Wright Brothers, Wrong Story

by William Hazelgrove

  It was here that violence started to creep in. In Lorin's camera was proof that the altered Langley plane still couldn't fly, and the futures of Langley, Walcott, and Curtiss were riding on the contents of the Wright brother's camera: “At this juncture a man who I am informed was Mr. Henry Weyman came up and apparently took charge of the situation. He insisted that I should not leave the grounds until I had delivered up my pack of films. I asked him why. He replied because of legal complications they wanted no pictures of the machine in its present condition to get out.”8

  At that point, Lorin Wright was surrounded by men who were not letting him leave. It was incredible to think that the brother of Wilbur and Orville Wright, who was holding proof of a fraud being perpetrated against the history of flight, a company, the holders of a patent, and in a sense the American people, was being held against his will. Lorin liked the idea of a being a secret agent, but he was really just a family man. “I finally yielded the film pack and he insisted on supplying me with another to replace it. I insisted that he should not but he sent a boy on a wheel uptown and in a few minutes the boy returned with a pack.”9 The contest of wills became intertwined here, and the situation became even more dangerous. Mr. Weyman insisted that Lorin take the replacement film. “I refused and Mr. Weyman laid the pack on my knee. (I had gone over and sat down on the edge of the runway.) I laid the pack down on the runway and left it there.”10

  Clearly Weyman wanted no one to be able to say that he stole Lorin Wright's film. He had merely replaced it. This ominous standoff ended, and Lorin reported back to Orville that the aerodrome was in the process of being heavily altered so it would fly. Orville thanked him and pondered on what to do. The Smithsonian was intent on rewriting history with a clear message to the world. In this alternate narrative being written by the Smithsonian, the Wrights may have been the first to fly, but Langley had been capable of doing it before them. If such a fabrication went public, it would destroy their pioneer status as patent holders and, worse, distort the history of flight for all time. He must do something that would make Walcott and the Smithsonian sorry they had ever cooked up this scheme to defraud both him and Wilbur. It had to be something that would put the issue front and center and would make the world take notice.

  When Curtiss returned to his factory, he called Secretary Walcott and A. F. Zahm and let them know that the tests were a great success. They were overjoyed and lost no time in publishing the results of the tests in the 1914 Smithsonian Annual Report. Zahm led off by claiming that “with its original structure and power, the 1903 Aerodrome is capable of flying with a pilot and several hundred pounds of useful load. It is the first airplane in history of which this can be truthfully said.”11 Zahm followed up by reporting that the Langley flyer had flown “without modification.” He concluded by saying, “the Langley aerodrome without floats, restored to its original condition and provided with stronger bearings, should be able to carry a man and sufficient supplies for a voyage lasting the whole day.”12

  A year after, a 1915 report finished the job by stating, “the tests thus far made have shown that former Secretary Langley had succeeded in building the first airplane capable of sustained free flight with a man.”13 In other words, Wilbur Wright and his brother Orville would no longer be the first men to build a plane capable of heavier-than-air flight with an engine. Samuel Langley had beaten them to the punch. If the 1903 Langley flyer was a bullet, then the Wright brothers’ legacy was the target. Their pioneer patent would certainly be in danger.

  Curtis then shipped the Langley aerodrome back from Hammondsport, and Walcott quietly had it returned to its original 1903 condition and had it exhibited in the Arts and Industries Building with a label, “The First Man-Carrying Aeroplane in the History of the World Capable of Sustained Free Flight.”14 The cover-up was complete. Walcott had his trophy that would rescue not only his reputation but also the Smithsonian's and Langley's. He never thought Orville Wright might object, and who cared if they did? The Wright family could not really do anything. They could still say the Wright brothers were the first men to fly; they just couldn't say that they had invented the first airplane. Langley and the Smithsonian had done that.

  The fix was in, and Walcott could now claim that Langley had been vindicated and by proxy his and the Smithsonian's reputations were restored. No longer would there be derision when Langley's aerodrome was spoken of. Now Langley had been the man who had solved the problem of flight, and the proof was on display at the Smithsonian. And for Glenn Curtiss, it was a dagger to the heart of the sanctimonious Wright brothers and their claim to a pioneer patent.

