AERONAUTICS: Wright vs. Manly

In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington stands a very old airplane with a stern but bedraggled air, like that of a dead buzzard stuffed by an inexpert taxidermist. It was built by Inventor S. P. Langley in 1903, is said to have once wobbled in the ether over the Potomac River. On it is a label: "The first man-carrying airplane in the world capable of sustained flight."

Orville Wright, unimpressed by the chauvinistic claims made for this patriarchal buzzard brought forward some weeks ago, certain criticisms of the label (TIME, May 11). Its...

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