Story of the Aeroplane

Table of Contents

Story of the Aeroplane

[The Ocean of Air]

Around the dry land of the earth are the oceans of water. We may never have seen them, but we have knowledge of them and their navigation, and their names suggest very definite and concrete objects of thought. We sometimes do not realize, however, that we live and move and have our being at the bottom of a vaster and deeper ocean that covers to a depth of many miles the whole earth, and to the surface of which man nor beast nor bird has ever ascended; an ocean with currents and whirlpools and waves of more than mountain height; an ocean in which we are as much at home as are the finny tribes and the monsters of the deep in their watery caverns. This is the ocean of the air. We are about to consider man’s efforts to rise from the bottom of this ocean and wing his flight a little way through the atmosphere above him. His excursions upward are limited, for he could not live near the surface heights of this ocean, vast and deep and boundless. The art and science of his flight through the air, because of its relation to the flight of birds, we call aviation. (Avis: Latin, a bird.)

[Early Attempts at Aviation]

“The birds can fly and why can’t I?”

This query of Darius Green’s, in various forms, has suggested itself to man since the dawn of history. Born with an inspiration to look upward and aspire, the navigation of the air has appealed with peculiar force to his imagination and through the centuries has at different times led bold and adventurous spirits to attempt what the world long regarded as impossible. The heavens seemed reserved for winged insects, birds and angels. Audacious man might not venture out upon the impalpable air. Can man fly? After more than four thousand years it was left for man to answer yes, to rise from the earth on wing and thrill the world “with the audacity of his design and the miracle of its execution.” Bold enterprise! Fitting achievement to usher in a new century! A seeming miracle at first, but destined soon to excite no more curiosity than the flight of bees and birds. The solution of the problem of human flight was no miracle nor was it the swift work of genius accomplished at a magic master stroke. It was the result of intelligence and industry patiently applied for years till the barriers of difficulty gave way and man ventured out with assurance on the highways of the air.

Just when he first attempted to fly is not known. Ancient Greek mythology abounds in stories of flying gods and mortals. Kites which bear some relation to the aeroplane were toys among the Chinese thousands of years ago. A Greek by the name of Achytes is reported to have made a wooden dove which flew under the propelling power of heated air. Baldad, a tribal king in what is now England, so tradition has it, attempted to fly over a city but fell and broke a leg. A similar accident is said to have happened to a Benedictine monk in the eleventh century and to others attempting like exploits in after years. A fall and a broken leg seem to have been the usual results of these early attempts at aerial flight.