Octave Chanute to Wilbur Wright

Chicago, August 27, 1903

I have your letter of 23d. I will advise the Aerophile that you decline to be written up at present, but I hope that you will accomplish such success that you will no longer be able to resist the pressure for portraits and biographical notices.

I, like yourself, had 150 reprints of your paper printed, and have sent off about 2/3 of them, almost wholly to parties in Europe who had asked me to keep them posted.

I regret to learn that you are delayed in your start for Kitty Hawk. If you have time to write me please advise me on two points:

1. What supporting area do you use in figuring your 1902 machine? I suppose that you allow something for the rudder.

2. What form of the surfaces experimented with conforms most closely to the coefficients given by you in your tabular statement of July 12, '03. The column #3 (% of normal to support) does not seem to agree with any of the "resultant pressures" which I figured out a year ago.

Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute, August 31, 1903