Langley Aerodrome

Picture - First failure of the manned Aerodrome, October 7, 1903

The Langley Aerodrome was a pioneering but unsuccessful manned, powered flying machine designed at the close of the 19th century by Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley. The U.S. Army paid $50,000 for the project in 1898 after Langley's successful flights with small-scale unmanned models two years earlier.

Langley coined the word "Aerodrome" and applied it to a series of engine-driven unmanned and manned tandem wing aircraft that were built under his supervision by Smithsonian staff in the 1890s and early 1900s. The term is derived from Greek words meaning "air runner".

After a series of unsuccessful tests beginning in 1894, Langley's unmanned steam-driven model "number 5" made a successful 90-second flight of over half a mile about 25 miles an hour at a height of 80 to 100 feet on May 6, 1896. In November model "number six" flew more than 5,000 feet. Both aircraft were launched by catapult from a houseboat in the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia, south of Washington, D.C.

Picture - The man-carrying Aerodrome as displayed at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

The full-scale Aerodrome, financed by the United States War Department and piloted by Langley's chief assistant Charles M. Manly, was launched the same way on October 7 and December 8, 1903. On both attempts the Aerodrome failed to fly and crashed into the Potomac River seconds after launch. Manley was pulled unhurt from the water each time. Nine days after the December 8 failure, the Wright Brothers flew into history with their four successful flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Aerodrome's internal combustion engine generated 53 horsepower, about four times that of the Wright brothers' gasoline engine of 1903. However, Langley had not properly appreciated the problems of calculating stress on an airframe or controlling an aircraft, and the Aerodrome broke up on launch. Langley made no further tests, and his experiments became the object of scorn in newspapers and the U.S. Congress.

Picture - Langley Aerodrome No. 6 at Wesley W. Posvar Hall, University of Pittsburgh

With Smithsonian approval, Glenn Curtiss extensively modified the Aerodrome and made a few short flights in it in 1914, as part of an unsuccessful attempt to bypass the Wright Brothers' patent on aircraft and to vindicate Langley. Based on these flights, the Smithsonian displayed the Aerodrome in its museum as the first heavier-than-air manned, powered aircraft "capable of flight." This action triggered a feud with Orville Wright (Wilbur Wright died in 1912), who accused the Smithsonian of misrepresenting flying machine history. Orville backed up his protest by refusing to donate the original 1903 Kitty Hawk Flyer to the Smithsonian, instead exiling it to Science Museum of London in 1928. The dispute finally ended in 1942 when the Smithsonian published details of the Curtiss modifications to the Aerodrome and recanted its claims for the aircraft.

Two of Langley's scale model Aerodromes survive to this day. Aerodrome No. 5, the first Langley heavier-than-air craft to fly, is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Aerodrome No. 6 is located at Wesley W. Posvar Hall, University of Pittsburgh, and was restored in part by the Pitt engineering students. Fabric on the wings and tail is the only new material, although the tail and several wing ribs were rebuilt using vintage wood from the same time period provided by the Smithsonian. Langley had been an astronomy professor at the university before he ascended to the Smithsonian's top job.

The man-carrying Aerodrome survived after being rebuilt and tested by Curtiss and was converted back to Langley's original 1903 configuration by Smithsonian staff. It occupied a place of honor in the Smithsonian museum until 1948 when the Institution welcomed home the original 1903 Wright Flyer from Britain. Afterward, the Aerodrome resided out of view of the public for many years at the Paul Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland. Today it is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

History of aviation
Samuel Pierpont Langley
Manly-Balzer engine
Wright Flyer - Debate with the Smithsonian

Tobin, James. To Conquer The Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. Free Press division of Simon & Shuster, Inc. 2003

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Source: WikiPedia