If you really want to get into a lot of technical details about the Wright brothers controversial flights you can go to this link:
The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew in 1908. - PPRuNe Forums
I am not going to repeat here all the things that have been said there.
Anyway, from your comments, I understand that it is not possible to say with a high degree of certitude whether that Nov. 1904 picture is genuine or not.
Thank you for your help.
Actually it is possible to say with an extremely high degree of certitude that the photograph was most likely geninue. The odds that the photograph itself was faked are practically nil. What you'd have difficulty establishing would be the actual date that the photograph was taken, but frankly for the discussion of whether or not the wright brothers glided or acheived powered flight on such and such a date really proving that would be a moot point.
Now, you might be able to make out a case that what one would consider to be "powered flight" may not have occured quite as early as claimed depending on one's definition of powered flight and how much of it involved gliding vrs truly powered flight - however, can you make a credible case that they didn't acheive it until 1908? Nope. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
If your supposition were true and the wright brothers did not have a working design capable of powered flight prior to January of 1908 then they would have to have been the stupidest guys on the planet at the time, not to mention the luckiest. In order for this theory to make any sense, the Wright brothers spent 4 years and goodness only knows how much money convincing everyone they had a flying machine that worked, even though it didn't. After wasting goodness only knows how much money faking photographs and fooling eyewitnesses, or at the very least bribing photographers to claim they took the photographs of successful flight years before they actually did, then they went and put a $2500 deposit down and submitted their plans to the US Government. They knew at the time that their machine was a hoax and wouldn't work, but they basically gave the government .. well lets see, adjusted for inflation your looking at.. hmm, what would be equal to roughly $60,000 dollars today to even consider the proposal knowing full well it wouldn't work and they'd lose all that money.
Then, after pulling off the scam of the century, possibly the greatest scam in all of recorded history, suddenly their machine which never worked before miraculously starts peforming far beyond anyone's wildest dreams? That doesn't strike you as being, well, pretty ludicrous really?
So, your evidence to support this? Apparently a couple of eye witnesses out of, what, hundreds? Expressed doubts? Lets see, one eye witness claimed the glided rather than flew under power. Ok, well since there was no such thing as a "expert" in powered aviation here at the time I guess my first question would be, what makes this eye witness even remotely close to being credible?
Lets say, just for the sake of argument, that this guy was there, saw the whole thing and was right, the plane glided rather than flew under power. If they had a propeller running how would this guy know the difference? How could he possibly determine, just from watching, if the plane actually flew under power or if it glided without some kind of scientific measurements and some calcluations concerning the thrust to weight ratio, the lift coefficient, etecera?
No way he could be. His eyewitness testimony isn't even worth the paper it was printed on, or in for that matter. Simply observing the test there would be no real way to determine if the plane actually achieved powered flight or not with any real degree of certainty, especially since he'd never seen powered flight before and would really have little if no idea what to look for at the time anyway.
So if your claim was maybe the original flyer didn't work as well as claimed, well that would be plausible. The claim that they didn't acheive powered flight until 1908 and everything up to that point was faked? Laughable, at best. Sorry, but it just doesn't track at all. I find it far more likely, assuming your initial assumption is correct and what took place in 1903 was more due to gliding than powered flight that they had probably made a lot of improvements in the time after the flight up to 1908, so even if their first test flight had more to do with dumb luck and just the right wind conditions by the time those 4 years had passed hat had acheived sustainable, reproducable powered flight - at least a few years before 1908. It's the only thing that makes sense.
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