Gallant Journey

Montgomery claimed to have flown his gliders in the 1880's but there were no wittiness, and no parts were kept... therefore it was just flights of his imagination. I have read the only book on Montgomery, by Father Spearman of Santa Clara University, and many claims are made but no real proof is given. I have also read Montgomery's papers which are a jumble of nonsense...the papers came to me from Northern Californians who support Montgomery's claims. Montgomery did build several gliders that were flown from hot air balloons in early 1900's, as shown in the movie, but these lacked any controls and tumbled to the ground...the daredevil "pilots" were lucky to survive! In 1911 Montgomery did build and attempted to fly his glider in San Jose. It had no lateral control, was rather crude, and it crashed after a short hop. He was killed in the crash. No motor could have been installed on his design. The Wright brothers made fully documented powered flights with 3-axis control in 1903! The Wrights were aware of Montgomery's claims and considered him a crackpot. One of the claims was his "parabolic wing"configuration but that was not valid...many others were aware of lift developed by curved airfoil surfaces.