|
so:text
|
I don't want to take any merit away from the Wright brothers, for whom I have the greatest admiration; but it is undeniable that, only after us, they presented themselves with an aircraft superior to ours, saying that it was a copy of one they had built before ours".
"Soon after the Wright brothers, Levavassor appeared with the "Antoinette" airplane, superior to all that existed at the time; Levavassor had been working for 20 years to solve the problem of flight; he could, therefore, say that his device was a copy of one built many years before. But he didn't."
"What would Edison, Graham Bell or Marconi say if, after they had presented in public the electric light bulb, the telephone and the wireless telegraph, another inventor came forward with a better electric light bulb, telephone or wireless telephone apparatus saying that he had built them before them?"
"To whom does mankind owe air navigation by the heavier-than-air? To the Wright brothers' experiments, done on the covert and which were so ignored in the world that we see everyone qualify my 250 meters as a 'memorable minute in the history of aviation,' or is it to Farman, Bleriot and me who did all our demonstrations in front of scientific committees and in full sunlight? (en) |
