason, that they were not yet prepared to furnish pictures or descriptions of their machine or their methods to anyone. However, since the newspapers continued to publish incorrect stories about what had occurred on 17 December, the Wrights prepared an accurate factual statement of their own, dated 3 January 1904, and sent to the Associated Press. When their statement was published in the Dayton Press they clipped out copies of it and mailed them to various friends and associates.
Chanute read the Associated Press statement statement when it was published in his own local newspaper, the Chicago News. Now he too began to send copies of it to his various correspondents in different parts of the world. Indeed he now launched upon a regular campaign to alert all his friends to what had taken place at those far off sand hills on the bleak North Carolina coast. He sent several copies of the Wright statement, together with explanatory letters, to his correspondents in England so that the aeronautical authorities there were soon aware of the exact details of what the Wright brothers had achieved. He wrote twice to Major Baden-Powell and sent him a copy of the Wright statement. He also wrote to Herbert Wenham, the British pioneer who had done so much to increase his own interest in aviation. When he sent a copy of the statement to Wenham he declared “To you, who first called attention to the possibility of artificial flight…..I send the first correct account which has been published of the achievement of the Wright brothers. It is a beginning, and if no accident occurs it may lead to practical results….” (Chanute to Wenham 9 January 1904)
Chanute sent the fullest and most detailed account to Patrick Y. Alexander. Chanute began his letter by telling Alexander about the invitation the Wrights had extended to him, in the previous November (Chanute to Alexander 18 January 1904):
I was very sorry not to find you in Washington, but it turned out for the best. The Wrights had built a new apparatus, provided with a motor and propellers, and were to test it November 5th. They had made a firm resolve that, besides themselves, none but the surgeon & myself be present. I had written to obtain an invitation for you but did not dare advise you. On my arrival in Washington I found a telegram inviting you to the camp, but it was yourself who had flown instead of the Wrights.
He then proceeded to supply details of the Wright success, and about their attitude after it:
I got to the camp on the 5th, only to find that on the preceding day the propeller had been twisted off the shaft in a test. It had to go to Dayton to be rebrazed. On its return the shaft itself was twisted in two, and two new shafts had to be forged and turned at Dayton.
Finally on the 17th of December (I could not stay so long) the first dynamic flight in history took place. I enclose herewith a clipping in which the Wrights state what they did do. It is a first success which cannot be pursued on account of weather. The Wrights are immensely elated. They have grown very secretive and nobody is to be allowed to see the machine at present so your chance is gone….I have not seem them and letters are now very scarce. They delayed over a year after I first advised them to apply for patents, and I suppose that now they have the inventor’s tremors that their secrets will be divulged.