More Mystery of the Wright Flyer Wings--Continued
Will the Real Wright Flyer Please Step Forward ? Photo claimed to be of the "first flight" by Orville Wright in 1903. Released in 1908. Years after the Wrights claimed they achieved the first sustained, powered flight in history with a man on board at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, a 98 year old woman, Mrs. Lillie Swindell, made local headlines when she said she had stored the Wrights' original flyer in her attic after the Wrights went back to their home in Dayton. And as a thrifty and resourceful resident of Kitty Hawk, she wasn't about to let the flyer go to waste. So she made use of various pieces of "the first plane to fly" for her practical projects. Muslin that had covered the wings of the plane was shared with her neighbors to make clothes for their kids. Wood from the plane was used to fashion frames to stitch her quilts. 1 To Wright historians, of course, this has to be a ridiculous story. Every Wright historian "knows" that the broken