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U. S. ARMY NOT INTERESTED
From the time that they knew their invention was practical, the Wrights wished to offer to their own government a world monopoly on all their patents and, still more important, all their secrets relating to the airplane. They thought it might be useful to the Army for scouting purposes. But as they had greater interest at first in learning more about flying and improving their machine than in making money out of it, they did not at once attempt negotiations with government officials at Washington. When they did make such an effort they received a rude shock. The United States Army not only didn’t believe there was any such device in existence as a practical flying-machine, but was not disposed to investigate.
At least one foreign government showed more awareness and more curiosity. In the autumn of 1904, the Wrights got a letter from Lieutenant Colonel J. E. Capper, of the Royal Aircraft Factory (a government experimental laboratory dealing with aeronautics) at Aldershot. He wrote on shipboard en route to the United States, and enclosed a note of introduction from another Englishman whom the Wrights knew, Patrick Y. Alexander, member of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. (Alexander had called upon the Wrights at Dayton in 1902, with a letter of introduction from Octave Chanute.) Colonel Capper wanted to know if he might see the Wrights in Dayton when he returned eastward from a visit to the St. Louis Exposition. They told him they would be glad to see him and he came to Dayton, accompanied by his wife, in November.
Soon after his arrival, Colonel Capper frankly said that he was there at the request of his government. The Wrights told him of what they had accomplished during that previous season of 1904 at the Huffman field. Before leaving, Colonel Capper asked them to make his government some kind of proposal.
The Wrights made no haste about submitting a proposal to the British, but, on January 10, 1905, about two months after the Capper visit, they wrote to him asking if he was sure his government was receptive to an offer. In this letter they suggested that a government in possession of such a machine as they now could furnish, and the knowledge and instruction they could impart might have a lead of several years over governments which waited to buy a perfected machine before making a start in this line. The letter was signed: Wright Cycle Company.
THE HUFFMAN PASTURE. This rough field, eight miles from Dayton, where the Wrights made their important experiments of 1904 and 1905, is now a part of Patterson Field.
THE WRIGHT PATENT. Facsimile of the Letters Patent awarded Wilbur and Orville Wright on May 22, 1906, for their invention, the “Flying Machine.”
Whatever the British Government might desire, the Wrights did not intend to take any steps that could prevent the United States Government from having opportunity to control all rights in their invention for the entire world; and before having any further word from the British it seemed wise to learn from Washington just what our own government might want. They wrote, on January 18, 1905, to their member of Congress from the Dayton district, R. M. Nevin, as follows: