This series issued by Antigua on March 28, 1978 celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Wright’s first powered flight at Kitty Hawk.

Stamps That Tell a Story

A series from Antigua celebrating the achievements of the Wrights.

This article first appeared in the October, 2002 issue of Gliding magazine. The relative temporal references (eg. “exactly one hundred years ago”) have been retained as they were originally written by the author. — Ed.

The Postal Service of Antigua issued a set of seven postage stamps plus a souvenir sheet in honour of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers in 1903. One of the stamps (top left in the montage above) shows their 1902 glider in flight.

Much has been written about the first powered flight and more than one hundred postage stamps have been issued world-wide on this thematic subject. Most likely there will be significantly more material coming in 2003, the centenary of their first sustained, controlled, powered flight.

But the soaring community is vastly interested in the gliding experiments which the two brothers did between 1899 and 1902. Because the glider, which was flown so successfully late in 1902, became the basis for their patent, it was also the basis of the powered machine.

The Wright patent, based on the 1902 glider. It became the basis for their 1903 “motorglider”. (credit: Library of Congress)

There are far fewer stamps on this subject. These Antigua stamps are probably the nicest rendering.

In May of 1899, Wilbur Wright wrote to the Smithsonian Institution and asked for information on flying machines. They spent $5.50 and received among other publications, Octave Chanute’s book Progress in Flying Machines, published in 1894 (and linked below).

A year later, they made contact with Chanute (see last month’s article) who at that time was a well-known, respected engineer and the leading authority on almost anything aviation related.

To the growing aeronautical community, Chanute was a clearing house and he always took the time to reply to letters from budding aeronautical engineers, giving input and criticism.

Many letters were exchanged between them, and Chanute became a good friend and mentor, always encouraging the brothers in their efforts. This correspondence often helped them during times of difficulty and frustration and it built their confidence in what they were doing.

Chanute was asked to join the Wrights at Kitty Hawk during their flying season in 1901 which was not very successful. He was happy to oblige. Several of the photos he took with his camera are now frequently used to document the Wright brothers’ achievements.

The Wright camp in 1901. The left shows several visitors to the Wright camp and was probably taken with Chanute’s camera. Chanute is sitting in the front and Wilbur Wright beside him. The photo on the right shows the 1901 glider being launched. (credit: Library of Congress)

The following year, Chanute was again asked to visit their camp. On October 18, 1902, their machine was launched from №2 hill, into an easterly wind.

The longest flight on that day was made by Wilbur Wright, a distance of 552ft and almost 25 seconds in duration.

A few ‘adjustments’ were made and then, on October 23, Wilbur made the best gliding flights ever, flying 622.5ft with a 26 second duration. The groundspeed was calculated as 24ft/s.

On the left is the 1902 machine being launched on October 18st and flown possibly on October 23rd during the 26 second flight. (credit: Library of Congress)

This well known photo on the right, above, may have been taken of this 26 second flight. It seems to be the photo used for the design of the postage stamp for Antigua. This flight was flown exactly one hundred years ago, which is reason to celebrate.

A few days later, the Wrights broke camp and went back to Dayton. The events of the 1903 flying season changed the world forever.

©2002, 2023 Simine Short

Resources

• Progress in Flying Machines by Octave Chanute, published in 1894. — The Library of Congress (LOC) has the complete volume available for PDF download. Once you start poking around the treasure trove of aviation-related items at the LOC be prepared to clear your calendar for the day (or week!)
• Stamps That Tell a Story: The Series — Catch up on your missing instalments of this excellent, informative series of articles presented previously in the New RCSD and of which this article is the final part. Of particular interest may be last month’s article on philatelic tributes to Octave Chanute.
• First Flight Society — “The FFS was founded in 1927. This non profit organization celebrates the accomplishments of the Wright Brothers and helps educate the world about aviation! Join us in our mission…”
• The Air Force Historical Research Agency — “the repository for Air Force historical documents. The Agency’s collection, begun in Washington, DC, during World War II, moved in 1949 to Maxwell Air Force Base … to provide research facilities for professional military education students, the faculty, visiting scholars, and the general public…”
• To Fly is Everything — If the invention of the aeroplane and other aviation pioneers is of interest to you, Gary Bradshaw’s website is worth a visit.
• The Wright Brothers’ Aeroplane Company — “a virtual museum of pioneer aviation…”
• The Outer Banks of North Carolina — Official tourism website.

Simine Short is an aviation researcher and historian. She has written more than 150 articles on the history of motorless flight and is published in several countries around the world as well as the United States. She is also the editor of the Bungee Cord, the quarterly publication of the Vintage Sailplane Association.

Read the next article in this issue, return to the previous article in this issue or go to the table of contents. A PDF version of this article, or the entire issue, is available upon request.