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

This photo was added on 21 December 2021, and has since been viewed 1025 times.