Such an accident, occurring now, would be regarded as a passing mishap; but at that time it seemed to most people to demonstrate the futility of all aviation experiments. The press overwhelmed the inventor with ridicule; the great scientist himself referred to the accident as having frustrated the best work of his life. Although he felt confident of the final success of his experiments, further financial support was not granted and he was forced to suspend operations. Scarcely could he anticipate that a decade later, in a far away little hamlet, workmen who had never known him would with keenest enthusiasm rehabilitate that same tandem monoplane, and launch it again and again in successful flight, and that afterwards in the National Capital it should be assigned the place of honor among the pioneer vehicles of the air. When in March, 1914, Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss was invited to send a flying boat to Washington to participate in celebrating "Langley Day,"[1] he replied, "I would like to put the Langley aeroplane itself in the air." Learning of this remark Secretary Walcott, of the Smithsonian Institution, soon authorized Mr. Curtiss to recanvas the original Langley aeroplane and launch it either under its own propulsive power or with a more recent engine and propeller. Early in April, therefore, the machine was taken from the Langley Laboratory and shipped in a box car to the Curtiss Aviation Field, beside Lake Keuka, Hammondsport, N. Y. In the following month it was ready for its first trial since the unfortunate accident of 1903. [1] May 6, the anniversary of the famous flight of Langley's steam model aeroplane in 1896, is known in Washington as "Langley Day," and has been celebrated with aerial maneuvers over land and water. The main objects of these renewed trials were, first, to show whether the original Langley machine was capable of sustained free flight with a pilot, and, secondly, to determine more fully the advantages of the tandem type of aeroplane. The work seemed a proper part of the general program of experiments planned for the recently reopened Langley Aerodynamical Laboratory. It was, indeed, for just such experimentation that the aeroplane had been given to the Smithsonian Institution by the War Department, at whose expense it had been developed and brought to completion prior to 1903. After some successful flights at Hammondsport the famous craft could, at the discretion of the Smithsonian Institution, either be preserved for exhibition or used for further scientific study. To achieve the two main objects above mentioned, the aeroplane would first be flown as nearly as possible in its original condition, then with such modifications as might seem desirable for technical or other reasons.