Langley's Folly

The following story is excerpted from the book, "Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes Into Stepping Stones For Success," by John C. Maxwell. Copyright 2000. Thomas Nelson, Inc., publishers.

Just about everyone has heard of the Wright brothers, the bicycle mechanics who pioneered manned motorized flight in the first part of the twentieth century. The circumstances surrounding Orville and Wilbur Wright's first flight on December 17, 1903, make an interesting story. But what you may not know is that prior to that day, the Wrights, unknowns with no university education, were not the leaders in aviation. They were obscure at best, and another man was expected to put the first airplane in the air.

His name was Dr. Samuel P. Langley. He was a respected former professor of mathematics and astronomy who at that time was the director of the Smithsonian Institution. Langley was an accomplished thinker, scientist, and inventor. He had published several important works on aerodynamics, and he possessed a vision for achieving manned flight. In fact, in the mid- to late 1890s, he had done extensive experiments with large unmanned plane models and had achieved a high degree of success.

In 1898, Langley approached the U.S. War Department for funding to design and build an airplane to carry a man aloft. And the department gave him a commission of $50,000 -- a huge sum at that time. Langley went right to work. By 1901, he had successfully tested an unmanned gasoline-powered heavier-than-air craft: It was the first in history. And when he enlisted the aid of Charles Manley, an engineer who build a powerful new lightweight engine based on the designs of Stephen Balzar, his success seemed inevitable.

On October 8, 1903, Langley expected his years of work to come to fruition. As journalists and curious onlookers watched, Charles Manley, wearing a cork-lined jacket, strode across the deck of a modified houseboat and climbed into the pilot's seat of a craft called the Great Aerodrome. The full-sized, motorized device was perched atop a specially build catapult designed to initiate the Aerodrome's flight into the air. But when they attempted to launch, part of the Aerodrome got caught, and the biplane was flung into sixteen feet of water a mere fifty yards away from the boat.

Criticism of Langley was brutal. For example, read this report in the New York Times:

The ridiculous fiasco which attended the attempt at aerial navigation in the Langley flying machine was not unexpected. The flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians [sic] in from one to ten million years . . . No doubt the problem has its attractions for those it interests, but to ordinary men, it would seem as if the effort might be employed more profitably.

At first, Langley didn't let that failure or the accompanying criticism deter him. Eight weeks later in early December, he and Manley were ready to attempt to fly again. They had made numerous modifications to the Aerodrome, and once more Manley climbed into the cockpit from the houseboat's deck, ready to make history. But as before, disaster struck. This time the cable supports to the wings snapped as the plane was launched, the craft caught again on the launch rail, and it plunged into the river upside down. Manley nearly died.

Again the criticism was fierce. His Great Aerodrome was called "Langley's Folly," and Langley himself was accused of wasting public funds. The New York Times commented, "We hope that Prof. Langley will not put his substantial greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time, and the money involved, in further airship experiments." He didn't.

Langley said afterward, "I have brought to a close the portion of the work which seemed to be specially mine. The demonstration of the practicality of mechanical flight. For the next stage, which is the commercial and practical development of the idea, it is probable that the world may look to others." In other words, Langley had given up. Defeated and demoralized, he had abandoned his decades-long pursuit of flight without ever having seen one of his planes piloted to success. Just days later, Orville and Wilbur Wright -- uneducated, unknown, and unfunded -- flew their plane "Flyer I" over the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Will someone else succeed where you were meant to?