Wronging the Wrights

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

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4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It took pride, deceit, and a giant catapult to set off the feud between the Wright brothers and the Smithsonian. On December 17, 1903, the Wrights made history when they flew across a blustery beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The airplane they flew that day is now a centerpiece of the National Air and Space Museum’s collection. This is the story of how it nearly wasn’t.

Guests:

Peter Jakab, senior curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum

Tom Crouch, senior curator emeritus at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX, I'm Lizzie Peabody.
0:14.5	All right, should we go in?
0:25.4	Sure.
0:26.9	When you're standing in front of a single object that changed the world, it's hard not to
0:32.1	feel small.
0:33.1	Wow, it's a lot bigger than in person than you realize.
0:36.5	Well, that happens with a lot of our collection.
0:38.6	When you bring airplanes inside of a building, they get bigger.
0:42.2	Stretching across this gallery of the Smithsonian's newly renovated National Air and Space
0:46.6	Museum is a machine made of white muslin, spindly wood, and wire.
0:52.5	It's the airplane that carried Wilbur Wright over 800 feet through the air along a blustery
0:57.5	beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1:01.1	The 1903 Wright Flyer is a seminal object not only because it's the first airplane to
1:06.8	make a successful flight, which it did.
1:09.3	But what makes it even more important is that it embodies all the basic principles of
1:13.5	every airplane that flew subsequently.
1:15.7	Every airplane that flies today is really a Wright Flyer in terms of how it's fundamentally
1:21.4	designed and constructed.
1:24.5	Peter Jacob, Senior Curator at the National Air and Space Museum, says even today's fastest
1:29.3	highest flying jet is just a souped up Wright Flyer.
1:33.2	So it means a lot to have the original right here at the museum.
1:37.2	The Wright Flyer is one of the signature objects of the Smithsonian.
	...

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