The evidence of the Wrights first flight consists solely of what the Wrights provided. And of course their first flight report did not describe any turning.
The only public evidence of anything is their patent application for the control method…which does not prove the veracity of their claims.
Take a look at the wings - no dihedral. That means it was unstable in roll, and would require constant turning control being applied to keep it from crashing.
> The only public evidence of anything
The Smithsonian has their design notebooks. Also, more than one exacting replica has been made, and they fly and turn.
That photo was taken on the Wright’s camera and the Wrights had complete custody of the negative.
The witnesses aren’t a particularly credible lot.
The more I looked into the details the more the story looks like a typical startup’s PR campaign. I’m not saying it is Nikola rolling its truck downhill, but the Wrights had similar incentives for a creation myth.
Like I said, I’ve been hearing the story since I was a child. Certainly a Brazilian would be problematic in terms of American exceptionalism and historically prevailing American racial views.
The Smithsonian is an organ of the state and the Wrights notebooks are again self-reported evidence…to put it another way, the Wrights now fill the same institutional role at the Smithsonian in regard to first flight as Langley did at the Smithsonian.
https://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/History_of_the_...
Not mentioned, though, is Dumont could not turn his airplane. The Wrights could, from the first one.