Wrights set record straight on the first flight

DAYTON, Ohio — It had not been our intention to make any detailed public statement concerning the private trials of our power "Flyer" on the 17th of December last; but since the contents of a private telegram, announcing to our folks at home the success of our trials, was dishonestly communicated to the newspaper men at the Norfolk office, and led to the imposition upon the public, by persons who never saw the "Flyer" or its flights, of a fictitious story incorrect in almost every detail; and since this story together with several pretended interviews or statements, which were fakes pure and simple, have been very widely disseminated, we feel impelled to make some correction.

The real facts were as follows:

On the morning of December 17th, between the hours of 10:30 o'clock and noon, four flights were made, two by Orville Wright and two by Wilbur Wright. The starts were all made from a point on the level sand about 200 feet west of our camp, which is located a quarter of a mile north of the Kill Devil sand hill, in Dare County, North Carolina.

The wind at the time of the flights had a velocity of 27 miles an hour at ten o'clock, and 24 miles an hour at noon, as recorded by the anemometer at the Kitty Hawk Weather Bureau Station.

This anemometer is thirty feet from the ground. Our own measurements, made with a hand anemometer at a height of four feet from the ground, showed a velocity of about 22 miles when the first flight was made, and 20 1/2 miles at the time of the last one.

The flights were directly against the wind. Each time the machine started from the level ground by its own power alone, with no assistance from gravity, or any other source whatever.