Wilbur Wright to Octave Chanute

Dayton, June 18, 1905

Your letters of June 6th have been received. We have no intention of forgetting that we are Americans, and do not expect to make arrangements which would probably result in harm to our native country. The exact date of meeting the British representative is not fixed but will probably be within a month. Meanwhile we have decided to complete the machine and take the risk of making a few private trials of the improvements we have added to the machine. The machine will probably be complete in a couple of days and we will be testing it the latter part of the week if the weather is suitable. Of course we would be glad to have you visit us and see it go, if it should suit your convenience and pleasure.

The doubts of Capt. Ferber and other foreigners worry us not at all. In fact they are rather an advantage to us while we are wishing to secure privacy. We certainly shall not disarrange our own plans to satisfy either public or private curiosity at this time.

We find that we underestimated the weight of our last year's machine. We carried a total weight of about 915 lbs. This includes the 70 lbs. of steel bars, which we used as ballast. The new machine with water and fuel for an hour's run will weigh almost exactly 850 lbs., with one man.

We quite approve your decision to make only brief reference to our power machine in the Standard Encyclopedia article. Until we are really ready to make the machine public there are many reasons why it is not best to say too much for publication.

Octave Chanute to Wilbur Wright, June 28, 1905