N51706 (previously registered as NC51706) Langley Aviation Corporation Model 2-4-90 twin-engine utility aircraft. First flown in 1940 and originally to the USN as XNL-1 (39056) but sold as war surplus due to a lack of materials for production. This aircraft was landing in Oklahoma in 1965 and after touch down damaged the fuselage beyond economical repair; its remains, along with parts of a Stinson Voyager, were rebuilt into an experimental aircraft and renamed Pierce Arrow [N6622A] and registered in 1966. Scanned from an original Howard Levy (New York) from my collection, actual date not known

In 1941, Langley Aircraft of Port Washington, Long Island, named for aviation pioneer Samuel Langley, built this twin-engined four-seater of a mahogany plywood composite material. This was known as a plastic and so this was called a 'plastic plane'. Photo date and fate of this prototype unknown, but by 1942 the attention would have shifted to the 2-4-90 second aircraft with 90-hp engines, bought by the US Navy as the XNL-1 trainer. Ironically, the 'non-strategic' plywood plastic turned out to be scarcer than aluminium. Port Washington had no runways and we found the photo was taken ten miles away at Roosevelt Field. The large hangar was just one in a row of seven. Photo by: Rudy Arnold / Smithsonian Institution