As soon as the specifications were announced, newspapers across the country criticized the move as a waste of taxpayers’ money. The New York Globe editorialized: ‘One might be inclined to assume that the era of practical human flight had arrived….A very brief examination of the conditions imposed and the reward offered for successful bidders suffices, however, to prove this assumption a delusion….Nothing in any way approaching such a machine has ever been constructed–the Wright brothers’ claim still awaits public confirmation.’

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In March 1908 the Wrights signed a contract with Lazare Weiller, a wealthy Frenchman, to form a syndicate that would control the right to build, sell or license the Wright plane in France. They had already applied for patents in France, Britain and Germany to safeguard various parts of their creation.

The Wrights now had two contracts to fulfill, but the competition was rapidly taking the potential market away from them. The construction secrets that the brothers had wanted to protect were soon revealed in other aircraft, most notably by Glenn Curtiss, whose Red Wing and June Bug models were first flown in 1908. French pilots Gabriel Voisin, Henri Farman and Lon Delagrange and Romania’s Traian Vuia had flown briefly in machines of their own design. Alberto Santos-Dumont had also managed to get a plane into the air, but he couldn’t figure out how to make turns–and his longest flight was only 722 feet.

The brothers returned to Kitty Hawk in April 1908, where they hoped to build six planes by summer’s end. They repaired the old buildings and practiced in the 1905 Flyer, altering it to meet the Army specifications. As they reported in a magazine article: ‘The operator assumed a sitting position, instead of lying prone, as in 1905, and a seat was added for a passenger. A larger motor was installed, and radiators and gasoline reservoirs of large capacity replaced those previously used.’ They took up a passenger, Charles W. Furnas, for the first time on May 14, and within two weeks had made 22 flights, most of which were observed by newspaper and magazine reporters.

At that point Wilbur and Orville decided it would be best for them to separate in order to fulfill their contracts. Orville would build a 1908 Flyer and fly it to comply with the specifications of the Army Signal Corps contract. Wilbur would go to Europe, assemble the 1907 Flyer that was still waiting on the docks at Le Havre and demonstrate it for potential buyers.

Wilbur arrived in France on May 29, 1908, and spent much of his time trying to locate a suitable field. He repaired the plane, which had arrived in bad shape because French customs officials had carelessly renailed the boxes after their inspection. Electing to fly it at a racetrack at Hunaudires, near Le Mans, he was surprised to learn that the British and French press were hostile to him. Few Europeans, it seemed, really believed that the Wrights had actually flown as they had claimed. Hurt by that reaction, Wilbur at first avoided spectators and refused to grant interviews.

Without fanfare, he made his first flight on August 8, 1908. Although he flew only a little over two miles and was aloft just one minute and 45 seconds, he showed such control in the turns that the French skeptics were amazed. He flew daily for the next five days (never on Sundays) and increased his times and distances in the air to the point that he circled the field seven times. In a letter to Orville, Wilbur said, ‘You never saw anything like the complete reversal of position that took place after two or three little flights of less than two minutes each.’

The field at Le Mans soon proved too small, and he moved to nearby Camp d’Auvours, where ever-larger crowds gathered each day. The French press began to praise his flights in glowing terms. Le Figaro, a leading French newspaper, declared the Wrights’ plane ‘was not a success; it was a triumph!’

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