Brian posted some good photos of the site a ways back and I'm trying to sort out the flight paths with this image. The flights followed the red line, not the green? Where did that 852ft flight end up? Must have been close to the water?
Which two photographs is Tom referring to Simplex?

http://i61.tinypic.com/10psoib.jpg

And go back to your post #530...

There's a fifth person (or Bigfoot) standing next to a tree....

http://i62.tinypic.com/2celu1g.jpg

The picture ([First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 a.m.; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina]) does not appear show too much shoreline and what seems to be waves is in reality small sand dunes, but again you have to study the entire large size 17.2 MB TIFF and not the small formats or just cropped images because they can be misleading.

What I see on the large format picture is, from left to right,: (1) large distant sand dunes, the horizon line is not visible, (2) a zone that appears to end at the horizon, a lot of small sand dunes, like waves, can be seen stretching from relatively close to the foot of the hill to the horizon line, there can be water in the distance, it is not clear, (3) an area of sand that ends in a long dune situated far away close to the horizon.

That thing that looks like a possible ship on smaller pictures is in fact placed on that long sand dune (3) so, most likely, it is a building or a tree.

The Atlantic ocean would have been about 2.5 km away (see: http://goo.gl/maps/d76bt ) supposing the place, where the photo was made, was correctly located many years after the event and the two brothers flew in the direction indicated by the alley.

Harry P. Moore, a journalist, talked by phone with one of the Life Savers and he was told that the Wright brothers' machine, piloted by Orville, "after it glided down a hill on a wooden track, it went up"

One of the Life Savers, it is not clear if he was John T. Daniels, told by phone Harry P. Moore, on Dec. 17, 1903, that the plane went up after going down a hill on a wooden track. So it is clear the plane was aided by gravity to leave the ground, the airplane being launched using an incline.

However, despite talking by phone with one of the witnesses, finally Harry Moore ended up by writing an article titled: "Flying machine soars 3 miles in teeth of high wind over sand hills and waves at Kitty Hawk on Carolina coast" that appeared on the Virginian-Pilot on the December 18, 1903 and evidently was a clear lie.
One thing is sure, the 1933 letter of John T. Daniels and the 1951 declarations of Harry P. Moore, both, placed the Wrights' plane on a hill before its first take off on Dec. 17, 1903.

"Harry P. Moore, a 19-year old freelance cub reporter, was sitting in a Norfolk restaurant when he overheard a man from the Outer Banks say that “two crazy loons” were in Kitty Hawk, attempting to fly. The man—whom Moore would later describe as garrulous—told Moore that he was a member of the U.S. Life-Saving Service and had come to Norfolk to buy a barrel of oysters for the inventors: “They wanted to get some Lynnhaven Oysters before they die, and I came [here] to get them,” he explained. At the time, Moore was trying to get a full time job with the Virginian-Pilot. He had written a number of stories about the Life-Saving Service along the Outer Banks, and enjoyed good relations with many of the men who worked for the U.S. government agency, which grew out of private and local humanitarian efforts to save the lives of shipwrecked mariners and passengers. The Life-Saving Service began in 1848 and was merged into the U.S. Coast Guard in 1915.
Following up on the Lynnhaven oyster tip, Moore made several visits to Kitty Hawk in the ensuing months. William “Will” O. Dough and John T. Daniels, both attached to the Kitty Hawk Life-Saving Station, introduced Moore to the Wright brothers as their friend. The Wrights trusted the men from the Life-Saving Service, and though they were intent on secrecy, they did not suspect he was a newsman. Moore actually observed several glider flights and was able to write a description of the Wright Flyer from observing it in its hanger. He was also able to get a commitment from Dough and Daniels, who agreed “to keep him advised about developments, and if the Wrights did succeed in flying they were to telegraph me at Norfolk,” Moore told the Charlotte Observer in 1951.
<i>The Life-Saving Service men kept their word. Moore said that he got a telegraph “less than twenty minutes after the first flight was made.” The telegrapher at the Norfolk weather bureau, Charles C. Grant, delivered the message in person to Moore at his home in Norfolk <b>at about 11:4

Dear Mr. Simplex -

Here's a USGS topographical map of the area with 5 foot contour intervals (click on it for a larger version). I made it just for you.

As you can see, all of the Dec. 17, 1903 flights, including the longest 852 foot flight shown by the red arrow, started and ended in the middle of a very large planar area located between the 10' and 5' contour lines.

I accept your apology.


http://www.teamandras.com/temp/Wright_Topo_Small.jpg

Thanks for the map! :)

So once away from that hill, there's not much of an incline at all. Interestingly, I thought they headed straight for the ocean, but it's at an angle...

Cheers.

Now that you mention it, the long rectangle is the current runway so that appears to confirm the prevailing winds.

eetrojan, I think that we can expect simplex to now tell us that the hill has been moved. That's the only way they could have launched on the 17th using an incline.

The 1988 topographical map of the area where the Wright brothers allegedly flew in Dec. 1903 is irrelevant because sand dunes move in time.

Even in 1928, when the location was found based on all kind of quite dubious data (see the quoted text), the landscape was significantly different of what was there in 1903. Supposing the Wright brothers had recorded the precise latitude and longitude coordinates of their flights, after 25 years the slope where they took off from could have transformed in a flat stretch of sand.

Also the National Aeronautical Association would not have had any interest to establish the location, where the claimed first flight started, on a hill. It is self evident this organization did everything possible to move the so called historical flight over flat terrain.

"In 1928, The National Aeronautical Association wanted to suitably mark the spot where Orville Wright first began to move along the ground when the first flight was made.

The Association asked Bill Tate to assemble the eyewitnesses to the event for the purpose of agreeing and marking the spot.

