Visit to an Airline Boneyard

Smithsonian Snubs Wright Brothers
by J. Wagner
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum: Wright Flyer
When you visit the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian you see this famous Wright Flyer which made man's first successful flight December 17, 1903. What Smithsonian officials do NOT tell you is that they snubbed the Wright brothers for 45 years, refusing to acknowledge their great accomplishment and install this famous plane in the museum. They did this because their own head of the Smithsonian, Samuel P. Langley, built an airplane shortly before the Wright brothers...but it could NOT fly! Forty-five years is a long time for the Smithsonian to deny the truth. Wilbur died Spring 1912, weakened by his nine-year dispute with the Smithsonian. Orville finally gave up the fight in 1928 and sent his famous plane to the Museum of London as a gesture of contempt for the Smithsonian. American public pressure increased in the years that followed. Many people wondered why our famous Wright Flyer was in London instead of here in America. Orville died January 1948. Later that year the Smithsonian finally agreed to bring the plane back from London to be formally installed December 17, 1948. Unfortunately, neither of the Wright brothers lived long enough to know that their own country officially acknowledged their great accomplishment.

Yep, I was thinking of the competition between Samuel Langley and the Wright Brothers when I read about last year's successful test flights of Space Ship One over the Mojave Desert, the first space craft that wasn't built by a government agency. They gave me hope that if NASA can't get the Space Shuttle to fly again, private industry will find a way to return us to space. Burt Rutan and his pilots seem to me like a 21st-century version of the Wright Brothers.

Now how does Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic venture fit into the scheme of things?

My younger brother was in a little pound jumper, he said, smaller planes are real bumpy in flight, but, I have never been in anything smaller than a 737.
At least larger planes are engineered to handle turbulence, my boss use to tell me, that the wings on a large jet liner has to flex, it can't be ridged, if the wings were ridged, they would snap apart.
I loved it when I flew in 747s, the grace of the plane, and the steady drone of the engines had a effect on you that helps you fall asleep, but, the seats were so uncomfortable, I could not sleep.
I loved it to see the wings flex from the weight when you were in flight on the 747.
I got a book about the 747 (Boeing 747 - Design and development since 1969 ( in truth, since 1966 ) by Guy Norris and Mark Wagner )... there is a picture were they did a stress test on the wing of the 747, and they bent the wings 29 feet before it occurred failure - 116.7 % design load, and 174 % of the max load expected in normal operations.
The 747 if one tuff bird or lady,,, there is a incredible survival story of one of the 747 SPs in Feb, 1985 coming into towards San Fransisco International Airport.
The 747SP number 4 engine failed, and the pilots got permission to to descend and try to restart the engine, but, the plane went into a spiral dive and out of control and went from 41,000 feet to 11,000 out of control, and for a few seconds, the plane was doing speeds over mach.
The NTSB has a report about this incident.
The plane lost some of it's control surfaces, but, still managed to land safely at San Fransisco Airport.

In the little 'puddle jumpers' the wings aren't that long to begin with, as fuel tanks etc do not need to be huge as in larger passenger planes. I would be amazed to see any wing flex 29 feet! (Just watching Dick Ruttan's Voyager flex on the runway was amazing)

I've slept in my share of large planes at altitude (noisy beasts), but nothing makes you feel like you're 'flying' than simply cruising around at 130 knots atl 1000 feet. Its just as much fun to watch trainers (T-3 and T6), C-130's, and A-10 Warthogs at the AF base cruising around. Every one in a while we'd see a C5, and it was always a thrill to hear a plane taking off with JATO cannisters (they're loud!)

The ones that would always get us were the Blackhawk's coming over at 80-100' in the darkness, as the para-rescue trained. I didn't know him, but Jason Cunningham was one of the 1st casualties in Afghanistan (4 Mar 2002) attempting a rescue and had probably flew over us a thousand times. Ever since then a chill runs down my spine when I hear one in the darkness.

For the record, re. the "Smithsonian Snubs Wright Brothers" excerpt:

Yes, the Smithsonian snubbed the Wrights. No, Wilbur did not die, "weakened by his nine-year dispute with the Smithsonian." He died of typhoid fever, If Wilbur was weakened by anything it was from the law suits he threw at anyone who tried to compete with him, especially Glen Curtiss. (It was during this trial that Curtiss re-worked the Langley design to make it negligibly airworthy.)

