Fred C. Kelly had his book, and the Smithsonian would get the Flyer. On May 13, 1943, The Wright Brothers: A Biography Authorized by Orville Wright was published. History followed. On October 10, 1947, Orville Wright suffered a heart attack while running up the front steps of a building to keep an appointment. On January 27, 1948, he had a second heart attack, and he died three days later. He was seventy-seven years old, and he never again saw the 1903 plane that had flown in Kitty Hawk. John Daniels, the man who had snapped the famous picture of the first flight in 1903, died the day after. Eighteen years earlier, in 1930, Glenn Curtiss had died while going to court in upstate New York. He was on his way to court, responding to a lawsuit brought by his business partner.

In 1948, the Wright Flyer of 1903 was loaded on to the ocean liner Mauretania in London and shipped to Halifax, Nova Scotia. A representative of the Smithsonian arranged for the rest of the Flyer's journey to Washington on a flatbed truck. On December 17, 1948, a ceremony was held in the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building. Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis was moved from its suspended position to the back of the hall to make room for the new centerpiece. The 1903 Wright Flyer now hung front and center with a plaque that read:

THE ORIGINAL WRIGHT BROTHERS AEROPLANE

THE WORLD'S FIRST POWER-DRIVEN HEAVIER-THAN-AIR MACHINE

IN WHICH MAN MADE FREE, CONTROLLED, AND SUSTAINED FLIGHT

INVENTED AND BUILT BY WILBUR AND ORVILLE WRIGHT

FLOWN BY THEM AT KITTY HAWK, NORTH CAROLINA, DECEMBER 17, 1903

BY ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH THE WRIGHT BROTHERS DISCOVERED THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN FLIGHT

AS INVENTORS, BUILDERS, AND FLYERS THEY FURTHER DEVELOPED THE AEROPLANE, TAUGHT MAN TO FLY, AND OPENED THE ERA OF AVIATION1

When Charles Lindbergh was told that his plane was moved back, he said he didn't mind. The first true plane was back in America, but heirs of the Wright brothers put a condition on the returning Flyer. If the Smithsonian ever recognized any other aircraft “as having been capable of powered, sustained and controlled flight with a man on board before December 17, 1903, the executors of the estate would have the right to take possession of the machine once again.”2 In other words, the Flyer could be shipped away again. Orville's final threat would ensure that no one questioned the Wright brothers again. No one in the Smithsonian, at least.

Katherine Wright finally married in her fifties and left the mansion Orville had built in his later years. He never forgave his sister for marrying and never spoke to her again. On her deathbed in 1929, he relented and visited her. Milton Wright had died in 1917. Orville's final letter directing the return of the Flyer to the Smithsonian was in Mabel Beck's possession, and she finally gave it up two weeks after the funeral. The will provided a few surprises. As cited by Roz Young in the Dayton Daily News:

Among his bequests was $300,000 to Oberlin College, Katherine's alma mater, and with the requirement [that] the trustees should pay out of the interest annual stipends to some of his relatives, to one friend Ed Sines, to his mechanic Charles Taylor, to his housekeeper Carrie Grumbach, to his laundress Charlotte Jones and to “my trusted secretary” Mabel Beck. He left her $4,000 annually. The others who worked for Orville received less.³

The Dayton Daily News reported that “Mabel outlived Orville by 11 years, dying in August 1959, at the age of 68. She had suffered from hypertension and cerebral arteriosclerosis for three years and died three days after a cerebral hemorrhage. She left her estate to her sister Edna.”⁴ After Orville's death, Mabel Beck and her sister continued to live in her house in Dayton until 1959, and then the house was turned over to the bank.

A woman from the bank and Mabel's friend Mary Francis found a box of letters in a cupboard over the fireplace. The box was tied with a ribbon. Inside were letters from Orville Wright to Mabel Beck. They were the closest thing to love letters that Orville Wright would ever write. The two women read them and then decided to burn them in the fireplace to protect the reputations of Ms. Beck and Mr. Wright.5 The box returned to its hiding place. History was altered one last time.

In 1985, Professors Fred E. C. Culick and Henry R. Jex analyzed the aerodynamics of the 1903 Flyer and declared it to be unflyable by anyone but the Wrights, who had trained themselves on the 1902 glider. On December 17, 2003, Kevin Kochersberger flew an exact replica of the 1903 Flyer, but he failed to keep it in the air as Wilbur had done one hundred years before.⁶

Some men are just born to fly.