Simplex, please at least try to be consistent.
While nobody else can see what you see, you have repeatedly contended that the famous 1903 photo “clearly” shows a slope in front of the plane such that it was aided by land that dropped away as it moved forward.
Channeling Inspector Clouseau, and based on your detective-like "observation" of this slope, you contend that its "clear" that the Flyer merely glided. There are probably dozens of examples, but the following two should suffice:
- In Post 169, you contended that “the slope in front of the plane revealed itself in its entire splendor.”
- In post 666, you emailed the Smithsonian’s aeronautical curator, Tom Crouch, and asserted the same fantasy-based contention that “[t]here is a clear slope, going down in front of the 1903 Wright Flyer…” (emphasis original). He bluntly replied, “You are wrong.”
You have repeatedly contended that the land mass on the whole was sloping down. Now - faced with the fact that the 2013 topo map shows that the area is flat as a pancake, you grasp at straws, suggesting that between 1903 and 1928, when the witnesses identified the launch spot, that “the slope where they took off from could have
transformed in a flat stretch of sand.” Hogwash.
First, you haven't been contending that the Wright's stood on an ethereal pimple of a sand dune. You contended there was a "slope," a permanent geographic feature.
Second, it was flat in the 1903 picture above, and it's flat now.
Here is another USGS topo for your viewing pleasure. This one is from 1940, i.e. from over 60 years ago. Notice that the flat topography from 2013 was still flat in 1940 and, it follows, was also flat in 1903.
You take care now.
