CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Schemes for mechanical flight have been so generally associated in the past 

 with other methods than those of science, that it is commonly supposed the 

 long record of failures has left such practical demonstration of the futility of all 

 such hopes for the future that no one of scientific training will be found to give 

 them countenance. While recognizing that this view is a natural one, I have, 

 however, during some years, devoted nearly all the time at my command for 

 research, if not directly to this purpose, yet to one cognate to it, with a result 

 which I feel ought now to be made public. 



To prevent misapprehension, let me state at the outset that I do not undertake 

 to explain any art of mechanical flight, but to demonstrate experimentally certain 

 propositions in aerodynamics which prove that such flight under proper direction 

 is practicable. This being understood, I may state that these researches have 

 led to the result that mechanical sustentation of heavy bodies in the air, com- 

 bined with very great speeds, is not only possible, but within the reach of mechan- 

 ical means we actually possess, and that while these researches are, as I have said, 

 not meant to demonstrate the art of guiding such heavy bodies in flight, they do 

 show that we now have the power to sustain and propel them. 



Further than this, these new experiments, (and theory also when reviewed 

 in their light,) show that if in such aerial motion, there be given a plane of fixed 

 size and weight, inclined at such an angle, and moved forward at such a speed, 

 that it shall be sustained in horizontal flight, then the more rapid the motion is, 

 the less will be the power required to support and advance it. This statement 

 may, I am aware, present an appearance so paradoxical that the reader may ask 

 himself if he has rightly understood it. To make the meaning quite indubitable, 

 let me repeat it in another form, and say that these experiments show that a 

 definite amount of power so expended at any constant rate, will attain more 

 economical results at high speeds than at low ones— e. */., one horse-power thus 

 employed, wall transport a larger weight at 20 miles an hour than at 10, a still 

 larger at 40 miles than at 20, and so on, with an increasing economy of power 

 with each higher speed, up to some remote limit not yet attained in experiment, 

 but probably represented by higher speeds than have as yet been reached in 

 any other mode of transport— a statement which demands and will receive the 

 amplest confirmation later in these pages. 



