Why Was The First Attempt To Build An Aircraft Controversial?

The modular, kit-build aircraft hangar building has allowed private aviators to scale their storage and maintenance of their aircraft, with as much space for storage, workshops and repair equipment as they need to be stored in a practical, hard-wearing space.

The first-ever aircraft hangar that stored a working heavier-than-air flying machine was based at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and housed the Wright Flyer and all of the equipment Orville and Wilbur Wright needed to ensure it could stay above the ground.

Their first successful flight came six days after the failed final attempt to construct a working aeroplane near Quantico, Virginia that would lead to one of the most acrimonious rivalries in the early years of aviation and an attempt to rewrite history.

The Failure Of The Langley Aerodrome

Whilst aerodrome is typically used today to describe an airfield, hangar and the land around it, the Langley Aerodrome was technically the first heavier-than-air flying machine to achieve a state of sustained flight on 6th May 1896.

Although this success was tempered by being a small-scale unmanned aircraft, it was six years before the Wright Flyer and in 1898 generated interest from future president Theodore Roosevelt, at the time the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, with the goal of producing a full-sized manned version.

Inventor Professor Samuel Langley was encouraged by the written and financial support, and following successful launches of progressively larger scale models, a full-sized Aerodrome was completed in 1903. 

However, both attempts to fly it, piloted by chief engineer Charles Manly and launched using a catapult mounted to a floating houseboat hangar sailing on the Potomac River, ended in calamitous failure, as both times the plane broke apart and fell into the river.

Six days after what became the plane’s final attempt, amidst intense criticism from the press, the Wright brothers proved what Professor Langley could not do, furthering his personal and professional humiliation.

War For The Skies

The rewards for the Wright brothers were not merely reputational but financial as they successfully patented the use of basic aerodynamic control components such as ailerons, essentially giving them ownership over the concept of powered flight in the United States until it ran out.

This led to a brutal patent war which ironically forced American pilots to fly European aircraft instead during the First World War, but one attempt to get around the patent was to change history, something the Smithsonian infamously attempted in 1914.

One of the Wright brothers’ most famous victims, Glenn Curtiss, infamously helped Charles Walcott, head of the Smithsonian following the death of Professor Langley in 1906, “restore” the Aerodrome and successfully test the aircraft.

With Mr Curtiss financially motivated and Mr Walcott motivated by a desire to rehabilitate Professor Langley’s reputation, the demonstrations took place and the Smithsonian claimed the Langley Aerodrome was “capable of flight”.

This did not work in either case, as Orville Wright found out and accused the Smithsonian of rewriting history, leading to a bitter feud between the museum and him which lasted until the latter recanted their statements and published a list of the modifications made and bought the Wright Flyer for a nominal sum.