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the [Langley] machine had been properly launched it would have flown. The machine is still in existence,” he noted,calling it “most unfortunate that further effort had never been made” to test it.
    Meanwhile, the seed for Curtiss’s involvement in the project was planted in 1913 when the Smithsonian Institution awarded him the Langley Medal, the nation’s highest aviation award. The award had been inaugurated in 1908, several years after Langley’s death, and presented to the Wright brothers for their successful pioneering flights at Kitty Hawk. Since then, no achievement in aviation had been deemed worthy of the honor until the board voted to recognize Curtiss for his recent invention of the hydro-aeroplane, now known as the seaplane.
    On May 6, 1913, at the ceremony for the presentation of the Langley Medal, Alexander Graham Bell made the lengthy tribute to Curtiss before a Washington, D.C., audience, which included a diehard contingent of aviation buffs dedicated to Langley’s memory. Among the old gang of Langley supporters were Charles Walcott, who succeeded Langley as secretary of the Smithsonian; General James Allen, president of the Aero Club of Washington; Samuel B. McCormick, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, where Langley had held a chair in astronomy before coming to Washington; and Langley’s close former assistant Dr. John A. Brashear, who was given the honor of unveiling a tablet dedicated to Langley at the event.
    “I simply wish to express my feelings of gratitude and pleasure,” the always shy Curtiss remarked upon accepting the medal—a medallion fashioned from a pound of solid gold. Even at this stage in his career, Curtiss was uncomfortable making speeches. But he had quickly picked up on the tenor of the evening, adding, “As I look at the Langley models here, it becomes more evident to me than ever before—the merit of these machines and the great workwhich Mr. Langley did.” Ending his remarks to a flood of applause Curtiss noted, “I cannot say too much in favor and in memory of Professor Langley.”
    There is no evidence that the idea to rebuild Langley’s plane was formally hatched at this event, but there is little doubt that the notion crossed many minds before the evening was over. Like the rest of the audience, Curtiss was doubtless moved by Brashear’s almost maudlin lament about the last half hour he spent in Langley’s office. Brashear recalled that Langley had shown him a small piece that had broken off from the aerodrome’s launching mechanism that he believed had foiled the fateful attempt. “With a sad heart he turned to me and with trembling voice said, ‘Mr. Brashear, this has wrecked my hopes forever. My life work is a failure.’ I did all in my power to cheer and comfort him, but it was too late.
    “Soon after that,” Brashear continued, “he passed away, and I have often—aye many, many times—thought of that last sad half-hour spent with him. He was a noble man, and his works, though suddenly cut off by death, will live as long as this old world shall have dwellers upon it.”
    If remarks like Brashear’s brought Langley’s sad tale back to the attention of many in the field of aviation, the opportunity to restore the aerodrome was greatly enhanced by the Smithsonian’s recent establishment of a new department called the Langley Aerodynamical Research Laboratory. Headed by Dr. Albert F. Zahm, a noted aeronautical scholar of the period, the new lab was designed to spearhead American theoretical flight research.
    Whereas Langley’s many supporters viewed a restoration of the aerodrome as a means to reclaim his reputation for posterity, Zahm hoped the aircraft might also help to establish the standing of his fledgling laboratory. In particular, the past several years had seen analarming number of fatalities. At least eight aviators had been killed in highly publicized crashes in 1913 alone. Zahm had noted that most of the crashes occurred when