  Walcott was only too glad he had turned down the Wright offer to display the 1903 Flyer years before in 1910. Now there was the Langley flyer saying that here was the plane that had solved the problem of manned flight. He would eventually put the 1903 Wright Flyer in the Smithsonian; he was sure Orville Wright would donate it, since he had already offered the Flyer to the Smithsonian once before.

  When in 1915 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asked to exhibit the 1903 Flyer, Orville and Jim Jacobs, who worked for the Wright Company, began to put the old flyer back together. They used new material only when absolutely necessary and fixed the damage the wind gust had caused when John Daniels was thrown off his feet. The year after Walcott put Langley's plane on display in the Smithsonian, claiming it was the first airplane capable of flight, “the world's first airplane was displayed at MIT on June 11–13, 1916.”15

  Walcott immediately requested to have the Wright machine displayed at the Smithsonian as well, but Orville did not even consider the request. The Smithsonian was sticking by the Hammondsport trials and claiming that Langley had built the world's first flyable airplane. Orville finally had a chance for revenge. The 1903 Flyer was exhibited at the Pan-American Aeronautical Exhibition in the Grand Central Palace in New York in 1917 and then twice in Dayton during the years 1918–1925.16

  In 1925, Orville played his card against Walcott and the Smithsonian. If they continued to support the claim that Langley's plane had been airworthy in 1903, then they would not get the 1903 Flyer that was the first plane to fly, and not only would the Smithsonian lose Wilbur Wright's vision of a manned flight, but the United States as a country would lose the Flyer. He would send it to the Science Museum in London.17 Secretary Walcott was sure Orville was bluffing. Surely, he would not ship away a national treasure that belonged to America.

  The crates down in the hold of the ship were lashed and stenciled and marked WRIGHT FLYER. It would take a full week to cross the Atlantic. In 1903, the Flyer had lifted off from the sands of Kitty Hawk. Now, twenty-five years later, it was headed for London and no one knew when it was coming back, if ever.

  When in 1925 Orville had decided to ship the Flyer to the Science Museum in London, the crates were once again unpacked. Mabel Beck assisted in the rebuilding of the flyer once again. “Actual work was not started on the machine until December 1926,”1 Mabel would write later. “The original cloth was in bad shape, very frail and worn from having been handled too much in setting up the machine in various exhibitions. Mr. Wright therefore decided to recover the machine with new cloth…. Jim Jacobs [again] was hired to do the woodwork and assembly and Mr. Wright and I laid out and cut the cloth, and I did the sewing. Jacobs later did the crating. Only the three of us had anything to do with the final work on this machine.”2

  The 1903 Flyer was ready to go to Britain in March 1927. It remained in Orville's laboratory for the next nine months, under the guard of Mabel Beck, who went there every day to check on it. Then, in June, Orville called her at home early one morning and told her to meet him at the laboratory. Mabel went there, and in walked Charles Lindbergh, just weeks back from his famous flight.3 The young man stared at the 1903 Flyer with Orville beside him and Mabel just behind.

  Orville then went to Canada for vacation that summer, and Mabel stayed with the plane. In January 1928, it was crated up and Mabel made the arrangements to
have the 1903 airplane shipped to London. America demanded to know why Orville would send the 1903 Flyer, the plane that conquered the skies, to the Science Museum of London. He had responded with a letter.

  I believe that my course in sending our Kitty Hawk machine to a foreign museum is the only way of correcting the history of the flying machine, which by false and misleading statements has been perverted by the Smithsonian Institution. In its campaign to discredit others in the flying art, the Smithsonian has issued scores of these false and misleading statements. They can be proved to be false and misleading from documents. But the people of today do not take the trouble to examine the evidence.

