Flugmaschine Wright G.m.b.H.

First Sales Brochure for a Wright Brothers Airplane

[Wright Brothers.] Flugmaschine Wright G.m.b.H. Flugmaschine Wright G.m.b.H. 12pp. Text illustrations. Berlin: Vereinigte Verlagsanstalten G. Braunbeck & Gutenberg-Druckerei Aktiengesellschaft, 1909. 256 x 168 mm. Original wrappers printed in silver, light wear, fore-edge irregularly trimmed. Very good copy. Ownership stamp of Dutch chemical engineer and inventor F. W. Bakema on front wrapper and title.

First Edition of the first sales brochure advertising a plane designed by the Wright Brothers. The Wrights chose to demonstrate their flyer for the first time in France from August to December 1908, and these demonstrations had dramatic impact on the European aviation industry. Flugmaschine Wright G.M.b.H., established in June 1909, acquired the Wright German patents and the exclusive right to manufacture Wright airplanes in Germany, as well as sales rights for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Luxemburg and Turkey (see Renstrom, p. 97). Flugmaschine Wright was the second Wright aircraft company established in Europe, following the Compagnie Générale de Navigation Aérienne, which had purchased the French rights to manufacture and sell Wright aircraft in March 1908, subject to satisfactory demonstrations of the plane. Though Gibbs-Smith 2002 states that the first French-built Wright Model A was delivered from the French factory in August 1909, we have found no record in OCLC or any bibliography of any sales or promotional publications issued by the French company. Both the French and German Wright aircraft companies preceded the American Wright company, which was not incorporated until November 1909.

The present brochure contains an extensive description of the Wright airplane and its performance, as well as an account of the formation of the Flugmaschine Wright company. The company manufactured between twenty and sixty examples of the Wright Model A, which was the first Wright aircraft to be produced commercially. Rare, with only four copies cited in OCLC (US Air Force Academy, Library of Congress, Waseda University [Japan] and the ETH-Bibliothek [Switzerland]). This copy was originally owned by F. W. Bakema, a Dutch chemical engineer and inventor who built several superphosphate fertilizer factories in the Netherlands and Norway, and established the first Dutch chemical industry advisory agency (1909). Gibbs-Smith, The Wright Brothers: Aviation Pioneers and their Work (2002), p. 44. Gibbs-Smith, The Rebirth of European Aviation 1902-1908. A Study of the Wright Brothers' Influence (1974). Renstrom, Wilbur and Orville Wright: A Bibliography Commemorating the One-Hundredth Anniversary of the First Powered Flight (2002), p. 98. Kingma, Jur. "Building the Plant | Recensiebank Historisch Huis." Building the Plant: A History of Engineering Contracting in the Netherlands (review). Historisch Platform. Web. 28 July 2010.