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WRIGHT, Orville (1871-1948). Typed letter signed (“Orville Wright”) to Earl Findley, Dayton, 20 January 1932.
WRIGHT, Orville (1871-1948). Typed letter signed (“Orville Wright”) to Earl Findley, Dayton, 20 January 1932. One page, 267 x 184mm, on his personal letterhead. A great technical letter from Orville Wright, discussing wind resistance and the 1908 Wright Flyer. “If Pickering had been considering an airship when he stated that ‘the resistance of the air increases as the square of the speed and the work as the cube’ he would have been right. His statement is equally true of what is called ‘parasite resistance’ in flying machines, but it is not true of the resistance of the wings. In our 1908 flying machine, to which he was evidently referring, the parasite resistance at 40 mile an hour was only 27 per cent. of the total resistance of the machine. Seventy-three per cent. of the resistance was consumed by the planes to which is formula did not apply.” Wright directs Findley to a 1907 article on the subject, adding, self-deprecatingly, “I wrote the article, so it should not be trusted too far.