Your letter of 28th has been received. We have read the communication from the Vienna Society of Aviation and are thankful to say that we have not been embarrassed by a letter of similar nature. If we had received such a request we would have been "stumped" for a reply. We sympathize with you.
You have not exactly grasped our idea in regard to the article for the Car. The fact is that all or nearly all that you know from personal knowledge relates to the construction of our machine. The performances you have not seen. We have not felt at liberty to impose upon you the task of vouching for things you have not seen, while forbidding you to talk of the things you really do know.
We regard the publication by Capt. Ferber of our private letter to him of November 4th (see last Aerophile) as simply outrageous. It is the worse from the fact that he deliberately includes the direct reference to Russia, Austria, and the German Emperor, while striking out all embarrassing references to his "bluff," and making other changes in the letter. The complaint we made to Fordyce was before this crowning atrocity had come to our knowledge. We intend to have satisfaction sometime. I enclose our carbon copy of the original letter, which please return. I am not certain that I requested the return of the carbon duplicates of the Besancon letters when you are through with them. They are all we have. I also enclose Ferber's letter. It seems that Mr. Fordyce was quite right when he told us at Dayton that he would have the opposition of Archdeacon and Santos-Dumont to contend with on his return to Paris. He remarked that the former was not taken seriously by anyone who knew him.
Our last foreign clippings are not of special interest so I include a few from America, some of which you have no doubt already seen.
Have you received the January number of the Ill. Aero. Mitt., the German paper,? Ours is not yet here.
P.S. You are at perfect liberty to inform correspondents that the French contract is not exclusive. Three months after the machine is delivered we are free to begin deliveries to any other country.
A letter from Mr. Dienstbach describing the Aero Club show says: "One wall of the exhibition room had been preserved for flying machine pictures divided under these heads: Lilienthal-Herring-Wright Bros, - Langley- Maxim- Pilcher, from left to right, in the same order."
I was under the impression that I had learned somewhere that you had conducted some experiments about 1896 or 1897. Possibly my memory is at fault.
Under Construction...