The "First Flight" Picture: Puzzling Questions
A close study of the iconic picture (third picture, below) of the 1903 Wright flyer reveals strange anomalies. If you observe the cast shadows, you can easily see that they are contradictory. A bright, sunny day will produce dark crisp shadows like the cast shadows on the box in the foreground shown above. An overcast day like it was on Dec. 17, 1903, will produce fainter, softer shadows like that to the left of Wilbur. One could say a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds hitting the box. But then there would be a cast shadow just as strong to the left of the box on the sand. Note that the cast shadow beneath the plane is dark as opposed to the one cast by Wilbur, which is faint and barely discernible. These shadows should be relatively consistent in the same cloudy conditions. Adding to the inconsistent shadows, the perspective of the shadows is questionable Position of the elevator is more than 5-6 degrees The position of the elevator on the pla...