Who is this person?

Nearly 120 years ago, to the day, this man should really have become the most famous person in the world and his name synonymous with bringing the world powered flight. The man who changed the world!

I actually asked this very question to a combined group of aviation professionals and experts from Airbus Helicopters and the national Police Air Service at a user group conference in Oxford back in 2018. Not one person knew who he was and no, it wasn't my father!

His name is in fact Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906). Langley was an acclaimed American academic being an astronomer and professor of mathematics who could boast of prestigious personal connections such as Andrew Carnegie and Alexander Graham Bell. He was also funded to the sum of $50,000 ($3m dollars in today’s money!) by the United States War Department. He even employed a test pilot by the name of Charles Manly and also mechanical engineers. The team had access to the best materials and the media of the day were following Langley and his team everywhere, waiting for the moment when that inevitable inaugural flight was achieved. They had, at least on paper, all of the ingredients for success and seemingly could not fail to claim the fame and glory, along with the inevitable financial rewards, that would follow their seismic success. The printing presses were all primed and set to run with the news of the first flight once Langley and his team had achieved it. Success was deemed inevitable!

Sadly for Langley, we all know how this particular story ends, and how the story of powered flight begins. We know who's names are now etched into the annals of aviation history and of human endeavour and tenacity. Powered flight changed the world and continues to do so.

On the other hand, Orville and Wilbur Wright had no funding, no high-level connections and not one of the team possessed a college education between them. How on earth could they then achieve the ultimate goal of flight when they had none of the ingredients for success but seemingly all the ingredients for failure?

What they did have was the ability to understand the root cause of the problem that they were ultimately facing, which for them was the issue of balance and flight. They were working on the "frontline". Langley was focusing his team’s energies on the power required to fly.

It is written that every time the Wright brothers and their team went flying, they took with them five sets of parts with them as they knew it would require that amount of mechanical support and experience of failure before they convened for the day.

However, on December 17th 1903 in a field in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina they achieved their goal. Orville flew the fragile aircraft for a grand total of 59 seconds and 852 feet in distance at a dizzy altitude of 120 feet at the speed of ‘a jog’ they created history. A moment of history from which we all benefit and to some extent, we all take for granted.

There is a great quote from James Tobin’s book on the Wright brothers,

‘Wilbur and Orville were true scientists, deeply and genuinely concerned about the physical problem they were trying to solve – the problem of balance and flight’.

Once this historic landmark had been achieved Langley quit aviation after hearing the news of the Wright brother’s success. It was said that he found the defeat personally humiliating, especially as his effort crash landed in the Potomac River. The once besotted newspapers made fun of his failed efforts and his ego was destroyed as a result. Interestingly, he and his team could have easily learnt from the Wright brothers and conducted further development, improving the idea further. They chose not to.

Where am I leading to with this post? Well, there is a vitally important question here to ask ourselves,

"What would have resulted if the Wright brothers had actually collaborated with Langley once they had achieved powered flight?"

Would their combined efforts and joint insights have further enhanced and exponentially accelerated aircraft and flight development?

It is a hypothetical question as we will obviously never ever know. Sadly, the damaged ego and pride of Langley, due to the apparent personal "defeat", prevented that collaboration and ultimately robbed society as a whole, of its potential benefits.

Yes, they were different times but that "us and them" mentality and stigma is still apparent and continuing to damage and hinder human innovation and creativity in so many aspects of society.

So many of our current societal issues such as mental wellbeing, suicide, bullying, poor leadership...the list goes on, will sadly not be solved by well funded and well meaning academics. They will not be solved by experts. Neither will they be solved by those working on the frontline who continue to endure and become ever more frustrated by the limited vision of those in leadership.

They will however be solved if we adopt a collaborative approach where egos are "left at the door" and people are prepared to listen to others, no matter from what background they come from, no matter what education they possess or do not possess.

As the Dalai Lama once said

Those solutions will come from how we ultimately define talent, innate talent and how we then develop the environment around them in which to thrive and flourish. Talent is the rawest and most universal of languages available and cuts through every known bias and visual subjective measurement of every individual human being.

Time to think differently...