THE 1914 TESTS OF THE LANGLEY "AERODROME" 



By C. Q. Abbot 

 Secretary, Smitlisonian Institution 



Note. — This paper has been submitted to Dr. Orville Wright, and under date of 

 October 8, 1942, he states that the paper as now prepared will be acceptable to him 

 if given adequate publication. 



It is everywhere acknowledged that the Wright brothers were the 

 first to make sustained flights in a heavier-than-air machine at Kitty 

 Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. 



Mainly because of acts and statements of former officers of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, arising from tests made with the recondi- 

 tioned Langley plane of 1903 at Hammondsport, New York, in 1914, 

 Dr. Orville Wright feels that the Institution adopted an unfair and 

 injurious attitude. He therefore sent the original Wright Kitty Hawk 

 plane to England in 1928. The nature of the acts and statements 

 referred to are as follows : 



In March 1914, Secretary Walcott contracted with Glenn H. Curtiss 

 to attempt a flight with the Langley machine. This action seems ill 

 considered and open to criticism. For in January 1914, the United 

 States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, had handed down a decision 

 recognizing the Wrights as "pioneers in the practical art of flying with 

 heavier-than-air machines" and pronouncing Glenn H. Curtiss an in- 

 fringer of their patent. Hence, in view of probable further litigation, 

 the Wrights stood to lose in fame and revenue and Curtiss stood to gain 

 pecuniarily, should the experiments at Hammondsport indicate that 

 Langley's plane was capable of sustained flight in 1903, previous to the 

 successful flights made December 17, 1903, by the Wrights at Kitty 

 Hawk, N. C. 



The machine was shipped to Curtiss at Hammondsport, N. Y., in 

 April. Dr. Zahm, the Recorder of the Langley Aerodynamical Lab- 

 oratory and expert witness for Curtiss in the patent litigation, was at 

 Hammondsport as official representative of the Smithsonian Institu- 



1 Reprinted from Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 103, No. 8, Oct. 24, 1942. 

 For an account of early Langley and Wright aeronautical investigations, see Smithsonian 

 Report for 1000 and The Century Magazine of September 1908. 



Ill 



