The Smithsonian got the Wright Flyer for $1 on a contract that returns it to the Wright heirs if the museum says anyone flew first

In 1914 the Smithsonian lent the wreck of Samuel Langley's failed 1903 Aerodrome to Glenn Curtiss, who rebuilt it and made short hops. The Smithsonian then displayed it with a label calling it "capable" of manned flight. Orville Wright objected. In 1928 he sent the 1903 Wright Flyer to the Science Museum in London. During the Second World War it was stored underground near Corsham. The Smithsonian apologised in 1942. Orville died in Dayton on 30 January 1948. On 23 November 1948 his executors, Harold S. Miller and Harold W. Steeper, sold the Flyer to the United States, acting through the Smithsonian, for $1. Paragraph 2(d) bars the Smithsonian from stating that any aircraft earlier than the 1903 Flyer could carry a man under its own power in controlled flight. If the Smithsonian breaks that term and does not correct it within twelve months of notice, ownership returns to the estate. The Flyer was handed over on 17 December 1948, the 45th anniversary of the first flights. In 2013 the Smithsonian released the contract. That year the editor of Jane's All the World's Aircraft backed Gustave Whitehead's claim to have flown in Connecticut in 1901, and Connecticut passed a bill naming him on Powered Flight Day. Smithsonian curator Tom Crouch called the Whitehead case "not proved". The Flyer is on display in Washington in 2026.