WRIGHT, Orville (1871-1948). Typed letter signed ("Orville Wright"), to Charles B. Driscoll, McNaught News Syndicate. Dayton, OH, 23 October 1928.

1 page, 4to, on personal stationery. Thanking Driscoll for a clipping by Dr. Charles Abbot entitled "On Being Wrong," addressing the Smithsonian Institution's assertions that S. P. Langley's Aerodrome was the first piloted airplane capable of sustained flight.

According to Wright, Abbott's article is "mostly a gesture and it scarcely made a start towards clearing up the serious matters in controversy. Up to the year 1914 there was no room for question in history or in the public mind as to which was the first aeroplane capable of sustained free flight, or as to whose research furnished the foundation of modern aviation. But in that year, at the suggestion of Glenn H. Curtiss, [Charles Doolittle] Walcott placed the remaining parts of the original Langley machine in Curtiss' hands. The fundamental changes enumerated in my letter to Dr. Abbott (a copy of which I enclose [not present]) had been made in its design before any test was made. Yet not one of these changes ever was reported by the Smithsonian Institution."

Langley had unsuccessfully attempted to fly his Aerodrome prior to the Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk. In 1914, the Smithsonian Institution lent the remains of the craft to Curtiss, who intended to prove that the Wright brothers did not make the first flight; his motives were purely commercial, as he had just lost a patent suit to the Wright Company. Curtiss rebuilt the Aerodrome before his flight near Hammondsport, New York, and he and the Smithsonian insisted it proved that Langley's craft had been capable of flight in 1903. The Smithsonian published reports of these claims through 1918. When Dr. Charles Abbot assumed the role of Secretary at the Smithsonian in 1929, he attempted to negotiate a truce with Orville, and they finally made amends in 1942.