NO. 8 SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY — ABBOT 47 



suspended from lack of funds to repair defects in the launching 

 apparatus without the machine ever having been in the air at all. As 

 these experiments have been popularly, and of late repeatedly, rep- 

 resented as having failed on the contrary, because the aerodrome could 

 not sustain itself in the air I have decided to give this brief though 

 late account, which may be accepted as the first authoritative state- 

 ment of them. 



" It will be remembered that in 1896 wholly successful flights of 

 between one-half and one mile by large steam-driven models, unsup- 

 ported except by the mechanical efifects of steam engines, had been 

 made by me. In all these the machine was first launched into the 

 air from ' ways,' somewhat as a ship is launched into the water, 

 the machine resting on a car that ran forward on these ways, which 

 fell down at the extremity of the car's motion, releasing the aero- 

 drome for its free flight. I mention these details because they are 

 essential to an understanding of what follows, and partly because their 

 success led me to undertake the experiments on a much larger scale 

 I now describe. 



" In the early part of 1898 a board, composed of officers of the 

 Army and Navy, was appointed to investigate these past experi- 

 ments with a view to determining just what had been accomplished 

 and what the possibilities were of developing a large-size man-carrying 

 machine for war purposes. The report of this board being fav- 

 orable, the Board of Ordnance and Fortification of the War Depart- 

 ment decided to take up the matter, and I having agreed to give 

 without compensation what time I could spare from official duties, 

 the Board allotted $50,000 for the development, construction, and 

 test of a large aerodrome, half of which sum was to be available 

 immediately and the remainder when required. The whole matter 

 had previously been laid before the Board of Regents of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution who had authorized me to take up the work and 

 to use in connection with it such facilities of the Institution as were 

 available. 



" Before consenting to undertake the construction of this large 

 machine, I had fully appreciated that owing to theoretical considera- 

 tions, into which I do not enter, it would need to be relatively 

 lighter than the smaller one ; and later it was so constructed, each 

 foot of sustaining surface in the large machine carrying nearly the 

 same weight as each foot in the model. The difficulties subsequently 

 experienced with the larger machine were, then, due not to this 

 cause, but to practical obstacles connected with the launching, and the 

 like. 



