|
 |
Posted on 12/12/2003 8:04:08 AM PST by HenryLeeII
Wednesday, Dec. 17, is the centennial of the Wright Brothers' flight over the dunes near Kitty Hawk, N.C. Tributes are appearing everywhere, and understandably so: It is one of the great achievements of modern history. The Smithsonian Institution, home of the brothers' 1903 Flyer, is celebrating the milestone with an elaborate Web presentation of the Wright Brothers' story and the grand opening of its much touted new branch of the Air and Space Museum.
But the Smithsonian's tribute is really an act of audacity, considering that, beginning in 1914, the museum waged a 28-year campaign to rob the Wright Brothers of credit for making the historic first flight. The Smithsonian chose to promote instead the dubious legacy of one of its own. The saga is documented in several places -- for example, Fred Howard's "Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers" (1987) -- but it isn't even alluded to by the Smithsonian itself. Call it a tale of two flying machines . . . and the men who made them.
When the Wrights began to research flying in 1899, they were well behind Samuel Langley, the head of the Smithsonian Institution, who had been developing light model airplanes since 1887. In December 1898, Langley received a $50,000 contract from the War Department to design an airplane for military use.
Langley tested his airplane on Oct. 7, 1903. Fifty-four feet long, with two 48-foot wings, the "Aerodrome" resembled a mammoth dragonfly. When launched from atop a houseboat on the Potomac River, it "simply slid into the water like a handful of mortar," as one news report put it. Taking note of this dismal effort, the New York Times editorialized that it would take one million to 10 million years for man to develop an airplane.
Another Aerodrome test two months later produced similar results. Though Langley blamed faulty launch equipment for his failures and not his design, the discouraged War Department ended the project. Nine days after the Aerodrome's second crash, the Wrights flew their own airplane 100 feet in 12 seconds and, seemingly, straight into the history books.
But getting credit proved harder than getting off the ground. By 1908, the Wrights had obtained a general airplane patent in the U.S. and Europe, and they aggressively enforced their rights with lawsuits. Their principal U.S. foe was aircraft manufacturer Glenn Curtiss, who repeatedly lost court battles with the Wrights for the next few years. Then, in early 1914, Curtiss met with Albert Zahm, one of his former expert witnesses, who had just become head of the Smithsonian's Langley Aerodynamical Laboratory, the custodian of the Aerodrome. It was a fateful meeting.
Zahm suggested rebuilding and retesting the Aerodrome to see if Langley's design would have been capable of flight if it had not been thwarted by supposedly faulty launching equipment. If it could be shown that the Aerodrome was indeed capable of flight first, a lawyer suggested, then a court might narrow the scope of the Wright patent.
Smithsonian chief Charles Walcott, a longtime Langley friend who was instrumental in funding Langley's work on the Aerodrome, agreed to this "restoration" scheme. He commissioned Curtiss -- hardly a disinterested party -- to rebuild and test the Aerodrome.
Reconstruction began in April 1914, but Curtiss went far beyond restoring the Aerodrome's original design. He changed engine parts and enhanced the propellers and wings. Pontoons were added to replace Langley's houseboat-launch set-up. In short, the reconstructed Aerodrome wasn't Langley's original -- defeating the restoration's supposed purpose. The charade continued nonetheless.
At a May 1914 test flight, the Smithsonian's Zahm reported that the "restored" Aerodrome "rose in level poise, soared gracefully for 150 feet and landed softly on the water." The Times, however, reported the news differently: "Observers who watched the proceedings from the shore failed to see that the machine rose at all from the water." Two photos were taken of the Aerodrome with its pontoons just above the water's surface at a later test in June. No one recorded time or distance estimates for the alleged flight.
Curtiss then outfitted the Aerodrome with a more powerful motor, leading to several flights of up to 3,000 feet during September and October 1914. Hoping to use the "restored" Aerodrome as evidence against the Wright patent, Curtiss lured Orville -- Wilbur had died in 1912 -- into filing another infringement suit in November 1914.
As evidence of the Aerodrome's capacity for flight, Curtiss used the Smithsonian's annual report for 1914, in which Zahm described the Aerodrome as the "first man-carrying aeroplane capable of sustained free flight." Disingenuously maintaining that the machine was unmodified, the report included photos of the Aerodrome aloft from the tests conducted between June and October.
But the Curtiss-Smithsonian scheme failed to impress the court, which upheld the Wright patent. Curtiss's courtroom defeat, however, didn't slow the Smithsonian's effort to deny the Wright Brothers' claim to fame.
In 1918, Zahm had Langley's Aerodrome restored to its 1903 condition and put on display in the museum with the label: "The first man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the world capable of sustained free flight. Invented, built, and tested over the Potomac River by Samuel Pierpont Langley in 1903. Successfully flown at Hammondsport, N.Y., June 2, 1914."
An audacious claim, to say the least. Indeed, "it was a lie pure and simple," writes Fred Howard in "Wilbur and Orville." "But it bore the imprimatur of the venerable Smithsonian and over the years would find its way into magazines, history books, and encyclopedias, much to the annoyance of those familiar with the facts."
The lie lasted 25 years.
Angered at the Smithsonian's refusal to retract its statements even in the face of published articles describing Curtiss's modification of the Aerodrome, Orville Wright sent the 1903 Flyer to the Science Museum in London in 1928. In 1942, a new Smithsonian regime finally retracted its Aerodrome claims and privately acknowledged wronging the Wrights. On the 40th anniversary of its inaugural flight, President Franklin Roosevelt announced that the Flyer would return to the U.S.
The truth had finally landed. The 1903 Flyer was repatriated and installed in the Smithsonian in December 1948 -- 11 months after Orville's death.
The Smithsonian's centennial Web presentation doesn't mention scheming with Curtiss, denying the Wright Brothers' pre-eminence or favoring Langley. Rather, seeming to maintain an institutional grudge, it portrays Curtiss as an innocent "target" of the Wrights' "litigiousness."
If only the Aerodrome's propellers had that kind of spin.
Beautiful! The NYT was off by quite a bit, since the first flight was 10 WEEKS later!
They are equally adept at assessing political issues!
When it comes to the editorializing within the Smithsonian's displays, your's is a wise choice!
|
|
Ahh, the SUV of its day.
But airplanes don't nuke people; people nuke people.
+<]B^)
The Wright brothers flew sucessfully on 17 Dec 1903. How could we have missed it? </sarcasm>
The Smitsonian gives all the credit for the electrical age to Edison who infact tried to destroy Tesla and bury his discoveries.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.