WHEN, with engine throbbing, propellers whirling, and every wire vibrating, the first successful aeroplane shot forward into the teeth of a biting December gale and sailed steadily over the bleak North Carolina sand dunes for twelve seconds, the third great epoch in the age of invention finally was ushered in. First, man conquered the land with locomotive, electricity, steam plow, telegraph, telephone, wireless and a thousand other inventions. Almost at the same time he conquered the ocean with steamship, cable, and wireless. Now, through the invention of the aeroplane, he is making a universal highway of the air.
Such was the way the real beginning of aviation was summarized one day to a bright young man who spent all his spare time out of school at the laboratory of his good friend the scientist. Always in good humour, and with a world of knowledge of things that delight a boy's heart, the man was never too deep in experiments to answer any questions about the great inventions that have made this world of ours such a very interesting place
The laboratory was filled with models of machines, queer devices for scientific experiment, a litter of delicate tools, shelves of test tubes, bottles filled with strange smelling fluids, and rows upon rows of books that looked dull enough, but which the scientist explained to the boy contained some of the most fascinating stories ever told by man.
Coming back to aeroplanes the boy said, "But my father says that aviation is so new it is still very imperfect."
"That is true," answered the scientist, taking a crucible out of the flame of his Bunsen burner and hanging it in the rack to cool, "but it has seen a marvellous development in the last few years.
"It was less than ten years ago—the end of 1903, to be exact—that Orville and Wilbur Wright first sailed their power-driven aeroplane," he continued, "but so rapid has been the progress of aviation that nowadays we are not surprised when a flight from the Atlantic to the Pacific is accomplished. It seems a tragic thing that Wilbur Wright should have been called by death, as he was in May, 1912, by typhoid fever, for he was at the very zenith of his success and probably would have carried on his work to a far, far greater development."
THE FIRST WRIGHT AEROPLANE
This was the machine that made the first successful flight in the history of the world, of a power-driven, man-carrying aeroplane