THE UNWELCOME ASSISTANT
Edward C. Huffaker and
The Birth of Aviation
Stephen Hensley and Julia Hensley

In 1957, a boy cleaning out his grandmother’s barn in East Tennessee discovered the discarded correspondence of aviation’s forgotten pioneer. They were the letters of Edward Huffaker—written to Samuel Langley, Octave Chanute, and other early aviation scientists. It seems that he had discovered the secrets of how birds fly years before any of the distinguished researchers. These rare letters and unseen photos were reproduced in this work in time for the centennial celebration of flight in December 2003.
Best known as an unwelcome assistant to the Wright brothers during their tests at Kitty Hawk in 1901, Huffaker’s contributions to the achievement of artificial flight lay undiscovered, until now. His independent studies led him to the brilliant insight that Bernoulli’s principle of fluid movement accounts for aerodynamic lift, years before the rest of the world caught on. He worked with Langley, Chanute, and the Wright brothers, all recognized pioneers of aviation. Now through the discovery of a cache of his personal correspondence, Huffaker’s true legacy can be known to the world, and he can take his rightful place in history as one of the pioneers who never doubted that man could fly.