May

Today in Smithsonian History: May 6, 1896

Photo of Langley Aerodrome No. 5 by Alexander Graham Bell, May 6, 1896

An instantaneous photograph taken by Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) of Langley Aerodrome No. 5 in flight May 6, 1896. This aerodrome or flying machine was developed by Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906), astrophysicist and third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1887 to 1906.

May 6, 1896 Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley launches his “aerodrome,” an early attempt at a flying machine, along the Potomac River. Catapulted from a houseboat, the aerodrome quickly crashes into the river. Langley was never successful in his attempts to invent the first airplane.

The photo is of a test flight with a steam-powered model. The model worked just fine. Unfortunately, the Aerodrome proper never did. The full-scale, piloted version made two attempts to fly in 1903, but crashed straight into the Potomac. As in: went over the edge of the platform and nose-down straight into the water. (Luckily, the pilot was rescued.) The second, final, splash-down happened only a little over a week before the Wright Brothers succeeded at Kitty Hawk.

In 1914, the Aerodrome was taken off exhibit and extensively modified by Glenn Curtiss, another early aviation pioneer. The plane then flew rather like a skipping stone across a lake, hopping air-borne for a few seconds at a time, in an attempt to prove the Aerodrome and not the Wright Flyer was the first airplane capable of flight. (Curtiss was involved due to a patent dispute with the Wrights; and the Smithsonian … well, the Smithsonian had its pride.)

Stripped of its modifications, the Aerodrome went back on display as the first airplane — which so angered Orville Wright, the surviving Wright Brother, that he refused to donate the Wright Flyer to the Smithsonian. It eventually went to London, England, and was displayed at the Science Museum for two decades, until the Smithsonian ‘fessed up officially to the extent of the modifications. And that is when Orville finally sold the Wright Flyer to the Smithsonian, where it resides to this day.