This seems wrong. Firstly, the army didn&#x27;t believe them to the point of not even looking. The Wrights wanted to sell to the army, and were willing to deliver a working plane that met specific requirements. This path ultimately worked, but it took time for the army to change their mind.<p>They also flew publicly in France in 1906, thus demonstrating what they had.<p>They defended their patent when Curtis invented ailerons. Today Curtis would have been handed their own patent and won the battle, but back then they were given wide latitude.<p>In the end, they sold their patent for something like $1M. I don&#x27;t recall if that was after Wilbur died.<p>In my opinion, they did most of it right.<p>My favorite story was the one where the army put it out for bids (required process) and there were 3 bidders. One of them tried to win by undercutting the Wrights price - he didn&#x27;t have a plane but planned to buy one from them and thus make himself a middle man. When the Wrights told him that would not happen, he dropped out and they won the bidding process and indeed sold a plane to the army.<p>I see some misinformation in the article, and didn&#x27;t get far enough to see any suggestion of an alternative path. There were hints that selling out would be a suggestion. Cave to &quot;real&quot; business people.