The eyewitnesses were:
Adam Etheridge, John Daniels, and Will Dough from the local lifesaving station, and W.C. Brinkley, a local lumber buyer from Manteo, and Johnny Moore, a young man who lived with his mother in a shack in Nags Head woods.
Tate was able to find Dough, Etheridge, and Moore to perform the task. Daniels and Orville Wright were not able to attend. The others were deceased.

The task was not easy because the landscape had significantly changed since 1903. Getting the correct spot was important because the association was planning to erect a monument at the spot and they did not want any future disputes over the location.

Here are the exact words (misspellings and all) of their finding:

“Beginning with the site of the building which housed the Wrights’ plane at the time, distinctly remembering the wind direction at the time, and that the track was laid directly in the wind, collaborating our memory on these facts by the records of the Weather Bureau, remembering that we helped bring the machine from the building and placed it on the track, referring to distances laid down in feet in Orville Wrights article, “How We made our first flight.”
“We proceeded to agree upon the spot, and we individually and collectively state without the least mental reservation, that the spot we located is as near correct as it is humanly possible to be with the data in hand to work from after a lapse of twenty five years. We marked the spot with a copper pipe driven into the ground.”
In 1932 at this location, The American Aeronautical Association placed a large granite boulder containing a commemorative plaque consisting of the pictures of Orville and Wilbur and a statement that reads, “THEY TAUGHT US TO FLY.”"

Source: Finding the Location of the First Flight in 1928

The Dec. 17, 1903 flight was witnessed, among others, by Adam Etheridge, John Daniels, and Will Dough.

Simplex, you reference "The Wright Stories" website regarding how, in 1928, Etheridge, Daniels, and Dough identified the spot from where the first flight was made. However, you focus on language like "the task was not easy" and the "landscape had significantly changed" to suggest that it was an endeavor entirely without merit.

The more important parts of the quote are emphasized here, by me:

My dear Simplex, the building is still there. Think about it. It served as a monument in time - as an unyielding reference point. And, starting from the building, they jointly agreed upon their memories of the launch spot being at a location that is about 80 feet west of the building. Yes, feet.

Yet you seem to have concocted some "tinfoil hat" scenario where they were wandering mindlessly over an area of several square miles, while avoiding nearby sand dunes to do their part for the conspiracy.

The launch spot they identified is inherently accurate to within several feet.

Also, please note that while the launch spot is about 80 feet away from the building, the building is about 1,500 feet away from the BASE of kill devil hill.

Google Earth is your friend.

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.

http://www.teamandras.com/temp/Wright_1903-12-17.jpg

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.


http://www.teamandras.com/temp/Wrigh...1940_Small.jpg

[quoteSantos-Dumont renounced the canard wings in the beginning of 1907, Bleriot dropped them in spring 1907, even the Voisin brothers finally gave up canards. ][/quote]
You have to differentiate between utilising "canard " elevators and canard configuration i.e. "canards" ,in which the canard wing normally provides an element of total lift and there is no horizontal stabilising or otherwise surface to the rear of the main wing (i.e. as in the so called "three surface" configuration).
As far as I know the Voisin bothers only built one series of canard winged aircraft, as late as around 1910, predominantly as seaplanes.
Contrary to Simplex1's assertion, Maxim's aircraft was not a canard.

These guys are being very patient with you Simplex
As I said before please remember that there are aviation professionals on these forums...
I have been an aircraft engineer for over 40 years and in the past I have been a power pilot and glider pilot...

It is up to you if you want to continue trolling on this forum - and if you are not trolling you can get help for obsessional behaviour !

I have only replied to your rambling and illogical posts because I do not like to see aviation professionals discredited and also do not like to see people misled by misinformation on the internet :)

Simplex posted

He did not need to carefully study 'your' photograph - he knows these pictures very well and therefore he knows that that particular part of the coastline is flat....give it up my friend you are looking very foolish :ok:

If one studies a bit the wiki site of the Wright brothers he quickly notices that it is simpy infected with the name of Crouch that is quoted more than 30 times.
see: Wright brothers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And if one uses wiki as a reference/source then one is going to continue to look foolish :)

The argument of the slope on the beach is going to be inconclusive, Anyone who has lived next to a beach will know that the size and slope will change under wind, drift and tidal influences and these changes can take place in quite short time scales. I fully suspect that the cartographers didn't show contours on a beach as they may have changed even by the time the map is printed.

But it is a flat area Dan - 'Simplex' is saying that all the wright flights were from a slope - that is when he is not saying that they were all faked anyway!
But being as there must be more than one 'simplex' to keep up the previous posting rate - then we draw our own conclusions :)

If nothing else, this protracted 'debate' has presumably enabled a lot
of readers to gain an understanding, they may not have previously had,
of the genius of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Even to see slurs caste upon the name and reputation of Tom Crouch has an upside when the refutations come hard and fast. Those who would blacken leave many a grubby hand print.

Indeed Fantome, and if your moniker is named after the Fairey product you would indeed appear to be a person of taste! :)

I am seeing a case here of if it 'ain't want I (ME) believe' it cannot be right. That is clearly crass. Not even Mr Crouch who has been close enough to the facts, the site, and with the history in written terms before him and, who knows, other factors that the photographs prove to be inconclusive - though others don't


The one above shows that the horizon is not 'level' - it shows that the wings are not level. Both allow for deceptive matters to creep in. Little, but then photographs do lie!


Whatever. This subject is going round in circles with simplex1 almost insisting that his take is spot on. I don't agree and neither does Mr Crouch. It is, therefore, a matter of what the museum thinks of it and I know who my money is on.


It is a matter of corroborated record of what happened so who are we to try and change history.


The matter is over gentlemen. The end was in sight some days ago and that is where it stops. Thanks all the same.