Description:

Wright Orville


Orville Wright Typed Letter Signed on Trying to Piece Together Parts From the 1911 Glider

 

Single typed letter signed,  8.5" x 11", on The Wright Company , Dayton Ohio letterhead. Dated "November 23, 1916", and by Orville Wright as "Orville Wright.", in response to a letter from Samuel Colt. Samuel Colt's letter to Orville Wright dated November 17, 1917, will accompany this lot. Both letters have usual mail folds with light toning around the edges.

 

Wright is responding to Samuel G. Colt, who appears to have inquired about what texts on aeronautics he might recommend, and to make an introduction to his cousin Robert G. Ecob. Colt had believed Wright might be interested in some of Ecob's "original schemes...on aeroplane design".  Ecob was a New York architect who also dabbled in aeronautical engineering.

Wright suggests, in part:

 

"I think the book on aeronautics which I mentioned to you, when I visited you at Pittsfield last Summer, was Duchene's 'Mechanics of the Aeroplane'. This I consider a very good book for those wishing to learn the general principles of aeronautics...For more advanced study of the subject I would recommend the British Technical Reports of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics of 1912-13. These, however, are too advanced except for those who have made a considerable study of the subject."

 

Wright also mentions trying to piece together parts from the 1911 glider and the 1905 power machine, which he had intended to give to Zenas Crane. Crane had requested the parts for an exhibit in a museum he was trying to set up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The letter has a pencil notation at the bottom margin, in an unknown hand, which reads in part, "Trans. From Fr. By John H Ledeboer B.A."


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