flights of a mile each near Washington. Congress appropriated $50,000
for the construction of a complete machine, but after two unsuccessful
attempts to fly, with an operator, the project was abandoned.
Wilbur Wright and his brother Orville, bicycle manufacturers of Dayton,
Ohio, did not share in the general ridicule which followed this failure,
and after three years of experimentation demonstrated that the
principles upon which Professor Langley had constructed his machine
were, in the main, sound. The first successful flight of a few seconds
by one of their machines weighing 750 pounds was made in 1903. Two years
afterward a flight of 24 miles was made at the rate of 38 miles an hour.