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Wrights first tested the aviation market in January 1905, writing to their
congressman Robert M. Nevin and offering either to sell an airplane to the
government or to furnish information, experience, and license to use their
patents so the government could build planes of their own. Nevin's office
forwarded their letter to the United States Army Board of Ordinance and
Fortification. The response was chilly: "…the Board has found it
necessary to decline to make allotments for experimental development of…mechanical
flight." They tried again in October, writing directly to the
Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, but the answer was the same.
They also wrote the War Office in Great Britain, and initially the
British seemed interested. But they quickly reached a deadlock. To protect
their patent, the Wrights insisted that any potential buyer sign a
contract before they would make demonstration flights. If their
flying machine didn't do everything they said it would do, they would
release the buyer from the contract. It sounded fair and reasonable to the
Wright brothers, but their demands made government bureaucrats nervous.
The British War Office declared they would not deal with the Wrights until
they flew for a British representative, and there the negotiations
stopped.
Turning to France, they were initially met with disbelief and derision,
led by members of the French Aero-Club de France. If the Wrights had
actually flown for 25 miles, why wasn't the news splashed all over the
American newspapers? The French even dispatched representatives to Dayton
to investigate, then dismissed their reports when the representatives
asserted that the Wrights had done all that they had claimed. There were
some who believed, however, and the French War Ministry began to negotiate
a contract with the Wrights. But they wavered before the Wrights' $200,000
asking price, and the negotiations collapsed in the spring of 1906.
Things looked bleak, but the Wrights were slowly making headway against
the skeptics. The newly formed Aero Club of America recognized their
achievements, and the text of their resolution was reprinted in many
newspapers. Scientific American magazine, which had published
several skeptical editorials, did an about face, declaring that the
Wrights "…deserve the highest credit for having perfected the first
flying machine." And most important, on May 23 1906 the United States
granted Patent Number 821,393 to O. & W. Wright of Dayton, Ohio for a
Flying Machine. This would come to be considered the "grandfather
patent" of the airplane. In Their Own
Words Patent No. 821,343
-- The complete text and illustrations of the grandfather patent of
the airplane. |
The Wright brothers applied to the US Patent Office
in 1903. The patent was awarded in 1906 and in 1913 is was adjudicated to
be the "grandfather" patent of the airplane.
The three illustrations above accompanied the
Wright patent application. Note that the airplane shown is the 1902 glider
-- there is no motor. The patent is all about aircraft control; it
has nothing to do with power.
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