In late April came a letter postmarked Paris from Octave Chanute, who, to help recover from the death of his wife, had been on an extended vacation in Europe. Their experiments were attracting much attention in Paris, he reported to the brothers, adding, “It seems very queer that after having ignored all this series of gliding experiments for several years, the French should now be over-enthusiastic about them.” While in Paris he had given several talks on the subject, including one at a formal dinner conference at the Aéro-Club de France.
What the genial Chanute did not relate was how, in these talks, he had portrayed his part in the experiments, referring repeatedly to the Wrights as his “devoted collaborators.” Perhaps it was his pride in les frères, or the glow he undoubtedly felt being a center of attention in his native France where interest in aviation was great. However, the impression he conveyed was that he was their teacher, and they, his daring pupils, were carrying “his” work to fulfillment.
This was not only untrue but grossly unfair. Great as had been Chanute’s interest and encouragement, the brothers had never in any way been his pupils or collaborators. All they had achieved was their own doing, gained by their own original study and effort. Exactly when and how they learned of what Chanute had said in Paris is unclear, but it was not something they were happy about or would forget.
Of far greater consequence, however, was Chanute’s admirable emphasis on the importance of their glider flights, all of which was a revelation for the French and “even a little disagreeable,” as said one of the Aéro-Club’s leaders, Comte Henri de La Vaulx. It was time for French aviation experimenters “to get seriously to work if they did not wish to be left behind.”
In his speech and in numerous conversations while in France, Chanute had also provided a great deal of information on the details of the Wright glider, and this would indeed have a profound impact on French aviation.
Chanute had agreed to write something for the influential publication L’Aérophile, he informed Wilbur, and would need pictures of him and Orville without delay. After allowing a few weeks to slip by, Wilbur replied good-naturedly that they did not know how to refuse when Chanute had put the matter so nicely, but on the other hand they had not the courage to face a camera.
By mid-May, Chanute was back home and wanted to set a date for Wilbur to come again to Chicago and again address the Western Society of Engineers. He also wished to visit the brothers in Dayton quite soon as he had information he wished to deliver in person. He arrived the morning of June 6 and returned to Chicago that same night. In the course of the day’s conversation he told the brothers he was giving up his own experiments. From here on, he said, it was all up to them.
Wilbur spoke before the gathering in Chicago the evening of June 24, and with considerably more confidence and spirit than he had two years earlier. He described in some detail the breakthrough he and Orville had achieved with the glider they tested at Kitty Hawk the previous fall. He said much about the part the study of birds had played in their work, and of the glides they were able to achieve, putting particular emphasis, as he had before, on the necessity of skill at the controls. More than machinery skill was needed.
“A thousand glides is equivalent to about four hours of steady practice,” he told the audience, and this was “far too little to give anyone a complete mastery of the art of flying.
Since soaring is merely gliding in a rising current, it would be easy to soar in front of any hill of suitable slope, whenever the wind blew with sufficient force to furnish support, provided the wind were steady. But by reason of changes in wind velocity there is more support at times than is needed, while at others there is too little, so that a considerable degree of skill, experience, and sound judgment is required in order to keep the machine exactly in the rising current. . . . Before trying to rise to any dangerous height a man ought to know that in an emergency his mind and muscles will work by instinct rather than conscious effort. There is no time to think.
A continuing study of soaring birds had convinced him that man could build wings that had as little or less resistance than even the best of birds. But that was not the point, or the lesson from birds. “The birds’ wings are undoubtedly very well designed indeed, but it is not any extraordinary efficiency that strikes with astonishment but rather the marvelous skill with which they are used.”
At the close Wilbur declared still again, “The soaring problem is apparently not so much one of better wings as of better operators.”
Asked during a brief discussion period what he thought of experiments being conducted by Alexander Graham Bell to hoist a man into the air with a giant kite, Wilbur replied, “It is very bad policy to ask one flying machine man about the experiments of another, because every flying machine man thinks that his method is the only correct one.”