The First Man-Carrying Aeroplane Capable of Sustained Free Flight: Langley's Success as a Pioneer in Aviation / From the Smithsonian Report for 1914, pages 217-222, Publication 2329, 1915

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The First Man-Carrying Aeroplane Capable of Sustained Free Flight: Langley's Success as a Pioneer in Aviation, by Albert Francis Zahm
A. F. ZAHM, Ph. D.
FROM THE SMITHSONIAN REPORT FOR 1914, PAGES 217-222 (WITH 8 PLATES)
(Publication 2329)
WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1915
THE FIRST MAN-CARRYING AEROPLANE CAPABLE OF SUSTAINED FREE FLIGHT—LANGLEY’S SUCCESS AS A PIONEER IN AVIATION.
By A. F. Zahm, Ph. D.
It is doubtful whether any person of the present generation will be able to appraise correctly the contributions thus far made to the development of the practical flying machine. The aeroplane as it stands to-day is the creation not of any one man, but rather of three generations of men. It was the invention of the nineteenth century; it will be the fruition, if not the perfection, of the twentieth century. During the long decades succeeding the time of Sir George Cayley, builder of aerial gliders and sagacious exponent of the laws of flight, continuous progress has been made in every department of theoretical and practical aviation—progress in accumulating the data of aeromechanics, in discovering the principles of this science, in improving the instruments of aerotechnic research, in devising the organs and perfecting the structural details of the present-day dynamic flying machine. From time to time numerous aerial craftsmen have flourished in the world’s eye, only to pass presently into comparative obscurity, while others too neglected or too poorly appreciated in their own day subsequently have risen to high estimation and permanent honor in the minds of men.
Something of this latter fortune was fated to the late Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. For a decade and a half Dr. Langley had toiled unremittingly to build up the basic science of mechanical flight, and finally to apply it to practical use. He had made numerous model aeroplanes propelled by various agencies—by India rubber, by steam, by gasoline—all operative and inherently stable. Then with great confidence he had constructed for the War Department a man flier which was the duplicate, on a fourfold scale, of his successful gasoline model. But on that luckless day in December, 1903, when he expected to inaugurate the era of substantial aviation, an untoward accident to his launching gear badly crippled his carefully and adequately designed machine. The aeroplane was repaired, but not again tested until the spring of 1914—seven years after Langley’s death.