Museum
Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum
Wood-and-fabric biplane that first flew at Kitty Hawk, at the center of a decades-long ownership feud.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum asks why the first airplane ever to fly spent two decades locked away in a London museum instead of hanging in the country that built it. It follows Orville and Wilbur Wright's 1910 offer of the Flyer to the Smithsonian, Secretary Charles Walcott's refusal, and his preference for honoring his predecessor Samuel Langley instead. Walcott, the guide notes, then let a patent rival named Glenn Curtiss rebuild Langley's own wrecked machine.
This audio guide was created using AI.