“Being the kind of men they were, neither ever said the stunning contrast between their success and Samuel Langley’s full-scale failure just days before made what they had done on their own all the more remarkable. Not incidentally, the Langley project had cost nearly $ 70,000, the greater part of it public money, whereas the brothers’ total expenses for everything from 1900 to 1903, including materials and travel to and from Kitty Hawk, came to a little less than $ 1,000, a sum paid entirely from the modest profits of their bicycle business. McCullough, David. The Wright Brothers (pp. 107-108). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. ”
