The "Aerodrome" on the houseboat waiting
to be launched
|
|
Professor Langley was a respected astronomer
and inventor. At the end of the 19th Century he was head of the Smithsonian
Institute, which in those days was a serious scientific organization.
He started to experiment with model airplanes called "Aerodromes" which
culminated in a couple of Steam Models that earned him a permanent place
in pre-Wright Brothers aviation.
Being asked by the Department of War to
construct a man carrying air craft, he built a craft he called the "Aerodrome"
after his models but it didn't fly. Twice the "Aerodrome" was catapulted
off the roof of a house boat and twice it fell into the Potomac river "Like
a handful of wet mortar."
The first failure on October 7, 1903 was
due to a miscalculation of the centre of gravity, the second on December
8, 1903 when the tail snagged on the catapult and broke during launch.
The press ridiculed the attempted flights
and after the heavy criticism he received Langley never again attempted
another flight before his death in 1906 and the damaged "Aerodrome" languished
in the Smithsonian. |
Nine days after Langley's second attempt
the Wright Brothers flew (and patented) their airplane and then set about
enforcing any violations of the patent.
Glen Curtiss was one of the individuals
who wanted to avoid paying the Wright's considerable royalties and he embarked
on a series of lawsuits that was to drag on for years.
In about 1914, in an effort to show that
the Wright Brothers didn't make the first airplane capable of flight Curtiss
approached the Smithsonian with an offer to see if he could make the remains
of the "Aerodrome" fly. The Smithsonian who stood to recover from shame
and ridicule agreed to this. But the "Aerodrome" was fundamentally unsound,
and Curtiss had to make many modifications before he eventually achieved
limited flight on May 28, 1914.
The Smithsonian then made the dubious
claim that Langley had been the first to successfully develop a manned
powered aircraft after all, not mentioning the fact that Curtiss had found
it necessary to make some 93 modifications to Langley's design to make
it airworthy.
Nonetheless, the Smithsonian credited
Langley with the historic achievement starting a long-standing feud with
the Wright family.
Indeed, Orville Wright was so incensed
that in 1925 he donated the "Wright Flyer" to the Science Museum in London
rather than to the Smithsonian. Finally, in 1942, the Secretary of the
Smithsonian, Charles Abbot, authorized publication of an article that clearly
showed how the reconstruction of Langley's "Aerodrome" had been rigged.
With that, Orville told the British that his airplane should be returned
to the Smithsonian Institution after the war.
Eleven months after Orville died in 1948,
the famous Wright airplane was returned to America to the Smithsonian,
which had once been such solid Langley turf. Today the best known biplane
that ever flew hangs over a label giving the Wright Brothers their due. |
The tail of the "Aerodrome" snaps off
during the second attempt
|
|
|
Below: The "Aerodrome" with an obvious
Curtiss modification ... the floats
|
Above: The "Aerodrome" as modified
by Curtiss takes off in 1914
|
The "Aerodrome"
 |
