Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute

Dayton, May 12, 1901

Your letter from San Diego received. The kindness of your offer to loan us your anemometer is most fully appreciated. In general we are little disposed to use anything not our own but as in the present case we are already planning to spend about all we feel that we ought to on our this year's experiments, it is possible that we shall later call on you for the loan of this instrument.

Our plans call for a trip of about six or eight weeks in September and October at the same locality we visited last year on the North Carolina coast. We will erect a frame building 16 ft. by 25 ft. to house the machine in. The glider itself will be built on exactly the same general plan as our last year's machine but will be larger and of improved construction in its details. The surfaces will be 7 ft. X 22 ft. each and the forward rudder 4' X 5', making the total surface about 315 sq. ft. after deducting openings, &c., and its total weight about 75 lbs. It is our idea that the total drift resistance of a large machine at its soaring speed will be less than that of a smaller machine at its speed, since the resistance of the operator's body will be less at the slow speed. As the weight of the body is not moved in our plan of balancing, we think the large machine will not be much more difficult to control than a smaller one. In gliding experiments our object will be rather duration than distance.

It is scarcely necessary to say that it would give us the greatest pleasure to have you visit us while in camp if you should find it possible to do so.

Chanute's response, May 15, 1901