Talk:Wright Flyer III

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Regarding the following excerpt from the Flyer III article:

"it crashed at Fort Myer, Virginia.....After being abandoned...."

I believe two separate aircraft were actually involved. The 1905 Flyer, which they remodeled and tested at Kitty Hawk in May 1908, suffered a serious crash there with Wilbur piloting. They abandoned it at the site; pieces were later recovered and the Flyer eventually restored and displayed at Dayton. The machine that crashed at Fort Myer was built by Orville between May and September of 1908, specifically for the Army demonstration flights. After crashing at Kitty Hawk, Wilbur departed for France to make demo flights with a machine they had shipped to Europe in 1907. 4.227.255.180 01:12, 21 March 2006 (UTC) DonFB

Isn't the Fort Myer's crash the one that killed Thomas Selfridge? Ydorb 17:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Flyer 1908, another aircraft

It seems that the 1908 Flyer is not a Flyer III; it is a two seater aircraft instead of prone position single. Plxdesi january 08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.102.4.123 (talk) 22:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

First two-seater

The Flyer III became the first two-seater they built, not the 2nd. However, it was not a two-seater until they modified it for the practice flights they made at Kitty Hawk in May 1908. The 2nd two-seater to fly was the airplane Wilbur assembled spring-summer 1908 in France (1st flight in August). The third was the airplane Orville and Charlie Taylor built in Dayton for the 1908 Ft. Myer tests (1st flight in September). DonFB (talk) 02:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

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Caption

@Koplimek: I revised the first flight caption to attribute identifications to the Library of Congress. I don't think eyeballing a photo enlargement can really count as a reliable or verifiable source. On the other hand, I would agree that the running man does not look very much like Wilbur, and the other guy looks like he could be someone other than Taylor. But I think we have to come down on the side of attributing the IDs to an actual source, rather than our own guesswork. The quote I added and cited has been included in the photo file info page since the upload. DonFB (talk) 06:37, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi Don FB, it's been a long time. Yeah, the man on the right is definitely not Charlie Taylor nor Will. Will wasn't heavy set with a paunch. The running man may or may not be Charlie depending on how he grew his hair. For a good idea of how Charlie looked around this time there's a pic of him and Wilbur at the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration fastening a canoe to a Flyer. Interesting enough he and Wilbur interact in the 1909 Wright Military trials at Ft. Myer. There are several versions of this restored footage on Youtube, my favorite being the 'bellisimo score' version:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xparRfhnNGc

Also this photo of the 1901 Glider purports to be Orville standing beside the machine. But enlarging the photo leaves one to differ. I digress though. What do you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers#/media/File:Wright1901GliderBottom.jpg

Koplimek (talk) 16:16, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the Ft. Myer film; I've seen clips but not such full coverage. I didn't see images in it that were clearly Charlie with Orville, though Charlie might be in the posed lineup of men just before the flight--shirtsleeves, arms folded. Agree, man on right in first flight photo of III is decidedly not Wilbur, but is there any evidence he's Huffman and not Charlie? Man standing with 1901 glider is certainly Orville--mustache visible, overall looks like him, and identified as him on the LOC photo info page. DonFB (talk) 19:17, 2 April 2023 (UTC)