They were not simply “another Darius Green,” Root stressed, but “scientific explorers” serving the world much as Columbus had.
He described in his account of September 20 how Wilbur took his place lying flat to offer less wind resistance, how the engine was warmed up to speed, and, how, with everything ready, “a sort of trap” (the catapult) was sprung, and suddenly the machine was aloft.
The plane flew low, never rising more than 20 to 25 feet above the ground. “I was surprised at the speed and I was astonished at the wonderful lifting power.” Then it had turned and headed straight back toward him, and with feelings very like those expressed by John T. Daniels after seeing the first flight at Kitty Hawk, he wrote:
When it first turned that circle, and came near the starting point, I was right in front of it, and I said then, and I believe still, it was one of the grandest sights, if not the grandest sight, of my life.
The plane was still flying low, and Orville, who was standing close by Root, urged him to get to one side, for fear it might suddenly come down.
To Root the landing of the plane was hardly less amazing:
When the engine is shut off, the apparatus glides to the ground very quietly and alights on something much like a pair of light sled-runners [skids], sliding over the grassy surface perhaps a rod or more. Whenever it is necessary to slow up the speed before alighting, you turn the nose uphill. It will then climb right up on the air until the momentum is exhausted, when, by skillful management, it can be dropped as lightly as a feather.
The “skillful management” was breathtaking. It was not just that the machine was like no other on the face of the earth, he wrote, but there was probably no one “beyond these two who learned the trick of controlling it.”
When Columbus discovered America, he did not know what the outcome would be, Root would conclude his account. Not even “the wildest enthusiast” could have foreseen. “In a like manner these two brothers have probably not even a faint glimpse of what their discovery is going to bring to the children of men.”
As for Huffman Prairie, it was henceforth historic ground. Here man and his machine had “ ‘learned to fly,’ very much like a young bird out of its nest learns by practice to use its wings.”
Root pictured a wondrous time near at hand, “when we shall not need to fuss with good roads nor railway tracks, bridges, etc., at such enormous expense. With these machines we bid adieu to all these things. God’s free air, that extends all over the earth, and perhaps miles above us, is our training field. . . .
When you see one of these graceful crafts sailing over your head, and possibly over your home, as I expect you will in the near future, see if you don’t agree with me that the flying machine is one of God’s most gracious and precious gifts.
In December, Amos Root returned to Dayton—and by the interurban this time—and met with the Wrights at 7 Hawthorn to read aloud what he had written in advance of publication. It was one last step to ensure accuracy and apparently it all went well. What suggested changes, if any, or comments the Wrights may have offered are not known.
Why they had put such trust in Root was never explained. But clearly they had much in common. He, too, in the early days of his beekeeping enterprise had been taken for a “nut.” He had succeeded with his ideas only by close study. Importantly, beginning with his first visit in August, he had shown himself true to his word and ready to cooperate in any way he could to achieve accuracy in what he wrote.
Like their father, he was a man of strong religious convictions, and it was of no small importance that Bishop Wright approved. As he wrote in his diary, “Mr. Root seems to be a fine gentleman.”
Perhaps above all, Wilbur and Orville knew from their first meeting with Root that his regard for them was altogether genuine, his belief in the possibility of human flight no less than their own.
At the time his article appeared in Gleanings in Bee Culture in January 1905, Root sent a copy to the editor of Scientific American, saying it could be reprinted at no charge. The editor paid it no mind. Instead, in an article published a full year later, “The Wright Aeroplane and Its Fabled Performances,” the magazine chose to cast still more doubt:
If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face . . . would not have ascertained all about them and published . . . long ago?
The thought that Amos Root was the “enterprising reporter” apparently never entered the editor’s mind.
For their part the brothers refused to get worked up or to speak out. “If they will not take our word and the word of many witnesses,” wrote Wilbur, “. . . we do not think they will be convinced until they see a flight with their own eyes.”
III.
In October, a month after Amos Root’s visit, came the first clear sign that if the American press and the U.S. government had no interest, there were those on the other side of the Atlantic who did. An officer of the British Army’s Balloon Section, Lieutenant Colonel John Edward Capper, appeared in Dayton and did not hesitate to inform the brothers that he had come at the request of his government.
Reluctant to have him come with them to Huffman Prairie just yet, they instead showed him photographs of recent flights. But it was they themselves who impressed the visitor more than anything, and he invited them to submit a proposal for the sale of their Flyer II to the British government.
They were unwilling to comply, partly because they were “not ready to begin considering what we will do with our baby now that we have it,” as Wilbur had confided to Octave Chanute. Furthermore, as patriotic Americans, they would be ashamed to offer it to a foreign government without their own country having a first chance.
On November 9, in celebration of President Theodore Roosevelt’s resounding election, Wilbur flew almost four circles around the field at Huffman Prairie. Then, on the third day of the new year 1905, he called on the newly elected local congressman, Republican Robert Nevin, to explain the situation. Nevin suggested that Wilbur write a proposal for Secretary of War William Howard Taft.
The letter, dated January 18 and signed by both Wilbur and Orville, stated that their efforts of the past five years had produced a flying machine that “not only flies through the air at high speed, but it also lands without being wrecked.” During 1904 they had made 105 flights. They had flown in straight lines, circles, over S-shaped courses, in calms and great winds, and brought flying to the point where it could be of great practical use in various ways, “one of which is that of scouting and carrying messages in time of war.”