Museum
Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum
650 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, DC 20004, USA
Wood-and-fabric biplane that first flew at Kitty Hawk, at the center of a decades-long ownership feud.
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.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.