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WRIGHT BROTHERS AT HUFFMAN PRAIRIE. 1. Black and white photograph, 6 x 11 inches, touched up for publication, inkstamp of agency Pacific & Atlantic Photos on verso. image 1
WRIGHT BROTHERS AT HUFFMAN PRAIRIE. 1. Black and white photograph, 6 x 11 inches, touched up for publication, inkstamp of agency Pacific & Atlantic Photos on verso. image 2
Lot 7

WRIGHT BROTHERS AT HUFFMAN PRAIRIE.
1. Black and white photograph,
6 x 11 inches, touched up for publication, inkstamp of agency Pacific & Atlantic Photos on verso.

25 March 2013, 13:00 EDT
New York

US$3,500 - US$4,500

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WRIGHT BROTHERS AT HUFFMAN PRAIRIE.

1. Black and white photograph, 6 x 11 inches, touched up for publication, inkstamp of agency Pacific & Atlantic Photos on verso.
2. Partial Typed Letter Signed ("Wilbur & Orville Wright. O.W.") in Orville's hand, 1 p, 11 x 8 inches, [November 17, 1905], to Georges Besançon, the publisher of Aérophile.

The Wrights began using Huffman Prairie, northeast of Dayton, OH, in 1904, and made about 150 flights at the field in 1904–1905. The present image shows a Flyer moments before the engine is fired up. In accompanying partial letter, the Wright brothers explain that "the claim often made in the 19th century that the lack of sufficiently light motors alone prohibited man from the empire of the air was quite unfounded. At the speed which birds usually employ, a well designed flyer can in actual practice sustain a gross weight of 30 kilograms for each horse power of the motor, which gives ample margin for such motors as might easily have been built 50 years ago." The foot of the letter lists witnesses, including the owner of Huffman Prairie, Torrence Huffman.

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