  With this machine in any American museum the national pride would be satisfied; nothing further would be done and the Smithsonian would continue its propaganda. In a foreign museum the machine will be a constant reminder of the reasons for its being there, and after the people and the petty jealousies of this day are gone, the historians of the future may examine the evidence impartially and make history accord with it. Your regret that this machine must leave the country can hardly be so great as my own.4

  Then the 1903 Flyer left for the Old World. Mabel had thought about that journey across the Atlantic ocean. It was her job to make sure the treasure of the Wright brothers arrived safely. She imagined America was far behind in the stormy gray seas that tossed the ship and stressed the ropes holding the crates. A journey to Britain took seven days. The steady thrum of the steam engines and the ship's propeller cutting the chop of the ocean vibrated through the crates and the butterfly wings inside. The ship rolled up and down and heaved to port, and then turned to starboard. The crates didn't move at all, even though the taut wires inside vibrated with the pulse of the steam turbines pushing the screws.

  Mabel understood that Mr. Wright would have his revenge. The Smithsonian and Glenn Curtiss, they would all pay. He was taking his treasure, America's treasure, and leaving for the country against which America had fought for independence less than two hundred years earlier. That would show the secretary of the Smithsonian and his lackeys. Langley's machine would never have flown. This Orville knew. If the Smithsonian wanted to try to credit someone else with making the first powered flight, then London would have the prize. Mabel had taken grim pleasure in shipping the Flyer. Their outright lies. It was an outrage. This would teach them all.

  Ms. Beck had heard there were storms out on the Atlantic. They were not unlike the nor'easters that hit Kitty Hawk. Orville had told her that he and Wilbur had survived more than a few storms, with their tent almost blown away several times. That the plane managed to fly in that wind in 1903 was simply amazing. The wind was blowing at 25 miles an hour that day, and it had been a cheek-biting 35 degrees. Orville said Wilbur would have approved of him taking their flyer away from the men who would do them harm. It was still hard to believe that his brother had been dead for sixteen years.

  What Mabel didn't know about was the strange sound coming out of the cargo hold.

  Some of the men heard it at night and went down to investigate. They stared at the crates marked WRIGHT FLYER. It was a hum, really. What they didn't know was that the strut wires inside the crates were vibrating from the engine of the ship. Wilbur would have known in a second what that hum was…. It was the sound of flight.

  There was an uproar. Orville had the 1903 Flyer crated and sent across the ocean to the Science Museum of London. But the new secretary of the Smithsonian, Charles Greeley Abbott, was sticking to the assertion that the secretly altered 1903 Langley aerodrome had been airworthy, even though there was documented proof that it had been modified and Orville's own brother had been witness to the trials. America had lost an important piece of history to the English. Lester Gardner of Aviation magazine put the controversy into the public view with an article in which he wrote, “For many years it has been no secret that the original Wright airplane would not be entrusted to the Smithsonian so long as the influences that had conducted the Langley propaganda in this country were in charge…. But now [that] Orville Wright has decided to send it to the English Museum the public may awake to some of the damage done by the zeal of Langley's friends.”1

  Secretary Walcott, before he died, had dug in his heels and commissioned a report by Joseph Ames and David Taylor, who were members of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Although Ames and Taylor were never given a list of the changes that Curtiss made, they backed up Walcott and the Smithsonian by saying that, “structurally the original Langley machine was capable of level and controlled flight.”2 They conceded that the Wrights were the first to fly but stated that Langley, “after years of effort, following a different road, was in sight of the same goal.”3

  Orville Wright saw the report for the whitewash that it was and, in January 1928, the crated 1903 Wright Flyer was lifted into the hold of an ocean liner, lashed down, and stenciled. The steamship cleared New York harbor and passed the Statue of Liberty, carrying away the genius of Wilbur and the treasure of the nation.

  Letters poured into the Smithsonian. Secretary Abbott developed a form letter to try to establish that the Smithsonian could not admit it was wrong when it wasn't. A lot of the letters were from children. Why couldn't you just admit you were wrong and get Mr. Wright to bring his airplane back to America? A lot of the letters were from teachers who complained that they could not explain to their children why the first airplane of manned flight was in London on display but not in America where the Wright brothers had flown.

