The Wright stuff … and the wrong

The Smithsonian Institution is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight with a Web presentation and the grand opening of a new branch of the Air and Space Museum.

The tribute is ironic as the Smithsonian spent 28 years denying the Wrights credit for the first flight in favor of promoting the dubious legacy of one of its own.

The dark saga is extensively documented in Fred Howard’s book, “Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers” (Dover, 1987) — but it isn’t even alluded to in the Smithsonian’s “tribute.”

Samuel Langley, the head of the Smithsonian Institution, had researched flight for 12 years before the Wrights began their work in 1899.

Underwritten by a $50,000 War Department contract, Langley tested an airplane on Oct. 7, 1903. Resembling a giant dragonfly, the “Aerodrome” was 54 feet long and had two 48-foot wings.

When launched from a houseboat on the Potomac River, the Aerodrome “simply slid into the water like a handful of mortar,” reported observers. The effort was so dismal the New York Times editorialized that 1 million to 10 million years would be needed to develop an airplane.

After a Dec. 8 test produced similar failure, Langley blamed faulty launch equipment — not his design. The discouraged War Department ended the project.

Nine days later, the Wrights flew their airplane 100 feet in 12 seconds — seemingly, straight into the history books.

By 1908, the Wrights owned a general airplane patent in the U.S. and Europe and aggressively enforced their rights with lawsuits. Their principal U.S. foe was aircraft manufacturer Glenn Curtiss, who repeatedly lost court battles with the Wrights during 1910 to 1914.

In early 1914, Curtiss met with Albert Zahm, one of his former expert witnesses, who had just become the head of the Smithsonian’s Langley Aerodynamical Laboratory — the Aerodrome’s custodian.

Zahm suggested rebuilding and retesting the Aerodrome to see if Langley’s design was capable of flight had it not been thwarted by the supposedly faulty launching equipment. If it could be shown the Aerodrome was capable of flight first, then a court might limit the Wright patent.

Smithsonian chief Charles Walcott, a friend of Langley’s and supporter of his Aerodrome project, agreed to this “restoration” scheme, cloaking his approval in historical and aeronautical safety rationale. Walcott then commissioned Curtiss — hardly a disinterested party — to rebuild and test the Aerodrome.

Curtiss went far beyond restoring the Aerodrome’s original design. Engine parts were changed. The propellers and wings were enhanced. Pontoons were added to replace Langley’s houseboat-launch set-up.

Curtiss’ reconstructed Aerodrome wasn’t Langley’s original Aerodrome, at all.

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