While their nation was slow to recognize them, the Wright brothers were fully celebrated in 1909, after Wilbur's triumphs in Europe the year before and Orville's claim of an Army contract in Washington. In June of 1909, the President of the United States personally presented them with a gold medal commissioned by the Congress.

The Smithonsonian and Langley's role in all this have been greatly exaggerated. Here for a fuller look at why Americans ignored the Wrights prior to 1909:

Early Automobiles and Airplanes: The Cultural Lag

For the record, from the Smithsonian itself (the Wright pages at the S was linked above):

http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/icon/feud.html

The roots of the rift between the Wrights and the Smithsonian began in 1910, when then Smithsonian Secretary Charles Walcott (Langley died in 1906) refused the Wrights’ offer of donation of the 1903 Wright Flyer, requesting instead a current Wright aircraft. Walcott intended to display the later Wright airplane with aeronautical artifacts of Langley, suggesting a connection between Langley’s work and the Wright achievement. The Wrights’ suspicions were aroused... Orville Wright’s concerns deepened in 1914 (Wilbur died in 1912) when the Smithsonian contracted aeronautical experimenter and aircraft manufacturer Glenn Curtiss to rebuild Langley’s unsuccessful 1903 full-size airplane, the Great Aerodrome, which crashed for the second time just nine days before the Wrights’ success at Kitty Hawk... After completely rebuilding the Langley Aerodrome with extensive modifications and a different engine, Curtiss did manage to make brief, straight-line hops with it. The aircraft was then returned to the Smithsonian, restored to its failed 1903 configuration, and displayed with a label stating that it was the “first man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the world capable of sustained free flight.” Orville was outraged.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/icon/feud_2.html

In the face of Orville’s action, the Smithsonian continued to dodge the issue. They offered only an unsatisfactory compromise on the language of its label accompanying the Langley airplane on public display, and did so, in the words of new Smithsonian Secretary Charles Abbot, “not in confession of error, but in a gesture of good will for the honor of America.” The comment only served to stiffen Orville’s resolve to gain satisfaction. Even Charles Lindbergh offered to help mediate the dispute.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/icon/feud_3.html

The Wright Flyer would remain in England until 1948. In its 1942 annual report, the Smithsonian finally published the article, entitled “The 1914 Tests of the Langley Aerodrome,” recanting its views on the Langley matter that Orville wanted. In 1943 he made plans to have the Flyer returned to the United States and transferred to the Smithsonian for public display... Orville died suddenly of a heart attack in January 1948 while the Wright Flyer was still in England, leaving it to the executors of his estate to fulfill his wishes and bring the treasured artifact home. It was installed at the Smithsonian in an elaborate ceremony on December 17, 1948, 45 years to the day after its history-making flights.

Actually, the dispute began in 1906 when Walcott commenced his protection racket for the Langley and Smithsonian names over the upstarts such as the Wrights and Santos-Dumont. Outside the Smithsonian Castle, what Walcott was up to didn't mean a damned thing. For the rest, the Langley story was a national discrace and international joke.

Come 1910, whatever the Smithsonian wanted with the Flyer meant altogether nothing more. Powered flight was all too new, and too exciting to be worried about the old Flyer, and the Wrights were too busy trying to cash in on their contracts in the U.S. and Europe, none of which produced as they had hoped, protecting their patents, and desperately trying to find true stability for their dangerous aircraft. Meanwhile, Curtiss and others were busy breaking all the old Wright records with supreme improvements over the already aged Wright designs.

The Smithsonian exagerates the importance of its own snub of the Wrights, which it uses to build upon the Langley story. Americans sure loved getting the Flyer back home, but no one outside the Castle was fooled by the whole affair.

Btw, ask any good Brazilian who was the first to flight, and you will learn far more than you ever wanted to know about Santos-Dumont. Even in France there exists similar silliness over pre-Langley flight attempts and the early hops by Santos-Dumont, Farman and others.

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