Unlocking the Sky: Glenn Hammond Curtiss and the Race to Invent the Airplane [Hardcover]

STICKLING FOR ACCURACY

p.46 Shulman writes Katharine Wright being Orville's older sister.
-Orville was older than Katharine by 3 years. They both had the same birthday August 19.

p.97 Shulman makes claim that a wing's 'camber' & the effect of 'pitch' are one in the same.
-They are not. They are two totally different things.

p.100 The text here says Curtiss & both Wright Bros. didn't school past 8th grade.
-Not True! Both Wrights graduated High School.

p.102 It's noted here that the Dirigible enjoyed a brief era at the turn or the Century, early 1900s.
-Dirigibles were popular, especially the Zeppelins, up to the late 1930s.

p.106 Shulman correctly states the Wrights sent the crankshaft & flywheel from their 1903 Flyer's engine to the Aero Club of America for a 1906 exhibition.
-He doesn't mention that the Aero Club never sent the crankshaft & flywheel back to the Wrights & they remain lost!

p.110 Thomas Selfridge is stated to be a US Army Aviation Expert in 1907.
-Selfridge, in 1907, was a 1903 graduate of West Point, had never flown any aerial vehicle(until 1908) and perhaps not an 'expert' in aviation since there was basically no aviation to be expert in...(fixed wing flight was just being born). However Douglas MacArthur was A West Point classmate of Selfridge's.

p.134 The credit at the bottom of this page detailing how the AEA learned of aileron usage.
-Gibbs-Smith also stated(elsewhere)that info. about the Wrights' glider activities had been divulged by Octave Chanute himself perhaps to his good friend Dr Bell & certainly to the European aviation community from 1903 onwards. (Chanute had been a visitor to Kitty Hawk in 1901 & 1902).

p.160 The text says the Wrights wing warping & rudder method worked only when inter-connected.
-Not True! The Wrights successfully separated wing warping & rudder control in 1905.

p.161 the author makes a stupid analogy comparing the turbulence Curtiss's Rheims Flyer was encountering to an automoble hitting a boulder.
-If one hits a boulder at high speed in an auto one would be very dead. You don't repeatedly hit a boulder with a car at high speed & stay alive.

pgs.
174-176 These three pages about comparison to an early automobile patent.
-The author is mixing apples & oranges. This has nothing to do with the Wrights' 'FLYING MACHINE' patent.

pg.176 Henry Ford ....Big Deal!
-In 1909 Ford was just another up & coming auto maker. One of many. The Model T was only a year old & not mass produced until 1913.

p.177 Wing Warping & Rudder connections
-The Wrights' patent is explicit about the coordinated effect of rudder & wing warping. No matter the controls are connected or not.

p.189 Text mentions an 'airtight metal pontoon'
-Pontoons should always be 'watertight' one would think.

p.191 author states no airplane of the time(May 1910)could carry enough fuel to cover the 150 miles nonstop from Albany to NYC.
-Henri Farman in 1909 kept his prototype Farman III in the air for 113 miles circling a flying field in France. With bigger gas tanks this mileage could be increased.

p.192 A Dr Taylor responding to Curtiss's request for a landing spot at his Insane Asylum Grounds.

-This bit is funny & amusing. You'll have to read it.