Langley vs. Wright

Wilbur and Orville Wright made their first flights at Kitty Hawk, N. C., on Dec. 17, 1903. For more than 20 years, the machine they used has been faithfully guarded, kept intact. Last week, Orville, the surviving brother,* announced that he was presenting this relic of man's first flight to the Science Museum at South Kensington, London, where a large collection of historic planes and engines already exists. Mr. Wright naturally seeks greater safety against damage and fire than his own home affords. But why a foreign museum ? Why not the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. ?

Echoes of a perennial controversy furnish the answer. Samuel P. Langley, builder of the first airplane, died, brokenhearted, shortly after the Wrights' first flights; his own attempt to fly had failed some time previously. But it failed, many experts have thought, because Langley tried to have the flight made from a houseboat on the Potomac without provision for a suitable length of run for getaway, and not because his device was inherently deficient.

As a matter of fact, in 1914, during litigation between the Wrights and the Curtiss Co., Langley's machine with some changes was flown at Hammondsport on Lake Keuka, N. Y. It is difficult to determine what exactly the changes were. But Mr. Wright resents the fact that the Smithsonian allowed Langley's precious model to be used for "the purpose of private parties to a patent litigation." And he also resents the card in the Smithsonian attached to the Langley plane-- This is the first airplane capable of flight.

So away to England, the Wright plane is destined to go.

--Wilbur Wright died (if typhoid fever, May 30, 1912,