My late brother and I were dedicated heavier than air flight experimenters. Roll control? We invented that. Well, we'll get to that.

After three years of successively improved gliders, we were able to add an aluminum internal combustion engine and two propellers (all purpose built in a bicycle shop, by the way - we also managed to build a wind tunnel), for the first confirmed and powered, manned, and controlled heavier than air flight. There are experimenters who could plausibly (barely) have beaten us, but no evidence they did, and international demonstrations satisfied skeptics and the controversy should have ended, there.

We patented the three axis control system, which was the key to controlled flight, leading to other engineers fighting us in court. One found a similar system on an unmanned craft designed by Samuel Langley, of the Smithsonian. The engineer and the Smithsonian also stirred up controversy about whether a manned variant was flyable. This could potentially invalidate out patent and hurt our legacy, since the Smithsonian both researched flight and wrote its history - conflict of interest, much?

(We even offered to donate our first airplane to their museum. They requested a later one, wanting to show connections between Langley's work and ours - can you believe the gall?)

Anyway, I took our first airplane to England, in protest. As time passed, there was pressure to return it to the United States, as it was seen as a national treasure, clouded status or no. I had some conditions:

• The Estate of Orville Wright agrees to sell the 1903 Wright Flyer to the United States (represented by the Smithsonian) for $1.

• In return, the United States guarantees the aircraft to be displayed prominently in the nation’s capital and to be identified as the first heavier-than-air flying machine in which men made a controlled and powered flight.

• The airplane is to be valued at $1 for tax purposes.

• Should the United States not prominently display the airplane, display it without the agreed-upon identification, or identify another airplane as being capable of controlled and powered manned flight before December 17, 1903, the ownership of the airplane reverts to the Estate.

• Additionally, if the airplane is valued at more than $1 and the Estate is assessed for taxes, the United States will pay those taxes. If it does not, the title reverts.

• If the United States forfeits its title to the airplane for any of these reasons, it has five years to comply with the agreement to regain title.

In effect, the Smithsonian forfeits perhaps its most famous exhibit and popularly treasured, if the exhibit isn't lauded in perpetuity as I, co-inventor of said exhibit see fit, maintaining my brother's and my place in the history books as two of the all-time most important inventors.

AITA?