  Secretary Abbott explained that, in fact, the first plane of flight was right here in the Smithsonian. He had changed the plate under Professor Langley's plane to read, “Langley Aerodrome—The Original Langley Flying Machine of 1903 Restored.”4 Abbott then went on to explain that Langley's plane had edged out the Wright brothers’ plane by only a few weeks. The teachers did not take the bait. There was a collective sniff on seeing the Langley plane. The question was put forth again: Why did the Smithsonian not admit that it was wrong and that the Wright brothers were first, so that teachers could then bring their students to see the 1903 Flyer that had flown at Kitty Hawk and solved the problem of flight?

  Abbott had taken over after Secretary Walcott had died in 1927. Secretary Abbott believed the trouble had really begun when Walcott refused the Wright Flyer in 1910.5 Walcott had been intent on rebuilding Langley's reputation and the Smithsonian's, and he had turned down the brothers’ offer. He said the Wrights themselves owed Langley a great debt, and he backed up the Smithsonian's assertion with a quote from Wilbur Wright's speech to the Western Society of Engineers in Chicago: “Some years ago Prof. Langley called attention to the great economy of thrust which might be obtained by using very high speeds and from this many were led to suppose that high speed was essential to success in a motor-driven machine.”6 This, along with a letter to Chanute upon Langley's death, in which Wilbur recognized the secretary's contribution to aeronautics: “The knowledge that the head of the most prominent scientific institution of America believed in the possibility of human flight was one of the influences that led us to undertake the preliminary investigation that preceded our active work. He recommended to us the books which enabled us to form sane ideas at the onset. It was a helping hand at a critical time and we shall always be grateful.”7 This also “helped create a false impression over the world that the Wrights had acknowledged indebtedness to Langley's scientific work.”8 Abbott used the presentation of the Samuel P. Langley Medal for Aerodromics by former Secretary Walcott to the Wrights to indicate to the world that they had relied on Langley's data.

  That Secretary Walcott had refused the offer of the 1903 Flyer in 1910 and asked for other Wright flyers was not important to Abbott, but one sees a plan of positioning in the works. It would not do to have the 1903 Flyer when Langley's plane was the real inheritor of the title of “first plane capable of flight.” Orville Wright wanted a complete retraction; he was basically forcing the Smithsonian to confess that it had lied about Langley
's plane and to admit that there was only one plane capable of flight in 1903, and that was Wrights’. That Abbott could not do. It would undo all the hard work Walcott had put in to restoring the public's faith and trust in the Smithsonian. He had pulled Langley's reputation out of the ash heap of history and put it up on the mantle again of the Smithsonian, keeper of all that was great and noble in scientific discovery.

  Walcott died in 1927, and a year later Orville shipped his 1903 Flyer to London. Abbott had inherited a hell of a mess. No, the teachers would just have to come see Langley's plane and explain that not everything was as it seemed. The fact is Abbott still believed Langley's plane could have flown. As Tom Crouch cites in The Bishop's Boys, “The Wrights may have been the first to fly, but Langley had been capable of doing it before them.”9

  This is what Secretary Walcott believed, too, rationalizing that the basics of Langley's plane were there and Glenn had merely adjusted the existing technology. The Literary Digest had backed him up and “proclaimed Dr. Langley the Discoverer of the Air,” as Crouch points out in his biography of the Wrights.10 The French publication L'Aerophile had also swung in with support and praised the Smithsonian for doing “posthumous justice to a great pioneer.”11 Abbott knew, and Orville knew, that soon history would be rewritten forever, with Langley at the top of the aeronautical pyramid. But there were those from the other side who had called out the Smithsonian. Griffith Brewer had given a lecture in 1914 titled “Aviation's Greatest Controversy.”12 That didn't help. Then articles started appearing: “On a Matter of Fraud” and “The Scandal of the First Man-Carrying Airplane.”13 That all would have died away if Orville had not announced that he was sending the 1903 Flyer to the Science Museum of London in 1928.