The Wright Brothers

by David McCullough

On July 14 came the news that in a matter of days, Samuel Langley was to test his “latest contrivance” on the mosquito-infested banks of the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia, thirty miles south of Washington. This time it was to be a motor-powered “full-fledged airship” called “The Great Aerodrome,” capable of carrying one operator. It had cost $50,000 in public money—in Smithsonian resources and the largest appropriation yet granted by the U.S. War Department. Professor Langley and several of his friends, including Alexander Graham Bell, contributed another $20,000. Reporters rushed to the scene, and in a flotilla of watercraft comprised of everything from catboats to steam launches converged on the giant houseboat, “the ark” as they called it, on top of which perched Langley’s machine, “the buzzard,” poised to go. Langley himself arrived from Washington and went aboard the houseboat only to disappear inside, refusing to show himself, despite earnest pleas for interviews. When a storm struck, he and his party of mechanics and scientists went back to Washington. Then, with the storm over, the young man who was expected to fly the machine, Charles Manly, hurried off to Washington, but on returning the next day refused to say anything. At last, on the morning of August 8, the air perfectly still, an unmanned, quarter-scale model of the Langley machine was launched and traveled some 1,000 feet before crashing into the river. “AIRSHIP AS A SUBMARINE” ran the mocking headl...