Evening star., 1921-10-23
LETTER UNFOLDING
/ CURT|SS IS ISSUED
DR.. WaIcott's Statements
Give Facts of Langley Air
Machine Test.

DR.. Charles d. Walcott, secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution, yesterday
made public the letter which he sent
to Col. W. Lockwood Marsh, secre-
tary of the Royal Aeronautical So
ciety of London. in regard to charges
by Griffith Brewer before the society.
in which he attacked Glenn II. Cur
tiss' experiments with the Langley
flying machine in the summer of 1914.
Il was present at Hammondsport on
May 81, 1914, and saw the machine
with the original engine giving. only
two-thirds of the original thrust and
with wings approximately of the orig
inal design, but far rougher executed
get under way from rest and fly
gracefully, carrying besides man.
over 800 pounds of floats in excess of
what the machine was designed to
carry" declared DIR. Walcott in his
letter.
II am still confident that what it
did under these relatively adverse
circumstances is far inferior to what
it was capable of doing in it's original
condition"
The Smithsonian Institution. ac-
cording to statements of officials
ture film of the Langley airship in flight
during the 1914 tests, and these pic
lures, together with the word of DR..
Walcott, they declare. constitute ir-
PROOF ol Tic SuSScSS VI lIC
flight. and of the claim that the
Langley machine was the first ma
chine built capable of safely trans
porting a human being through the
air and being properly controlled in
such flight.
Charles NJ. Manly of New York.
who was Prof. Langley'S assistant.
and the designer of the motor of the
airship, and who operated the ma
chine in its original tests in 1903, in
"a N ha
Smithsonian Institution, in reply to
Mr.. Brewer states:
II would have been amazed at the
comments of this paper by Mr.. Grif
IL. Immediately recalled the great
similarity between a large portion of
the statements made in it and the
very bald statements made in the
affadavits of Mr.. Orville Wright in
the suit of the Wright Company
versus the Curtis Aeroplane Company
in 1915, in which Mr.. Wright claimed
for himself and brother the credit
for everything that had been achiev
ed in aviation from the beginning
of time. and had dismissed everything
that went before as mere speculation
and theory excepting as he described
it. the desultory experiments of men
like Llienthal and Chanute, with
powerless gliding machines, and like
Maxim. Alder and Prof. Langley. with
miniature models and experimental
full sized machines, which never flew,
nor were capable of flight
"ln fact, it appears upon a review
of this affidavit of Mr.. Orville Wright,
that the present paper by Mr.. Brewer
is merely condensed statement of
the assertions. arguments, specula-
tions and errors of this affidavit by
Mr.. Wright.
An answer to the Brewer lecture by
DR.. A. F. Zahm. who was concerned
in the experiments, states that "the
aipL 0f fhn cd
ley aeroplane in May and June, 1914,
proved the propulsive system of the
1903 machine powerful enough for
prolonged flights"
start that the Smithsonian 1nstitu-
ton fully recognizes the we'll de-
served success of the Wright brothers
in being the first to make actual
propelled machines" states DR.. Wal
cott in his letter. This recognition
the institution was among the earliest
to make in formal manner by an
award of merit This being so. 1 am
not prepared to concede that the
wrights were the first to construct
such a machine capable of flight"
Dr. Walcott then takes up Brewers
denies, giving proofs. that the Ham /.
mondport experiments were made for
Curtiss' ends at Curtiss' expense; that ,
the changes made in guying the
wings were indispensable to prevent
their collapse; that the changes made |
in the engine were indispensable to
make it run: that the changes in the
propellers were indispensable to give
them sufficient thrust: that the
changes made in the form of the
wings were Indispensable to flight;
that the changes made in the rudder
were Indispensable to flight, and that
the Hammondsport tests of the
original machine did not result in
flight, but merely in hops.