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wings’ ribs out of solid spruce, he assures Kleckler. The spruce will be heavier than the fine, hollowed-out hardwood, but the pieces will be much cheaper and easier to construct. And the same kind of corners can be cut on the plane’s skin, he says. Silk would be lighter, but it is just too expensive; they will have to make do with the canvas the shop already has on hand.
    As Curtiss explains, Professor Albert Zahm from the Smithsonian will be arriving soon to oversee the work and make sure it follows Langley’s original specifications. They can let him and Smithsonian Secretary Charles Walcott weigh in on those kinds of issues. But, he adds, it is unlikely that they or anyone will be concerned by simple substitutions for cheaper and heavier materials. The key is simply to alter the plane’s design and aerodynamic properties as little as possible.
    Inside the new staging area, the workers hang the main piece of the aerodrome’s fuselage from the roof rafters to inspect it more closely. Despite the damage, the aerodrome’s steel frame is still clearly recognizable. The workers can still visually trace the aerodrome’s general system of control: from the pilot’s seat under the plane’s backbone, the lever is still there to move the now-crumpled tail up and down, as is the one designed for steering right and left, although only a broken fragment of the vertical rudder now remains.
    Almost certainly, before he leaves the shop, Curtiss announces to the group his conviction that the aerodrome will fly. But, like everyone present, he knows that the proposition is highly uncertain, more of a wish than a real assessment. Hanging from its new perch, the hollow steel carcass of the aerodrome looks like it might be more at home in the Smithsonian’s collection of fossilized dinosaur skeletons.
    In the first weeks of work the biggest revelation for Kleckler and his team is the engine. Although it has been thoroughly waterlogged and subjected to more than a decade of neglect, there is no question about the sophistication of its design. Workers repeatedly marvel at its resemblance to the new aircraft engines the Curtiss plant builds. By 1914, the Curtiss Aeroplane Company, like most modern aircraft manufacturers, has shown a preference for radial designs, similar to the one pioneered by Manly, in which the engine’s five cylinders are arranged around a central hub like a bulbous five-pointed star. Manly’s means of cooling the engine was also ahead of its time, employing a water cooling system to help dissipate the intense heat generated by the engine.
    Before long, Charles Manly himself, Langley’s close assistant and chief mastermind behind the aerodrome engine, will make thepilgrimage to Hammondsport to lend a hand rebuilding the aerodrome. Manly has long since gone on to design and manufacture trucks with hydraulic controls, but he is understandably elated that the aerodrome will finally get another chance to prove itself airworthy. Like so many others, Manly has spoken often of retesting Langley’s machine. He brought up the issue in 1908 with the Smithsonian when he became one of the founders of the Aero Club of America. And he noted publicly in 1911, when Langley’s papers were posthumously published, that he hoped eventually to raise the funds to do the job himself.
    Even with Manly’s help, though, Walter Johnson—who worked closely with Kleckler on the project—recalls, they could never keep the motor hitting on all five cylinders. The team gave the engine a hotter spark, using the more up-to-date magneto ignition instead of the previous dry-cell batteries, but for all their efforts, they could only get the motor to develop two-thirds to three-quarters of the horsepower it had originally demonstrated. A decade of rust after its immersion in the Potomac had simply taken too big a toll for it to be brought back to its original condition.
    The team members know that the lack of horsepower will greatly jeopardize