Beschreibung:

WRIGHT, WILBUR and ORVILLE WRIGHT. Typed letter signed by Orville ("Wright Brothers O.W.") to Carl Dienstbach in New York; Dayton, Ohio, 27 March l907. One page, 4to, on printed stationery of The Wright Brothers. "WE DO NOT KNOW WHEN WE WILL MAKE OUR NEXT FLIGHT, NOR WHERE" The Wrights decline to make an exhibition flight for the Aero Club of America, a group founded in l905 in New York by a circle of aeronautics enthusiasts, some of them quite prominent socially and wealthy. Since Dienstbach had been in correspondence with the Wrights from their first flights, he relayed the Club's invitation to the brothers. "We have your two letters in regard to an exhibition flight before a select committee of the Aero Club, for which please accept our thanks. We are always glad to receive suggestions from those who are interested in our work, and from you they are especially welcome because of the very kind treatment you have accorded us in your writings [in the Illustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen, for which Dienstbach was a New York representative]. "We have given the matter careful thought; but we are of the opinion that it would not be best for us to take the time from our other work just now that would be necessary to perform such a flight. Please extend to Mr. Jones our thanks for his offer of assistance in this project. "We do not know when we will make our next flight, nor where. So many of our friends have asked for the privilege of being present at the next flight that we cannot invite them all; but it would certainly give us pleasure if the opportunity permits us to extend an invitation to you...." At the time of this letter, the Wrights, already negotiating with several governments for the sale of their aircraft, had become concerned about other aeronautical engineers possibly copying features of their successful design for the Wright Flyer, particularly its "wing-warping" method of control (even though this feature was, at least in theory, protected under the terms of their patent of 22 May l906). Several competing designers, including Glenn Curtiss and August Herring, were members of the Aero Club, and this may also have been a factor in their declining the Club's invitation. Apparently unpublished, not in Kelly, Miracle at Kitty Hawk .